And If This Were a Men’s Group, Speaking About Any Woman, Would it be Seen Differently? A Fantasy Piece, by Richard Walker

I am posting this in support of Jennifer McLune from Celie’s Revenge. You can read Karla Mantilla’s actual response on redmegaera’s blog and make up your own mind. I *do* think Off Our Backs has a hell of a lot to answer. If I was treated the way that Karla Mantilla admits to treating Jennifer I would speak out about it too. Her characterisation of Jennifer as nasty and vindictive has no basis in reality.

A statement has just been released by the man who is the core member of a group called “Men Support Women” on the controversy surrounding him and his collective’s behavior regarding a woman who recently left their group due to their sexism. See if you find any sexism in what follows:

I am writing this as only Karl, not on behalf of “Men Support Women,” of which I am a collective member. “Men Support Women” is a man-organized, man-controlled, man-majority collective and magazine. We have a website and also a presence on Facebook. Over our thirty years, we have occasionally had women work for us and with us. But we have always staying in control of production and content. While we actively support women, we have never sought to have this be a magazine or group RUN by women. And we haven’t set up any systems of accountability to women, because we already know how not to be sexist. Our thirty years of work demonstrates that very clearly. This current issue concerns a woman who came on board–who we invited into our space–about a year ago. She was supposed to be working with us, but slowly I began to notice some problems with her that made me question to what degree I should deal with her at all. I came to the conclusion that not telling her how I felt, and just not responding to her questions would be the most pro-woman thing to do. While I am the de facto leader here, I don’t see myself that way. I just see myself as one of the group. Jane did develop more of a connection with me than with any other men. She’s had some bad experiences with men in the past and is reluctant to form bonds with men, which is her issue, not mine. I still feel I responded appropriately and within the ethical bounds of the collective.

Some background: Recently Jane, a feminist blogger and activist, has made some allegations about her experience with “Men Support Women.” This transpired after she was fired from her job and sent out an email letting those around her know what had happened. She seems to have expected us to come running to her, to support her. We have our own stuff to deal with. One of the men we had selected to put out our next issue has been having some serious personal family issues, and we have made time to check in with him. There have been other men in need or our attention as well, and I didn’t see any reason why I, personally, should be in any way obligated to reach out in a gesture of compassion and support to a woman who I think is nuts. After being fired, she found out I had had a birthday party, and hadn’t invited her. One of the other men in the collective let her know this. She began to wonder if I was distancing myself from her. I saw no reason to let her know I was doing exactly that. Why shoul

She did not contact me directly about her issues, nor did she indicate during her time with us that there were any serious problems with our organization, or, specifically between her and me. A male colleague of mine has, I think accurately, indentified her as a woman who has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. She has done some really bizarre stuff, which will be detailed below. Due to her taking over our Facebook page, for example, we had to create a new one with men as administrations, not a woman. This is our organization, after all. It is MEN Support Women, not WOMEN Support Women!

I personally think the woman is seriously mentally ill, unpredictable, and dangerous, and that’s why I stopped initiating contact with her. I’m sure you will understand my actions when you read what follows, and come to the conclusion that both I, Karl, and the collective, operate out of the values of honesty, integrity, and full accountability to women. I don’t see how you could come to any other conclusion. But please just read on, men and women.

The following is my reluctant answer to the wholly outrageous, unsubstantiated, and ridiculous charges made about The Pro-Feminist Journal of late by Jane. I take no pleasure in making these matters public or in causing pain or anguish to anyone, including Jane.

For people who have access to this dispute only on the internet, I know it can be exceedingly difficult to sort out the merits of the charges that have been levied against me and against “Men Support Women”–both the collective and magazine. It is entirely understandable that it would be difficult to know whom to trust in this matter. Nevertheless, I urge you to consider all the facts before you come to a conclusion. I also urge you to consider that not everyone who posts something on a blog on the internet is honest or is acting in good faith.

Below, I lay out some significant inconsistencies and internal contradictions in the claims and statements that Jane has made. I believe that if you look at these facts with an open mind and in honest good faith, they will, at a minimum, establish some serious doubts regarding her claims:

• On her Women Fight Back blog, in one of her initial statements, Jane wrote, “Ask Karl & Company why they removed the only woman member of their collective!” implying that the collective had removed her.

• At another place, she cites her email where she herself quit the collective, saying: “But since certain individuals have suddenly for some mysterious reason decided to become M.I.A, rude, and unresponsive towards me, I’m officially removing myself from the production team and the collective.”

• Even though she quit the collective, she feigns surprise that she is no longer on the collective: “I knew for certain that I’d been officially removed by them from the actual collective only when I saw a new Facebook group for MSW created and my name not included among the list of collective members.”

• She disingenuously makes no mention of the reason we started a new Facebook page: Within days after she resigned, she deleted all the official administrators of the off our backs group Facebook page–except herself, thereby hijacking our group Facebook page after she had officially resigned from her capacity as a collective member. Even more outrageous is that she went so far as to block all Men Support Women collective members from even being able to see our own Facebook page, OUR MSW page. She similarly hijacked the MSW Twitter account, which as far as I am able to ascertain she still retains control of.

• She wrote on her blog that “Only two people responded [to her mass email announcing she was laid off]. And neither of them was from the [MSW] collective.” Yet, out of only four other men on the collective, two did respond, Andy and Larry (I can provide screenshots of these emails, but won’t right now.) However, it is true that I did not respond.

These contradictions in her behavior and statements elicit some questions:

• Why did she rail against being “kicked to the curb” when it was she herself who quit?

• Why, when she quit, did she make no mention of sexism by multiple collective members as a reason, but instead say that it was because “certain people” (which I assure you means me, as you will come to understand below) were “unresponsive” to her?

• What does it say about the personal integrity of a person who would address supposed sexism in an organization by illicitly hijacking a website rather than making any attempt, either in person or in writing, to communicate her concerns directly?

Finally, a post by another feminist blogger, a supporter of Jane, says,

“… At any moment, Karl could’ve called Jane for a cup of tea or coffee and resolved this. He could’ve reached out to Jane and said hey this was a misunderstanding, lets all just figure this out. He could’ve said sorry we didn’t reach back, it seems that you’re unhappy, lets try and talk about this. But he hasn’t… which is why we have been calling her out.”

• Why was it me rather than other members of the collective or the whole collective itself who could have invited her to coffee to clear up a “misunderstanding”?

• If the problem was the “sexism,” then how would my explaining to her that it was all a misunderstanding erase such apparently egregious examples of sexist behavior?

• Why does she write about “Karl & company” or “Karl and others”? Why am I singled out by name?

Her account makes no sense on the face of it. Her statements are incompatible with her charges of sexism. Her omission of mentioning her hijacking our Facebook and Twitter accounts, and the fact that she would do that, should raise serious doubts about her integrity and truthfulness.

What does make sense of all these facts is exactly what happened:

I was quite friendly to Jane from the beginning of her coming to Men Support Women, inviting her to several social occasions at my house as well as sharing some meals and other events with her. I admired her incisive intelligence, her breadth of knowledge, and her politics. In addition, I spent much time at our collective meetings listening to her complaints about her many Facebook fights with men. My fellow collective members will agree that I was the person on the collective who was most attentive to her and spent the most time with her.

At first I thought she just needed the affirmation and support that anyone needs when encountering injustice such as what she claimed happened to her on Facebook. But as time progressed, I began to notice that she was interested in very little of the actual Men Support Women business and appeared to merely want an audience to listen to her rant about men on Facebook who had offended her in some way. Then I began to notice that it was she who picked the Facebook fights, and even more upsetting, that she was a person who, when she perceived offense of any kind, however slight, was vicious, vindictive, mean-spirited, and relentless.

I began to see this as a pattern by early September (I had no idea just how right I was), and at that point, although I had every expectation of continuing to work with her on Men Support Women, while not sharing with her at all any of my feelings or concerns about her behavior, I began to want to distance from her socially.

That is why I did not invite her to my birthday party and did not respond when she sent a mass email that she had been laid off. My birthday party was NOT a Men Support Women event, and I assumed that others who felt close to her would be supportive to her regarding her job. (Did I ever think to ask her if she was isolated? No. Did I ever care enough to reach out in spite of my own misgivings, just to do “the non-sexist thing”? No. And there’s no reason I should have. In fact, two other collective members, Andy and Larry, did contact her and offer her their sympathy on losing her job. I knew she had more of a connection to me, but her getting any support from any of us should have sufficed. (Note: She claims they never contacted her!)

I did not think my distancing from her would be a big deal, especially since she had not attended any of the social events at my house, in most cases without even RSVPing, and she had never had any personal conversations with me in which she expressed any interest in me or my life. I was surprised when she missed a couple of MSW meetings without even calling or emailing to let us know whether she would be there. As it turns out, one of those times was due to her having been grossly verbally assaulted by a man on the street, and she didn’t have the sense of safety or the energy to put into a meeting with people she didn’t know well after that happened. That’s her excuse, anyway. But she could have called to let us know, right? This is just one example of how inconsiderate she was. If she can work two jobs and still make our meetings we at least deserve a phone call!

I was shocked to read her resignation letter on our semi-public listserv alluding to “certain persons.” Jane has at no point attempted to contact me in order to ask what was wrong or why I was withdrew from her, nor has she ever communicated any of her concerns to me, the person who has been secretly withdrawing from her not letting her know, even though she probably senses something is up. Am I, as an anti-sexism man, to be expected to reach out to her and tell her I really don’t like her at all? Isn’t it better that I just stay silent, let her wonder if I’m pulling away or not, make her question herself about all this?

The reason I believe she singles me out in her various diatribes is because it was I who distanced from her—I absolutely admit that I did that. She is correct that I reacted to her being laid off with less concern than I ordinarily would have with other people, but this has nothing to do with her being a woman; it has everything to do with her being cruel and spiteful and my wish to not be involved with such a person on a social level.

It is absolutely ridiculous that she has blown my social distancing from her into a grandiose lie about me personally and Men Supporting Women in general. Her trumped up ex post facto charges of sexism are nothing but malicious lies she is attempting to spread on the internet in an attempt to exact revenge for a perceived personal slight.

Bottom line—I don’t like her, I have a right to not like her after coming to know her, my evaluation of her has proved true in her subsequent behavior and treatment of me, and all of this has nothing whatsoever to do with gender. She is one of the meanest people I have ever encountered in my many years doing all kinds of work, and I wish to have nothing more to do with her.

Her statement that what we/I did to one woman, we did to all women, is laughable. She does not represent all women—it is a supreme insult to women to suggest that she does. How I treated her and my opinion of her are solely due to her own particular behavior and personality–her vindictiveness, her maliciousness, her
lack of integrity, and her complete disregard for ethical behavior–and nothing else.

I take no joy in declaring this publicly, but her behavior has forced this admission. I have no shame about my actions—I befriended her, spent time with her, found out who she is, and I refuse to be bullied into involving her in my personal life.

P.S. Men have offered to mediate between Jane and the other feminist blogger with Men Support Women. Those women do not want a man to be the mediator.

White Supremacy, Feminism and Off Our Backs

It has been an eye-opening experience to watch the events unfold when one Black feminist blogger and writer speaks up about racism in the predominantly white radical feminist community. Jennifer writes passionately, eloquently and with great insight on her blog Celie’s Revenge about issues that affect ALL women. Her blog is inspiring and incredibly brave. She is one woman who truly represents the ideals of sisterhood and liberation.

And yet, when she dares to open her mouth to stand opposed to the racism inherent within the treatment she received at the hands of white feminists… all hell breaks loose. What has shocked me about this whole event is the fact that it has exposed that racism is not present within a small pocket of feminists in the Off Our Backs collective… It has spread like wildfire, with more and more white feminists lining up to tell Jennifer that she is a crazy, angry, racist against white people and, worst of all, a bitch!!! All this just because she insisted that she should be treated as human as a white woman.

This is totally unacceptable. No woman who thinks that this is an appropriate way to treat another woman should think that she has the right to call herself a feminist. What has struck me most about this is the fact that the white ‘feminists’ have responded to Jennifer’s truth-telling is exactly the same as the way that men react to women who tell them the truth. With defensiveness, anger, justification, intimidation, name-calling etc, etc. Really, really shocking.

All illusions that women are better at working through issues like racism better than men have been very definitely shattered for me as I watch white ‘feminists’ trying to tear strips off Jennifer. Trying to paint her as mad and delusional. A few clues women. Black women have the right to be angry about racism. Black women have the right to be angry at white women who demonstrate racism, either politically or personally. Black women need to be supported in their truth-telling. Even when that truth hurts us. Even when that truth is directed at us. We have no credibility as feminists if we don’t.

Please take the time to read Jennifer’s story and support the incredibly important work that she is doing for ALL women. There is no sisterhood, no feminism, no herstory without Black women, there is no point in a struggle which excludes the voices and the truths of women of colour. The white women from the Off Our Backs collective have some serious explaining to do.

Some anti-racist and feminist notes on the sixth Harry Potter plus some anti-feminist fangirlish squee!!!!

Race issues:

1) So Harry dates Cho an Asian girl, has a flirtation with a biracial girl in a cafe… and then gets into a relationship with, Ginny, a nice washed out white girl.

2) Ginny dates Dean Thomas, played by a Black? Biracial? boy who makes her cry a lot… then gets into a relationship with a nice, white Harry Potter.

3) All the leads are white. There are very few people of colour with speaking roles in the movie. This has been true of ALL of the Harry Potter movies… but it felt even more marked in this one. The biracial girl in the cafe was not in the books that I remember… maybe the film-makers were trying to write more people of colour into the movie.

Women issues:

1) Remus and Tonks together SUCKS. It is so disgusting to see a gorgeous, vibrant young woman be put into a relationship with a gross, boring old man.

2) Hermione pining after brain-dead Ron???? Yeah right. That wasn’t believeable in the books… it sure as hell isn’t believeable in the movies.

3) Ginny got onto the Quidditch team too, right??? She is supposed to be a really brilliant Seeker and Chaser. Why did we only get shots of Ron heroically getting hit by the Quaffle over and over??? Where were all the shots of Ginny with the Quaffle scoring goals for the team??? Oh, that’s right, women’s acheivements and herorism really isn’t comparable to the wonderfulness of stupid men.

Fangirlish Squee:

1) The movie was beautifull rendered. I loved the cinematography.

2) SO MUCH SLASH!!!!! I nearly wet myself when Ron got into bed with Harry. And all those shots of Harry watching Draco and following him around… Sigh. Ages ago I wrote the most brilliant post Sectumsempra story. It fit in so well with the atmosphere of this movie.

3) Luna Lovegood is awesome. I love her character so much. And Helena Bonham Carter has always made my heart beat faster and since she plays an evil, crazy witch in these movies I am totally smitten!!!

Pirate Jenny- Nina Simone

Few women speak/sing/give their rage voice as angrily and with as much power as Nina did. Her courageous voice inspires me when I am so angry that I despair.

pirate jenny nina simone mp3 | lyrics

free music downloads | videos | pictures

Invasion Day

It is Invasion Day to me peoples. I don’t celebrate it. But finally an Australian of the year who is actually Australian. Onya Mick Dodson.

Human Rights Film Festival

The Human Rights Film Festival is touring Australia with many great films and documentaries about women. Unfortunately, as is often the case, most of the ones I’d really like to see are only being shown in Melbourne. These are the ones I’m going to see.

Behind Forgotten Eyes

Reel Change (short films about Climate Change) which includes Sisters on the Planet:

Ursula is a traditional owner of one of the Carteret Islands, off the coast of Papua New Guinea. Against a ticking clock, Ursula is working to relocate thousands of Islanders forced to uproot their lives due to rising sea levels which will leave their island home submerged and uninhabitable in just a matter of years.

Sisters on the Planet hones in on the tragic effects of climate change and those most startlingly affected.

and An Uncertain Future:

An Uncertain Future tells the story of the 2000-strong community living in the Cartaret Islands who will soon become the world’s first climate change refugees.

Made by a group of young Cartaret Islanders who had never before touched a camera, computer or MP3 player, this film poetically captures the views and reflections of the people as they prepare to relocate to the mainland due to rises in sea level which will make their Pacific island home disappear in a matter of years.

Screen Dreaming: Indigenous Shorts Session, which includes Backseat:

Inspired by Pauline Whyman’s own experience, Back Seat tells the story of a young Aboriginal girl Janine who goes with her foster parents to meet her biological family for the first time. From the back seat of her foster parent’s car, Janine watches as her blood family come into view and then recede into the distance.

Nana:

Nana’s granddaughter thinks Nana’s pretty special. She loves her Nana because she helps the old people, she’s a good painter and other people love her too. Nana’s got everyone under control.

Intervention:

Following the 2007 release of the Little Children Are Sacred report – which exposed a worrying prevalence of child abuse in indigenous communities – the Howard government responded by bringing in emergency legislation known as ‘The Intervention’. This new policy generated public outcry and upturned the lives of the Northern Territory’s indigenous population.

Based on 40 interviews from a cross section of the aboriginal community living in and around Alice Springs, Intervention discusses town camps, quarantine laws, ration cards, alcoholism and the shame and disempowerment that has ensued as a consequence of governmental intrusion.

Lamberti, who has lived in Alice Springs since 2005, creates an intimate forum, straight from the community’s mouth. The end result is a rich dialogue of stories and viewpoints rarely found in mainstream media. The people whose lives have been affected since the implementation of the policy in 2007, were never given the chance to have their say. This is their voice.

Objects in Space: Black masculinity through the paradigm of whitemale lust

Objects in Space was the last episode of the television series Firefly before the series was cancelled. This episode was revealing in a number of ways. I am going to look specifically at the construction of lust in the episode and the way in which Whedon charactrises lust, the differences in his treatment of lust between his whitemale characters and his Black male characters. The way that Whedon positions the Black man as a violent, sexual monster and the relationship this construction has to the characterisation of whitemales as protectors/owners of white women.

The straight whitemale is the default audience for Firefly and Whedon immediately sets up a paradigm of objectification of the female characters. In the first episode Serenity we have a deliberately provocative shot of Kaylee eating a strawberry. Soon after there is a shot of Inara half-naked, bathing in her shuttle. Both scenes cater for the whitemale sexualised gaze, setting up whitemale lust as a central and necessary part of audience engagement with the show.

The centring of whitemale lust continues throughout the series as female characters are consistently observed through the eyes of the white male characters. We have Wash objectifying Zoe, with his comments about how he wants to watch her bathe. In a separate occasion in the Bushwhacked episode, he reduces Zoe to body parts. I find this to be a very telling scene and the contrast between Zoe’s reluctance to part with the sacred details of her love for Wash, and Wash’s disgusting objectifying comments could not be more stark.

Wash: The legs. [laughter] Oh yeah, I definitely have to say it was her legs. You can put that down. Her legs and right where her legs meet her back that actually that whole area that and above it. Have you seen what she wears? Forget about it. Have you ever been with a warrior woman?

Also in the commentary for the episode Shindig they talked about how Zoe wore her necklace thingie as a symbol of her slavery (love) to Wash. Wash does not wear any ‘love’ token.

In later episodes we see vulnerability as ‘sexy’ through Mal and Jayne’s eyes in their objectification of Saffron. Obviously the more vulnerable, submissive and pliable the woman, the ‘sexier’ she is. Yet another viewpoint worth mentioning is Jayne’s objectification of Inara when she is with her female client. Don’t even get me started on the ickiness of that scenario.

Joss Whedon’s depiction of lesbianism as hot pornography for his whitemale audience is beyond excusable. This is not the first time he has depicted lesbianism as pornographic fodder for whitemale lust. He did it a few times in Buffy: the Vampire Slayer also. At the end of the fourth season there is an episode where the character Xander fantasises about Tara and Willow together for his (and the whitemale audiences’) sexual gratification. What makes this even worse is the fact that Willow is supposed to be Xander’s best friend. Later, in the seventh season Xander again fantasises about the potential slayers (15-16 year old girls) having erotic pillow fights in his bed. Really sick stuff.

Hmm. Well I really could go on forever about the many ways in which Whedon centres whitemale lust as the primary carrier for his phallosophical televisions shows but I did really want to talk specifically about the othering of Black men and women of all colours within the framework of whitemale lust as default, normal, natural.

In Firefly we see lust being constructed in different ways. I would argue that Whedon has constructed Mal’s lust as the baseline and we use his lust as a measure of normality. Mal is a rough and ready kinda guy. He lusts but his lust is tempered by his inner moral code. This inner moral code seems to justify most male behaviour. You can be a scumbag, but as long as you don’t cross that invisible line, you’re really a great guy. This is the same moral code as the one in wider society where men are congratulated for not being rapists. Also known as the Nigel phenomenon.

But the stupid men do not realise that it is only in a society where the majority of men are rapists that Nigels are congratulated for not being rapists. Stupid men. Anyway, Mal is a ‘safe’ man, because he never crosses that invisible line. Of course he rapes women. That is shown quite clearly in the episode Heart of Gold. Of course he treats women like possessions, that shines through clearly in his treatment of Inara, see episodes Shindig and War Stories. But that invisible stretchy moral line, he never crosses it. That makes him a good little Nigel.

So we have the bottom line of whitemale lusty Nigelism set by the dear Mr. Reynolds. Next up we have Wash another whitemale Nigel who likes to objectify his wife, and cut her up into little fetishised pieces. His lust is neatly contained within the bounds of holy, male supremacist matrimony, the bonds of which he never breaks (unless he knows he will get away with it). He too likes submissive women (see attraction to Saffron in the episode Our Mrs. Reynolds) but he also fetishises Zoe’s independence and strength in his pornographic fantasies of her as a dominatrix (‘warrior woman’). Most importantly his lust is not threatening to Mal’s leadership within the chain of command on the ship. Wash is tempered by Zoe as an outlet for his lust and object for ownership. Men need to own what they lust and lust what they own, therefore Wash’s possession of Zoe, within the male paradigm of imperialism, renders Wash unthreatening to Mal.

We then come to Jayne. In the comments of my last post I analysed Jayne as Whedon’s ‘fall guy’ for feminism. I think Whedon deliberately exaggerates Jayne’s whitemale lustiness in order to define ‘proper’, egalitarian lust. So Jayne’s lust is caricatured and made fun of. His overt masculinity is contrasted with Mal’s kinder, gentler, more feminist desires. The whitemale audience is supposed to distance themselves from Jayne’s unsophisticated masculinity and are invited to position themselves within Mal’s paradigm. Not only this, but Jayne is subject to Mal’s rule. He is not the Alpha male on the ship, Mal is. Jayne’s unsophisticated lust is tempered by Mal’s leadership. Jayne, in his natural state, is a dangerous man, but Mal’s control of Jayne and his rapacious nature, renders him ‘safe’. This clearly positions Alpha whitemale’s as protectors of women and children and as regulators of other men’s sexuality.

As an aside, this is why white men invade countries like Afganistan and Iraq and try to justify it by saying that their actions will spell women’s liberation. Whitemale think deplore the actions of other men, refusing to acknowledge the slaughter, terrorism and violence done in their own countries against women and children, by their own hands. Here we are talking again of the ‘good’ man Mal and the ‘bad’ man Jayne. In reality both commit violence against women, but each refuse to acknowledge their own violence.

Whedon explores a different kind of masculinity with the character of Simon. Simon’s masculinity is based on his intellectual achievements and social position. He acts as his sister River’s owner and protector, which also feeds into his sense of self. Simon’s intellect and compassion are mocked and punished by the ‘real men’: Mal and Jayne, who do their best to undermine Simon’s less valid claim to manhood. But Simon still wields his lesser manhood to some effect; his opinions matter more to Mal than the female characters opinions do. More air time is dedicated to dealing with Simon’s backstory than is given to the female characters. Simon still has male privilege, despite being a ‘lesser’ man.

Book’s character has already been commented on by a few other feminists and anti-racists, as being a stereotypical ‘magical negro’. I would agree with this assessment of his character. Book is a kind of ‘Uncle Tom’ character, the opposite of Early who is Whedon’s whitemale pornographic fantasy of the Black man as a hypersexualised, aggressive monster. Whedon neutralises this threat in his Book character by making him subject to his religious principles. It goes without saying that what regulates Book’s sexuality is a whitemale belief system. His Bible is modeled on the Judeo-Christian tradition; which is inherently whitemale supremacist. So the threat of the Black man’s lust is shown to be regulated and neutralized by the white man. Book becomes feminised, neutered, unthreatening.

In this way Whedon sets up and defines whitemale lust as characterized by Mal, as healthy, normal and natural. He also centralizes whitemale lust as essential to the audiences’ engagement in the text. (This was very much true of Buffy the Vampire Slayer also.) He defines ‘normal’ whitemale lust against an exaggerated version in order to set up whitemales as regulators of other men’s sexualities. I find it really fascinating how blatant Whedon is able to be with his misogynist masculinising. Anyway. In the episode, Objects in Space, Whedon takes this regulation of desire another step and shows the whitemale defeating the monstrous manifestation of unleashed Black male desire. Again, I find it really fascinating how blatant Joss Whedon is able to be with his pornographic race-hating depiction of Black male lust.

Gail Dines, the awesome feminist anti-pornography activist, in her essay King Kong and the white woman: Hustler magazine and the demonization of Black masculinity (read it in Not For Sale), talks about the characterization of Black men as sexual monsters. She makes many points that are pertinent to this discussion.

From the box office success of The Birth of a Nation in 1915 to the national obsession with O.J Simpson, the image of the Black male as the spoiler of white womanhood has been a staple of media representation in this country (US). The demonization of Black men as rapists and murderers has been well documented by scholars interested in film, news and rap music. While this image stands in sharp contrast to the feminized ‘Uncle Tom’ which was popular in early Hollywood films, both images serve to define Black men as outside the ‘normal’ realm of (white) masculinity by constructing them as ‘other’ .Although both the ‘Uncle Tom’ and the sexual monster continue to define the limits of Black male representation in mainstream media, it is the latter that dominates, and, according to Mercer, serves to legitimise racist practices such as mass incarceration of Black men, police brutality and right-wing government policy.

I would argue that Whedon is very definitely working within the Black man as sexual monster: Early; or neutered ‘Uncle Tom’: Book dichotomy, with his construction of Black male characters.

Early is played by a Black actor who is darker skinned and younger than the actor that plays Book. He is virile, uninhibited and very dangerous. He is depicted as cruel, depraved and not mentally balanced. His costume is a dark space suit, painted a burnished red, the colour of dried blood. The clarinet theme for the character is eerie and melancholic. Everything about the character screams malevolence.

When Early first boards the ship he immediately takes out Mal in a short and violent scene. He then locks most of the crew in their cabins while they are still asleep. Then suddenly he is in the engine room with Kaylee. Now this makes no sense to me in the scheme of the plot. Early’s supposed objective is to find River and take her to the Alliance. What the hell is he doing in the engine room? Oh, that’s right. We have to have a scene where The Black Man threatens The White Woman with rape.

James Snead, in the book White Screen, Black Images: Hollywood From the Dark Side, asserts that ‘in all Hollywood film portrayals of Blacks… the political is never far from the sexual.’ I think that this point is made very clearly in the scene where Early threatens Kaylee with rape. In this scene, Whedon is playing on all of the whitemale fears of the terrifying lust of Black men.

KAYLEE: River…?

She stands, looks. Nothing. She turns back to the toolbox, squats down to toss in a part, comes back up and Early is RIGHT behind her, she spins to see his face staring impassively inches from hers. She gasps, stumbles back. She’s up against the wall here.

EARLY: I like this ship.

She says nothing. Looks frantically around.

EARLY: (cont’d) Serenity. She’s good-looking. I mean she looks good.
KAYLEE: How did you get on…?
EARLY: It strains the mind a bit, don’t it? You think you’re all alone… Maybe I come down the chimney, Kaylee, bring presents to the good girls and boys. Maybe not, though.

He comes closer to her. She shrinks closer to the wall.

EARLY (cont’d): Maybe I’ve always been here.
KAYLEE: What do you want?

He looks at the turning engine, mesmerized.

EARLY: That’s her beating heart, isn’t it? You pull off any one of a thousand parts, she’ll just die. Such a slender thread… (still looking at the engine) Have you ever been raped?

A small beat –

KAYLEE: The captain’s right by –
EARLY: The captain’s locked in his quarters. They all are. There’s nobody can help you. Say it.
KAYLEE: There’s… there’s nobody can help me.
EARLY: I’m gonna tie you up now. And you know what I’m gonna do then? (she can’t answer) I’m gonna give you a present. Get rid of a problem you’ve got. And I won’t touch you in any wrong fashion, nor hurt you at all, unless you make some kind of ruckus. You throw a monkey wrench into my dealings in any way, your body is forfeit. Ain’t nothing but a body to me, and I can find all unseemly manner of use for it. Do you understand.
KAYLEE (tiny voice): Yes.
EARLY: Turn around and put your hands behind your back.

She slowly does, terror on her face, as he pulls out a thin roll of tape. Pulls a strip out, says:

EARLY (cont’d): Now tell me, Kaylee… where does River sleep?

Kaylee’s fear is absolutely central to this scene. Whedon emphasizes this in his commentary, excitedly describing Kaylee’s terror as ’so achingly perfect and beautiful’. No big surprise there, white men like Joss have always gotten off on women’s pain. But the extent of the white woman’s fear is the measure of Early’s maliciousness. The more fear he inspires in her the more monstrous he becomes.

Early visits Inara too. Again, inflicting pain on a woman by hitting her. Not because he has to. Neither Inara or Kaylee are a physical threat to him in the same way that Mal and Book are portrayed.

Inara is sitting up in bed. Simon stands near the entrance of the room, looking tense. Inara, vulnerable and more than a little confused, looks from him to Early, who is peeking in the back room, gun trained steadily on Inara.

INARA: You can still walk away from this. I know you’re tired.

He violently pistol-whips her, pointing the gun back at Simon as she feels the blood on her lip.

EARLY: Don’t go visiting in my intentions. Don’t ever.

He moves to the entrance. Before he shuts the door:

EARLY (cont’d, to Inara): Man is stronger by far than woman. But only woman can create a child. That seem right to you?

Joss just loves putting pointed misogyny into the mouths of Black men, doesn’t he? In this scene Inara’s vulnerability is highlighted in the script, in sharp contrast to Early’s contempt. So Joss creates this Black male character who is a violent, malicious sexual monster. He is a bounty hunter and his bounty is River, a 16 year old white girl. Given the treatment we have seen him give Kaylee and Inara, the threat he poses to River isn’t really left up to our imagination. So whitemale lust and misogyny is the default ‘normal’ lust whereas lust and misogyny in a Black man is monstrous and must be contained and controlled by the whitemale.

We eventually find out that River has escaped the Firefly and is on board Early’s own ship. She pretends to go along with Early’s plan to steal her and give her to the Alliance but secretly she is in contact with Kaylee (after convincing the terrified white girl that the big, bad Black monster isn’t going to get her) and Mal, putting into place a plan to trick Early and escape. She tells Early to come back to his ship and she will go with him. Early believes her and steps out onto the outer hull of the Firefly in order to return. But Mal is there waiting. He pushes Early hard and Early goes spinning off into space. Then River comes floating down from Early’s ship, an ecstatic look on her face as she is gathered up in her white saviour’s arms. The whitemale role as protector could not be made any clearer than it is in this scene.

The final scene shows River playing a game with Kaylee while the defeated Black monster is floating alone in space, becoming the final object in Joss Whedon’s phallosophising wankfest. The Black monster no longer poses a threat and the whitemale has emerged victorious having put down the threat to the (whitemale) social order. To quote Dines “King Kong’s death at the end of the movie remasculinises the white man, not only by his conquering of the black menace, but also by regaining the woman.” In Objects in Space Mal is able to reassert his ownership/protection of all three of the women threatened by Early: Kaylee, Inara and River.

Well, that concludes my analysis of Objects in Space. It would be remiss of me to talk about racism in Firefly without mentioning the appropriation of Asian culture within the series. Go here and here to read critiques of the series from that perspective. Thanks to all the Whedonites who have been following my posts, I couldn’t have done this without you. (Scarily enough I actually mean that!)

First Firefly post, second, and third.