The Rape of Inara: On heroines, consent, and women’s sexuality.

[prozacpark]

I've always off-handedly known that Joss had planned a gang rape for Inara by reavers at some point, but never really pursued the details past what I had briefly come across? But it's something that comes up for me often in "Firefly" discussions in the context of So Glad It Died Before That. ide_cyan provided some links in my last post with more details, and it was too tempting. I now have details. And thoughts. And rage, OH SO MUCH RAGE. Because the interview linked was done by Tim Minear, aka my TV God.

Hi, fuck you, Tim Minear. I have liked you in the past because while you’ve failed before, you have also been good about admitting the fail and then correcting it where possible, which is incredibly rare with writers. So I had assumed that you had gotten past the issues you had displayed randomly on Angel? Because you gave us “The Inside,” which is a wonderful deconstruction of some very problematic tropes and will never not be epic. And “Drive.” And “Wonderfalls.” All with awesome women and no rape! But apparently, it never goes away.

He goes on for almost three minutes about the Rape of Inara plot here (around the 35 minute mark). Which apparently is what Joss Whedon used to pitch the show to him. You know, Joss the Feminist. (Honestly, at this point, I'm surprised that Buffy had five seasons before rape entered the narrative arcs.) The word “beautiful” might have been used in the context of a RAPE PLOT. Women’s suffering/death as beautiful? My thoughts on it haven't changed. Just…I kind of want to crawl under a rock and avoid fandom forever. Tim Minear was the ONLY writer I had any respect left for.

Like, I do think that Minear tends to be at his worst when working under Joss. But his failure to recognize the fail of a rape plot in the context of Man Pain? At worst, he’s a horrible misogynist, and even at best, he’s one of the Joss-is-God people who can’t see anything wrong with what Joss does. Either way, NO WORDS.

Also, I am now gleefully happy that “Firefly” got canceled. Not that I wasn’t before, but now? I can almost forgive FOX for canceling all those TV shows if it means that Inara was never raped. Also, TV, can you stop having the women with sexuality be raped or otherwise punished for having it while pretending to be edgy for having women with ‘unconventional’ sexualities?



"It opens with Mal and Inara fighting (as they do). Mal tells her she pretends to be a lady and wants everyone to bow before her and kiss her hand but she’s just a whore. Then the Reavers attack and take Inara. While trying to get her back they learn that she had something that would make anyone who had sex with her die. When they finally track down and board the ship they find all of the Reavers dead and Inara shaking and traumatized. They take her back to the ship and Zoe guards her room. Mal tries to get in to see her and Zoe tells him he’s the last person Inara needs to see. He pushes past her, kneels before Inara and kisses her hand."

So the framing of the episode is through Mal, who calls Inara a whore and then learns a lesson and is forced to acknowledge that she’s really a lady. This bugged me, but I could not figure out why because of the EPIC RAGE and despair, which eventually subsided to give way to thoughts: So, what makes her a respectable lady instead of a whore at the end of the show? Nonconsensual sex with a gang of reavers, which results in their deaths.

In other words: A woman having consensual sex that she enjoys and/or profits from is a whore, but a woman being raped can be a lady. It's the taking away of her CHOICE that elevates her to the status of a lady because it's okay as long as she didn't want it. Is it any wonder that our fiction is so filled with RAPE when we’re not COMFORTABLE with women having consensual sex, when fiction constantly feels the need to punish women for *wanting* sex, especially sex outside the bonds of a socially sanctioned monogamous relationship? Inara is, from my brief strays into the Firefly fandom, the most hated character, which is not really surprising given how uncomfortable fandom is with certain types of heroines. But this whole attitude that Inara somehow owes Mal something and all her sexing is actually cheating on him and how he doesn't deserve her? Gah. He calls her a whore repeatedly, slut shames her, and ENJOYS it. When she has asked him not to, and this is our hero. The one who learns an Important Lesson from her rape.

Jessica Valenti in “The Purity Myth” states it best, “While boys are taught that the things that make them men—good men—are universally accepted ethical ideals, women are led to believe that our moral compass lies somewhere between our legs. Literally. ”

Our fiction is made up of this double standard. This is why the romance genre is so littered with rape, because heroines can be forgiven for having sex and be heroines only when they never wanted the sex, when the hero has less than consensual sex with them and when they want sex only with that one man. So they get to experience it without ever wanting it because it’s the active desire that makes them whores, and whores are bad. The romance hero who has had a million relationships in his past finds true love and reforms, but how many romance arcs (in or outside of romance novels) have sexually adventuress heroines who reform? Because you can’t redeem whores, apparently. Their morality is not determined by how *good* they are as people, but how PURE and chaste they are. And it’s not even about their character because they can’t be redeemed simply by giving up their sexual liaisons because once they have fallen off of some pedestal, they’re irredeemable in patriarchal narratives.

When we made the list of anti-heroines, I had initially listed Inara, which was questioned by nicole_anell (<3), and it occurs to me that the reason I had done so was because all my studies in Western literature taught me that Hookers with a Heart of Gold are anti-heroines, and I have never really questioned it because I like anti-heroines so it’s not really a bad thing in my book?

However, Hookers with Hearts of Gold are, of course, GOOD people with good intentions who usually end up sacrificing themselves for the greater good. So why the anti with that type of heroine? Because the flaw is a moral one where morals are judged by PURITY and not actual actions or goodness. Can you imagine a male hero with that type of personality ever being referred to as an anti-hero no matter how much sex he has? We have a whole literature made up of this, of women dying for being unconventional, often in sexual terms, because if women with sexuality are not punished properly, it somehow takes away the HEROINE bit of the anti-heroine. Because they must always, ALWAYS suffer for having a sexuality. It’s probably rarely intentional, not anymore anyway, and often just seems like ‘edgy’ plotting, but our fiction is still filled with this. Do good women get punished as often? Who are the women that usually get the rape arcs? And who learns a lesson from that rape and who is hurt the most from it, narratively speaking? I…honestly haven’t consumed enough fiction with rape to start giving examples because that’s usually my cue to stop watching/reading, but I’m willing to bet that there are patterns and that they’re not pretty.

Also, lastly, the slew of comments following this planned plot detail for "Firefly" were all, "Oh, noes! I can't believe the show died before it got to that brilliance! Poor Joss." And these are the people apparently fit to decide who is and isn't a feminist? Not a single comment where anyone objected to the rape.

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Oh, great. Now I think handkissing has been ruined for me forever.

Also, romance novels...have gotten way better with that? But I still have to be choosy.

*depressed now*

You owe me PLL.

[nicole-anell.livejournal.com]

Now I think handkissing has been ruined for me forever.
God, right? That made me throw up a little in my mouth.

I have no words for this, except when I heard Morena mention it for the first time I thought "Thank GOD Firefly was cancelled" and getting the full version of the plot and its ~beautifulness~ is even grosser.

Also, I'm not quite as disillusioned as you (prozacpark) because I've never trusted Tim Minear in any way female-character-wise, but it does suck when someone who at least seems vaguely capable of doing better lets you down.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

BUT HELS. A woman being raped OBVIOUSLY has to be about the man who ~caaaaares~ about her, because it is HIS PAIN at NOT BEING ABLE TO SAVE HER. And also his confusion about whether to forgive her.

(wow, that hurt to type)

ALSO. Rape is in real life, so any woman in fiction who hasn't been raped is impossible. We can have spaceships and dragons and parasitical viruses and giant spiders that make earthquakes, BUT SUSPENDING OUR BELIEF for women with happy sexualities is IMPOSSIBLE.

(so did that)

(also, if I could just kill people with my brain, we would have better narratives, y/y?)

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

GAH, I might have cried while listening to that fuckery in the audio clip, I AM SO TIRED OF THIS CRAP NOW.

And also his confusion about whether to forgive her.

THIS is so true. And a plot element that bugs me like no other? Because it really brings into perspective that the man's problem isn't with faithlessness (because it wasn't her choice!) but with the now perceived lack of purity because women are objects whose worth can be ruined with things like rape.

The presence of rape in SFF especially irks me because with all the world building, they can't write rape out of their narratives? And we must have rape even when we're pretending to have a society where there's no sexism. Because rape is dark and edgy and just adds to your apocalyptic world-building.

(also, if I could just kill people with my brain, we would have better narratives, y/y?)

At the very least, why can't I punch people through the intrawebs? Repeatedly? And motivate them to do better?

[aphrodite-mine.livejournal.com]

I'm so.

So.

Saddened by this.

Like you, I feel like hiding from all media. I feel betrayed. What's going to happen next?

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

ME TOO, BB! *clings*

I really just need to...never read/listen to anything the writers have to say outside of their work. This would improve much. GAH.

[amathela.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's.

Rape plots are horrible enough when it's the woman's plot (like, it's SO HARD to think of interesting things for female characters to do, rape is so EDGY AND INTERESTING), but when the focus is on someone else's epic man pain? UGH. JUST. STABBING FIERY RAGE.

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

I don't understand this narrative fascination with rape arcs. At the very least, can people not recognize what a narrative cliche it is? Gah.

[star-healer.livejournal.com]

Mal isn't good enough for Inara. His behavior towards her was just flatly unacceptable at times. I was hoping when I watched Firefly that I was supposed to think that, and not be impressed with him or anything. It seems like I'm always giving people the benefit of the doubt that "Oh, they're not endorsing this, they're just writing about it as a terrible thing, and to have an imperfect 'hero' (like in District 9) as a main character" but then I tend to find out later that I'm wrong, and I was actually intended to sympathize with some misogynistic jerk. Which, yeah... disappointment with various authors ensues.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was the same. It *seriously* undermines your universe to have these high-ranked prostitutes who are universally respected, then have your main character ~coincidentally~ speak for the mainstream trope of "ew dirty girls yuk worthless whores".

[mfirefly10.livejournal.com]

This is the only time I've ever been happy about Firefly's cancelation. I can't even...I remember hearing something about the needle Inara had in the pilot being an anti-rape weapon but I never knew there was a planned gang-rape plot or that it would be told from Mal's POV. (What the frak is that about?! Inara suffers through the one of the most traumatic things that can happen to someone and it's all about Mal's man!pain?! *shakes head*)

This is why I try to avoid reading interviews with writers because it makes it much harder for me to enjoy their work and not think about the ridiculous crap they've said.

Sad, sad day...

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

An Inara rape plot is just...an incredibly bad idea even without the male gaze approach to it. Because within a narrative where you have men criticizing her for her sexuality, it can't ever not read like a narrative punishment for it.

And yeah, I try to avoid interviews, but have a hard time resisting if I get linked.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

So you want a heroine who desires sex, has an unconventional sexuality, and isn't punished for it?



Poly bisexual dominatrix. Just saying.

[judas_river]

Forgive me for commenting almost a year after this was written, but I don't recognize that .gif and I can't turn down the chance to be introduce to anything with a bi-poly dominatrix in it.

[themadpoker.livejournal.com]

It opens with Mal and Inara fighting (as they do). Mal tells her she pretends to be a lady and wants everyone to bow before her and kiss her hand but she’s just a whore.

Wait, that never gets better? DDDD= I watched the pilot of Firefly and one of the things that really bugged me was the way Mal talked to Inara. I kind of figured he got over that though because I know they're a big ship in the fandom. (I never watched past the first episode, it didn't really grab me) I don't get it, how are they a ship?

I can't really respond to your last point because I generally avoid fiction with rape as well but I wouldn't be surprised if you're right.

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

The first episode bored me, but I loved Inara and stuck around for her, so I'm especially glad that this never happened.

And yeah, if anything, Mal's treatment of Inara gets worse, and most of the fandom just blames/hates Inara and acts like she's cheating on Mal or something? Just...it's a mess, the entire fandom.

[sabaceanbabe.livejournal.com]

I really don't think I can listen to that.

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

Basically, two men squeeing over the epic originality and the BEAUTY of a woman being raped. You're not missing anything. I kind of wish I could unhear it.

[chaila43.livejournal.com]

So I've still never watched a Whedon show, but that made me want to throw up a little anyway. And I feel obligated to chime in anyway and tell you that this is a good post which very succinctly and clearly outlines what is SO FAILY about not only that Firefly story but ALL THE DAMN RAPE, especially in these fantasy worlds where they can change anything they want and yet they hardly ever change gender roles or even have less freaking rape. Rape is always so good for the hero's emotional development! And so edgy and gritty! Ugh.

He calls her a whore repeatedly

I think this reinforces, again, my belief that I probably really don't need to watch Firefly or Buffy. Gah. (I totally believe there are redeeming things about both, and I know you like big parts of Buffy in particular. But I don't think I could stomach even the good parts of them while knowing that so many people hold Whedon up as the Most Feminist Writer Ever. When we can DO SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT.)

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

It's like the shows wonder what's the worst thing that can happen to a man, and it's always that someone has *gasps* spoiled the PURITY of his love interest! Definition of Man Pain, pretty much.

I have realized that the lack of limitations when it comes to gender roles are what draws me to so many of the SFF things I read/watch? So it always feels like a bigger betrayal when it fails because it's not limited by our real world dynamics/rules and can do better. Firefly, OTBH, never did well with anything. It's a pretty formulaic Western in space that manages to both be horribly racist and incredibly sexist but people treat it like the second coming.

Buffy got a lot of things right, but I would never rec it to you because I know that you watch for characters and Buffy, in my unpopular opinion, doesn't have many interesting ones (it's still the ONLY show where I have a plot-related investment instead of a character-based one.) I also suspect that I would hate it on principle if I were to watch it now, knowing all the Joss fail. I almost think that I would be able to accept the good bits of BSG and reject the badness if only the fandom could stop worshipping at Ron's feet and praising him for his miracles? Undeserved fandom glee always makes me react with more hatred than the thing probably deserves, so I completely understand (and approve of!) your decision to shun Jossverse. ;)

[geekturnedvamp.livejournal.com]

OH MY FUCKING GOD, I am so appalled by this.

And it sounds stupid from a storytelling standpoint too. Like, what would the mechanism be? I know this is science fiction, but seriously--is it some random virus she picked up the day before, or a superpower Inara has always had to kill with her evil vagenda but it only works on Reapers so she never knew about it before, or what? Because if just having sex with her killed everyone, that would have seriously cut into her ability to make a living. Plus why would the Reavers not just eat her and wear her skin or whatever after it quickly became obvious that the raping was not going so well for them? They're CRAZY, but not unable to discern cause and effect and act on their observations.

All of which pales before my horror of INARA WAS GOING TO BE GANG-RAPED. I'm SO glad I didn't know that until now.

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

Do you remember when Inara ominously eyes that syringe in the pilot episode? Well, apparently, injecting herself with that makes anyone who will rape her die. Which is what the plot was going to utilize.

Although, I'm pretty sure that if this plot had gone through, it would have led to Inara quitting her profession because she would've learned her lesson about sex being traumatic and Mal was always right. /bitter.

[ivanolix.livejournal.com]

I'm so sickened by this I just...can't deal with it. I was never able to like Mal (or Joss) for things that they've done/said before, and they've mostly just enraged me, but this just gives me such visceral revulsion. I am so tired of women's sexuality as currently shown on televison. So fucking tired.

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this is exactly how I felt last night after finding out about it. And yeah, some of it had to do with my disillusionment with Minear, but most of it had to do with men talking about the beauty of a woman being raped as if it's the best plot ever. SO MUCH RAGE AND HATRED.

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it would help with your respect for the show if I linked to a Bryan Fuller interview describing what was planned for Wonderfalls Season 2, if you don't already know about it.

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

Are you possibly referring to the immaculate conception plot or is there more fail I should fear?

But yeah, that arc seems to have consent issues written all over it, sigh.

[shobogan.livejournal.com]

Oh my fucking - eugh. How can you not see how appalling and problematic that is?

Rape plots can so easily be both, and usually are, but this is like they were trying.

The extent of my knowledge was knowing what the needle was for. This is just...eugh. I can't even be coherent.

Also? The amount of hate for Inara makes me sad. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest, but it saddens me.

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

I only knew that there was a rape plot planned, but the details are just...*headdesk*

I took one look at a single Firefly forum when I got into the fandom, and it was pretty much filled with Inara hate. I never looked back, and while the fans like blaming their hatred of Inara on how shallow she is, or how she CHEATS on Mal, or leads him on (are we watching the same show?!), what they really have a problem with is her sexuality.

[havocthecat]

I think I'm going to be sick. Ugh.

[gryphonsegg.livejournal.com]

"Mal tries to get in to see her and Zoe tells him he’s the last person Inara needs to see. He pushes past her, kneels before Inara and kisses her hand."

So in spite of all his manpain over the rape, he still doesn't get that women have a right and sometimes a need to tell him no. And this guy is supposed to be a hero. D: I'd heard about this before, and it was what settled the "Is Joss Whedon really all that pro-woman?" question for me. Obviously, it settled the question on the "No" side.

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

THIS. The fact that it's more important for him to alleviate his guilt over what he said to her than it is for her to feel comfortable? HOW IS THIS ASSHOLE OUR HERO? Gah. Anti-heroes are all fine, but I don't think the writers see anything wrong with this behavior.

[staringiscaring.livejournal.com]

What the hell? I have no problem with rape appearing in fiction if it is dealt with well but what is that?

No, they would probably delete all the negative comments. They generally do that at those sort of sites run by fanboys, but also, from what I know about fanboys and the rape jokes they like to tell, they probably didn't even realize that it was horrible.

[abrakadabrah.livejournal.com]

The romance hero who has had a million relationships in his past finds true love and reforms, but how many romance arcs (in or outside of romance novels) have sexually adventuress heroines who reform? Because you can’t redeem whores, apparently.

Camille, the archetypal whore with a heart of gold, reforms for love, and then dies sooner when she goes back to her old ways through "sacrifice" and not conviction. I think there may be some other French 19th century examples of that sort of thing if I think hard.

Hmm. Marguerite of Navarre in La Reine Margot.

Carmen is more one of your anti-heroines, I take it. Not a whore, just a serial flirt and monogamist. And not very nice at all to her former beaus when she falls out of love.

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

Carmen sounds fun. And Camille reminds me that there's a very good reason that self-sacrifice in women is one of my most hated fictional tropes.

[arefadedaway.livejournal.com]

I just...I can't even handle this. I'm so, so fucking sick of how women's sexuality is punished and limited and controlled in horrific ways, and just. All of it. I feel viscerally ill after reading this. God, way to destroy all my little remaining faith in writers, Minear.

I'm going to go hide in a hole somewhere. Stories just keep hurting me. Dammit.

[humdrumtown.livejournal.com]

Would you be at all okay if I linked your post here to my tumblr? If not, I definitely won't link it! I just think you put into words, much better than I could have, exactly how I feel about this.

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's completely okay to link this. :)

[glitterberrys.livejournal.com]

Sigh. I still like Firefly - yes, i see all its flaws, but the positives outweigh the negatives for me. I just pretend that Mal and Jayne are the way they are because of their characters and not because that's how Joss thinks real men act. I mean, they're both assholes. But I like 'em anyway. However, I like them a lot more when I don't think about who created them.

[glitterberrys.livejournal.com]

...however, had this episode been made I would've been like "ugh, no, fuck you, I'm out."

[ellestra.livejournal.com]

I tried to find something to say but the words fail me.

This reminds me about the plans for Gina on BSG and how good Tricia managed to make RDM change the story. Sometimes I think the less I know the better. Somehow things are easier to like the less exposure to fandom and the less knowledge about the creative process the better of one is.

I used to hate Polish as i always found the 'what author had in mind' question incredibly annoying. Not only I didn't know how could they know but I tend to have completely different interpretation on things. For example I used to think Inara was the good, respectable person and the Mal behaviour was to show what anti-hero he was. The only way for them to ever get together was if he changed. I'd prefer live in a world when I don't know what creator though about it.

I love you for putting into words all I feel about the Hooker with the Heart of Gold stereotype and general treatment of female sexuality. I hate how it's treated as something that makes them evil and they have to suffer for it before being considered equal to "good" people. It's irritating trope even when applied to other things and with women and sex it become infuriating. All Inara does is consensual and advantageous for both sides. Sex is not something one needs to make up for.

I dislike the use of such a cliche storylines. But this one. This one enrages me. I hate everything about this. From the suggestion that she is a bad person just because she has sex and that's why bad things happen to her. To the implication that this suffering will make her worthy of true love and then it will make everything ok.

The other thing is that this kind of storyline always somehow becomes all about the pain a male hero suffers when "his" woman is attacked. I know our culture is not equipped to deal with the suffering of other people so the stories concentrate on the reactions of those close to them as it gives us a way to distance ourselves from the true pain. However I just have enough of brave men standing by their women and bravely taking their outburst of pain. It's not them I'm to sympathize with.

I now everything is one trope or other but this should never, never ever, be used again.

[nicole-anell.livejournal.com]

This reminds me about the plans for Gina on BSG and how good Tricia managed to make RDM change the story.
God, yes. I'm forever grateful to Tricia Helfer for that. Even as it was it played into some squicky tropes, but like many things on BSG the actors elevated it to something better.

Wow.

[arby-m.livejournal.com]

I think Dr. Horrible was what really woke me up to Joss's misogyny. The only female character in the entire movie ends up in a refrigerator purely to motivate Dr. Horrible - textbook. Now I can see all the patterns of fail leading up to it, and don't even get me started on how bad Dollhouse was.

Thank you for posting it, sick as it makes me. Everything I learn about Joss (and now Tim! so sad) opens my eyes wider and helps to stop drinking the Kool-aid.

[ketchup-fights.livejournal.com]

Every so often I find myself feeling these vague pangs of guilt that I never gave Firefly more of a chance, but I was pretty well disillusioned with Joss and his handling of Buffy by the time Firefly rolled around. Still, I have so many friends who love this show, I felt like I must be missing something.

I won't be feeling those pangs of guilt anymore.

[dogwoodblossom.livejournal.com]

This is a very excellent post. I was never into Firefly or Joss in general until after it'd had all been canceled so I kind of missed the whole "Wedon is a God" fandom thing. But goddamnit Mal constantly calling Inara a whore pissed me off.

they can’t be redeemed simply by giving up their sexual liaisons because once they have fallen off of some pedestal, they’re irredeemable in patriarchal narratives.

I do have to disagree with you here though. Fallen women can be redeemed! It happens when they commit suicide for the sake of their illegitimate children. Yeah, the birthday when my parents got me tickets to see Miss Saigon on the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon was the most depressing birthday ever.

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

Oh, we're completely agreed on the Death as Redemption for women trope in fiction. It's why the Hooker with the Heart of Gold has to die at the end, but she's generally not allowed a redemption that comes with LIFE. But death purifies all sins or something, apparently. This has given me quite a thing for literary heroines like Medea and Helen of Troy who get away with things instead of dying to make up for their sins.

I'm amused by your parents getting you tickets to Miss Saigon for your birthday. How old had your turned that year?