Sunday, October 16, 2005

Sunday Joss Blogging: The worker will overthrow absolutism and lead the proletariat to a victorious communist revolution

So the dirty commies are Joss Whedon fans (I don't know which dirty commies by the way). I always thought Serenity's politics were an interesting mix of Joss's and Tim Minear's (Tim Minear is a Republican, and I suspect a libertarian sort at that - ewww). But I can see why it would appeal to Marxists - it is a materialist vision of the future where the economic base decides the organisational and cultural superstructure (to a ridiculous degree sometimes - I never did understand why a colonising phase of capitalism would require calico to rise again).

I maintain Buffy was more left-wing though - and not just because it was more feminist, but because there were glimpses of a solution on Buffy, and that solution was join together because we're stronger that way (and to overthrow the patriarchy through a magical scythe).

For proof that Buffy is ten times the Marxist heroine Mal ever could dream of being here is her with a hammer and sickle fighting the expropriation of surplus value in a hell dimension (I'm not making any of that up but you can only see the sickle in the picture - the hammer is in her other hand):

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:19 pm

    Yay Buffy! And Marxism! And Buffy and Marxism!

    I don't really have anything else to say - I haven't seen this episode in about 6 years.

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  2. Shame on you then - it's a very interesting episode - someone should invite you round to watch it on DVD.

    I shall do a fuller ideological analysis of Anne later - I probably don't know enough Marxist theory to do it justice. Is expropriation the word I wanted? I get confused

    Do you know where the quote comes from?

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