Moments when a piece of entertainment completely lost you.

Heath Robinson · Post by **Heath Robinson** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 6:05 am

Cielingcat wrote:Seemed like more than a domestic argument to me. But I may have been looking for a life changing event where there was none.

You know, I was wrong. I had forgotten the second page of that scene, and the escalation to "You don't care about us any more!"

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 11:11 am

Heath Robinson wrote: You know, I was wrong. I had forgotten the second page of that scene, and the escalation to "You don't care about us any more!"

Still a domestic argument. If I only had a dime for each one I had with my mom arising of some insultingly stupid racist/sexist thing she says out of the blue and ending with "I wish I aborted you".

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 4:41 am

Read or Die OAV? Seriously?

The hype and the actual quality of the show lags, to say the least. Almost as much as Hellsing.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 11:05 am

Am I missing something? The OVA was only 3 eps long, and was pretty damn cool. Or was the series called one as well, despite being 50+ eps long?

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 2:11 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Almost as much as Hellsing.

I blame Hellsing's popularity (and my own affection for it) on Buffy.

Now I HATE Buffy. And if you like I could tell you why in all sorts of detail, indeed as a "moment when a piece of fiction completely lost you" Buffy and friends scores high from the time when I was watching an episode of Angel and suddenly realized that Joss Whedon and co have massive misogyny issues written in giant blazing capital letters all across all of their work. I wasn't keen already but that turned me on Buffy+friends HARD.

But anyway. One of the other things I hated about Buffy was how the vampires were basically all weak as piss uncharismatic Klingons. And that sort of stuff spilled over into other vampire movies and fiction around that time. Well. I suppose they had Spike, but still.

Hellsing hit at the right moment. The hellsing character is a charismatic, eccentric, stylishly rendered vampire that takes no crap from anyone with his mighty powers. He is charisma dracula++. He is anti-Klingon-Mook-vampire. He kills goddamn stupid mook vampires, and even they are largely more charismatic characterful and powerful than the subhuman dross of vampire kind found in Buffy.

It brought the cool and the style back to vampires. And wasn't depressing and dull like Buffy, and a lot of other vampire fiction, to boot.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 1:42 am

By the by, what was up with that VGCat's Nerd Rage comic? I thought it was a parody of the 'hardcore gamer' mentality, but apparently it's completely serious. If so, what the hey?

PhoneLobster wrote:Now I HATE Buffy. And if you like I could tell you why in all sorts of detail, indeed as a "moment when a piece of fiction completely lost you" Buffy and friends scores high from the time when I was watching an episode of Angel and suddenly realized that Joss Whedon and co have massive misogyny issues written in giant blazing capital letters all across all of their work. I wasn't keen already but that turned me on Buffy+friends HARD.

But anyway. One of the other things I hated about Buffy was how the vampires were basically all weak as piss uncharismatic Klingons. And that sort of stuff spilled over into other vampire movies and fiction around that time. Well. I suppose they had Spike, but still.

Do go on.

shau · Post by **shau** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 2:03 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:By the by, what was up with that VGCat's Nerd Rage comic? I thought it was a parody of the 'hardcore gamer' mentality, but apparently it's completely serious. If so, what the hey?

That's odd, but I think we can all agree that the most irritating thing about the Nerd Rage comic is that it has been the only update for what, more than a month now?

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 2:58 am

You know what I'm tired of.

New take on old franchises. I don't mean Star Wars and the shiite. We know that shit up, down, sideways, and the director's glory hole by now. Sadly....that is.

What I do mean is Indiana Jones, Die Hard, Transformers, whatever else you want to talk about. I'm tired of it.

I saw Live Free and Die hard the other day. I haven't seen the latest Indie yet. But I'm sure it's going to follow a similar ideology.

Aren't the main characters interesting enough to hold the audience's attention? I know this could be called the Wesley-Syndrome. But another part of the entertainment that has lost me is that most of these characters are supposedly "old men" who repeatedly use the phrase I'm getting too old for this. So they have young 'uns helping 'em out or they are showing the showing the lost young ''uns the way but in the end, the young 'uns still save the day.

It's no longer a side-kick or a mentor. When does Indie or McClane become the mentor in their own movie? Transformers as Frank described it was just a disaster flick except the disasters were robots. Hell, most of the time, I couldn't even spot the robots. Michael Bay just did a shitty job, personally.

So if Axel Foley comes down with Beverly HIlls Cop X is he going to have to teach somebody how to laugh like that and be cool and have them save his ass? seriously?

Fvck the franchises. I'm done

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 3:30 am

I enjoyed Live Free or Die Hard, personally.

Transformers...I hated the camera work. It seemed to be a handheld camera for some of the action scenes, and I hated losing track of people because the camera jerked. And, really, a lot of the human cast sucked. VG cats had the movie about right.

That said, I got goose bumps when Optimus Prime and the other Autobots transformed for the first time.

Hellboy 2 sucked (I liked the pulpy feel of the first one. And Kroenen.)

Spider-man 3 had its good points--some scenes were just awesome, and I loved the Sandman. But it still didn't measure up for me.

Pirates 3 was disappointing. Especially the end, with the whole dissolving-into-crabs thing.

Oh, and...not a franchise, but I hated, hated, hated Wanted.

And, to my horror, it turns out some adolescent idiots have convinced themselves that you really can curve a bullet.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 5:29 am

The curving a bullet thing existed before Wanted, didn't it? Didn't Matrix do it? Just wondering? Maybe I'm wrong? That just might be how bullet time looked on camera looked to my eyes?

Haven't seen it. read the comic. it was interesting. the movie looked cool. but the plot was different enough and seemed in the same flashy vein as others that i figured i'd wait for it on tv.

JUmper is on the same line. It seemed like it had promise but it just failed. People with crazy teleportation powers but somehow it was weak.

but my main beef with the above franchises was the human youth element. wesley-crusher-syndrome. Why did it suddenly start up again? I mean In Temple of Doom, Short Round was fvcking side kicking. River Phoenix Played Young Indie in one of the movies and Sean Connery was Indies father wonderfully. see. sidekick, flashback role, mentor. and then you have what's the fat man's name. another side kick. but now you have the leather jacket wearing supposed wanker who is not a sidekick.

Akula · Post by **Akula** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 6:59 am

As to the "I'm too old for this" syndrome. Because no one who liked the original movies will accept anyone other than Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones or Bruce Willis as John McClane. Those actors are getting older.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 7:09 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Do go on.

OK.

So I don't like Buffy. I never have. Well, except for the original movie. It was a bit fun and had some good actors. Even Buffy herself was better in that movie.

Anyway, having liked the movie I thought the series might be cool in the same vein (hehe, vein). Only it wasn't. It was depressing world of darkness/boring teen soapy wannabe trash, the lead actress was carboard, her character was no longer "entertaining blond California bimbo slayer" but was now also just, well, cardboard. The vampires were all lamo Klingons. The plot lines and writing was forgettable.

But hey a few of the supporting actors and characters were cool Zander (or was it Xander?), Jiles, Spike, and Willow, all fun characters with good actors. And sometimes, like once every three episodes one of those characters would drop a line that would almost make it worth watching that episode.

Angel, the character, the actor and the fucking spin off series I hated. Back when they were declaring the spin off I was all "ooh, make it all about Xander's finding himself road trip (which was about the same time), it could be all evil dead meets... er... evil dead". But no, it was fucking carboard man.

But anyway I ended up watching a lot of Buffy, and uh, Angel, or at least half watching it while messing with computers because I lived with some insane Buffy fans. So I got pretty familiar with it.

And you know, I could tolerate it, from time to with nothing better to entertain men, it was an acceptable compromise.

Then one day I was watching an episode from that whole Angel plot line where Fred had become a super demon evil bitch with super evil bitch powers and super evil bitch "turn on her friends" attitude...

And I realized. Fuck. They pull this shit with every female character they ever had.

So I put together a list of female characters who gained (or had) super powers and tried to slaughter all the men, usually in extra nasty ways (compared to the times the men did anything similar). I invite you to write the list yourself. It's long.

And it's basically every fucking named female character from Angel and Buffy combined. And that retarded girl space slayer from Fire Fly. And probably some of the killer assassin hos from that dollhouse show I never bothered watching.

And then there is other stuff. Like how the Firefly captain is like totally captain penis substitute. How his girlfriend is a god damn space prostitute who won't give him any/he thinks he is too good for. How every girl Xander ever loved has turned into a monster who tried to kill him, as a running gag. How the first slayer is revealed to be a primitive drooling animal woman who was given her power by a bunch of wise men. Even the Dr Horrible thing (which I rather think is their better stuff) had a pure virginal bimbo who fell for a slimy lieing asshole and died as a matyr.

It can't watch Joss Whedon trash anymore without spotting a thousand little misogynistic little quirks.

So yeah. That fiction lost me.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 7:54 am

Akula wrote:As to the "I'm too old for this" syndrome. Because no one who liked the original movies will accept anyone other than Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones or Bruce Willis as John McClane. Those actors are getting older.

Yes, that's why it's called a sidekick.

Have you read comics?

What did Robin do after he became older? He became Nightwing.

Well he also became wise enough to move out avoiding the morning Bruce- As, he was told many a time...

But that's a story for a different day.

Neeeek · Post by **Neeeek** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 8:28 am

PhoneLobster wrote:
How every girl Xander ever loved has turned into a monster who tried to kill him, as a running gag.

That's not even remotely true. His two longest relationships end with him betraying his girlfriend and in death. And he spent about half the series dating the second woman.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 10:46 am

Neeeek wrote:That's not even remotely true. His two longest relationships end with him betraying his girlfriend and in death. And he spent about half the series dating the second woman.

I'm not entirely sure which ones you are referring to.

But I suspect one of them is the demon woman/ex demon woman he had a long thing with, and she was, (and I think in one episode was even explicitly stated to be part of) the "running gag" because she started out as a monster woman trying to kill him. Also I vaguely recall a running theme of that relationship being that she might turn on him at any moment.

Anyway, here is a list from some Buffy fan wiki. It begins and I quote...

A recurring joke about Xander is that he is a "demon magnet," as many of the women he has dated or been attracted to have turned out to be demonic or in some other way supernatural.

Now this text I've edited because they left relevant details out.

* Willow Rosenberg — Who shuns him and decides to become a lesbian instead when he finally thinks he want's a relationship with her. But her evil lesbianism witchery only leads her into becoming an evil monster woman and trying to kill everyone!
* Buffy Summers — Never actually has a relationship with him despite being on the list and a crush of his. But then, she also does turn on her friends at least once and is possessed with the demon monster woman powers of the slayer.
* Miss Natalie French — Preying mantis demon French teacher, drugs him with the intention of mating with him and decapitating him.
* "Ampata" — Incan life sucking mummy, tries to life suck Xander.
* Every woman in Sunnydale — Magic spell goes wrong, every woman in Sunnydale loves him. Since this is Xander (and a Joss Whedon thing) their natural solution to their unified feeling of love for him is to KILL HIM!
* Cordelia Chase — Relationship was never good, they continued to generally hate each other to all appearances right through it. But I don't think she ever tried to kill him. But later, in Angel, she became a super demon evil goddess monster that tried to give birth to the mega antichrist or something similar. edit: Serves her right, that's what you get for repenting, becoming nice and good and finally having a real loving relationship with a Whedon lead male (her relationship with Angel at the time).
* Faith Lehane — Evil Buffy. Turns on people more than once. Has evil monster woman demon powers of the slayer. Only she is also the "bad girl" version of that already bad girl theme.
* Anya Jenkins — Starts out as an evil demon. Xander is scared of her for basically their entire relationship.
* Nancy — (don't know this one I leave it to the fan boys) After being frustrated with his own relationship problems with Anya and others in the past, Xander luckily runs into Nancy and, along with the gang, protects her from a giant worm-like demon that was specifically attacking her. Xander walks her home, and both new at dating, they awkwardly ask each other out. However, after finding out the demon is Nancy's ex-boyfriend who was turned into the worm-like creature by Xander's own ex-fiancee, Anya, the two never date. (so this barely counts and is screwed up by a demon woman anyway).
* Lissa — (again I leave it to them because their words are so good this time)... Their date goes well until Lissa ties Xander to a torture wheel, reveals herself to be a demon, and cheerfully prepares to use Xander as a human sacrifice. Xander, before being rescued, ponders what causes him to keep getting involved with female demons.
* Renee — A comic only character by the timing referred to on the wiki. Is also a slayer and therefore possessed by demonic powers. Apparently his nicest relationship ever (apparently consists of a kiss and a single promised, but not actual, date), ends with her death shortly after that.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 2:19 pm

Didn't Giles at one point turn evil and attempt to kill everyone? Angelus is very much a crazy 'kill and betray everyone' character too. Spike was a villain until the end. I'm fairly certain that Willow's werewolf boyfriend from the early days was dangerous until he got the transformation thing under control and sent away on a bus. Is it misogynistic when almost EVERYONE goes super-saiyan and tries to kill everyone?

EDIT: As for Firefly, River was about as dangerous to the crew as Jayne, so I'm not getting the misogyny there. As for her being a waifish wuxia woman, that's a very present trope in Joss's creations, though I'm curious as to how you would view that as misogyny. The only way I can see sexism in Firefly is the whole Companion thing being an idealized Disney-land version of prostitution, white-washing any and all of the negative aspects that are seen IRL.

imperialspectre · Post by **imperialspectre** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 3:08 pm

Willow Rosenberg — Who shuns him and decides to become a lesbian instead when he finally thinks he want's a relationship with her. But her evil lesbianism witchery only leads her into becoming an evil monster woman and trying to kill everyone!

Wtf? She shuns him, sure. It's in the first season, because she doesn't want to be a "fallback option" compared to Buffy (kinda a bad way to treat anyone). She doesn't start going out with Tara until another, completely different guy ditches her a couple years later, and at that point, Xander and Anya have been dating for a while.

And it's not exactly weird for someone to turn into a "monster" in that show because of the death or loss of a loved one. The only male leads who are powerful enough to really go nuclear in the show are Angel(us) and Spike, both of whom do so frequently (barring the occasional deus ex machina). Similarly, the female characters who have superpowers have a tendency to use them poorly under really bad circumstances.

It's not about misogyny, it's about Joss Whedon thinking that happy people make for bad television. If that annoys you, it's fairly understandable, as it tends to annoy fans periodically, too.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 5:35 pm

I can't believe no one here mentioned the time Spike attempted to rape Buffy. Especially you, PL, using it as a trump card.

I have never seen a single episode of the show or the spinoff, but like Threshold, Katie Vick, or Dr. Phil no Jutsu it's so awful that people outside the fandom know about it.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 9:42 pm

Remember, the one time. When Spike tried to raep Buffy? Yeah, good time. Just like all the good times talking to [Deity] on the ceramic phone.

Like that Lago?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 9:59 pm

More like, 'man, have you ever watched Voyager? Is it true that Tom Paris once evolved into a salamander and fucked the captain?' or like 'I haven't watched much Happy Days but there was totally one time where Fonzie waterskied over a vicious shark. What was up with that?'

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 10:16 pm

virgileso wrote:Didn't Giles at one point turn evil and attempt to kill everyone?

The guys turn bad from time to time (probably because whedon and co are just that uncreative.).

But they generally seem to be forgiven.

The werewolf guy? No biggy. This Giles thing, a one episode only no worries moment. Angel's gypsy curse, everyone feels for him.

Faith is never fully forgiven. Buffy is never forgiven. Willow is never forgiven. Anya is never forgiven. All of them have it rubbed in and referred to again and again, by others, and even by themselves across many episodes or SEASONS.

And when they turn bad they often turn bad in nasty S&M super bad ways. I refer you to Evil Lesbian Willow, Evil Pregnant Cordelia, and Super Irreversible Evil Dominatrix Fred.

Then there is the super soldier girl from Fire Fly who was also made retarded and severely autistic with a potential to flip out and attack everyone. With torture. When she was a student. And if I recall vaguely walks around naked at least once (for all your hilarious nude paranoid autistic girl entertainment value needs). Actually I'd forgive that as artistic license if A) it weren't for everything else, and B)If Joss Whedon weren't crap.

Also has there ever been a sex act, or even an instance of actual romance, in Buffy or Angel that hasn't either turned someone (or everyone) involved evil? Or been an immediate precursor to that happening? I'm going with probably not.

I forgot about the Spike rape thing. You know there was also a long period of romantic tension between Spike and Buffy as well. And though I forget the rape thing the romantic relationship was most definitely AFTER that. So even Spike least forgiven male character in the Franchise, gets that much for free.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 5:19 am

I've only seen the first four seasons of Buffy and one of Angel.

And while, PhoneLobster is being a little bit hyperbolic (is anyone surprised) I actually agree with the broad shape of his critique, at least with reference to Angel.

Now, with Buffy, I'm tempted to quibble. After all, the people who can get in trouble for misusing power are the ones who have power, which are almost always women. It's true though that Xander gets away with some spectacularly reprehensible shit pretty lightly. Mor ethan that, I won't give an opinion at the moment since I've only seen half the show and I need time to mentally review that half. I do *love* the show though.

If anything, Buff definitely use lots of sexist tropes and imagery, but I'm not sure I'm willing to leap form sexist to misogynistic.

Angel, on the other hand, is sexist crap straight through. I'm told that later seasons are an improvement, but the first season's gender politics are really terrible. It's not necessarily worse than a lot of other stuff, but given his reputation, and that it was a buffy spinoff, I expected better.

Whedon himself said that Angel was going to be "more of a guy's show" and apparently what he meant was that women would be systematically marginalized and disempowered.

Let's review:

The premise of this show is that angel & company rescue people in need, generally, after the first few episodes, people who come to them for help. Now, these people come in two types:

-- Women, who are victims of abusive ex-boyfriends with supernatural powers. Angel always resolves this by punching the boyfriends in the face or throwing them through windows. I like that Whedon is aware of and cares about domestic violence, and he represents it more truthfully than most shows, and they say all the right PC lines, but really, big bad Angel swoops in to save helpless ladies gets old.

-- Men. While men show up every now and then to ask Angel for help avoiding a killer, they are *always* evil and*always* planning to betray him. No exceptions. Apparently men are never legitimately in need, never helpless, and certainly never freaked by psychotic exes. Seriously they should have called themselves the Shining Knight Faire Damsells Protection Service.

Okay. So this is a show primarily about a male lead protecting women through violence. But how about the rest of the cast?

Well, Angel goes through two male partners in the season. Both of them are primarily there for intellectual/social assistance, but both of them can fight in a pinch, and get a couple moments of heroism. Then we have Cordelia. Now, I like Cordelia, she's a great character. Her plot arc, with all its personal growth and strength of character is awesome, and I don't think *every* female character needs to be powerful and competent. But for the ONLY woman in the main cast (of 3-5 depending on how you count) to be physically helpless and nonmagical is pretty annoying. Even Angel's *sidekicks* get to prove their manliness by saving her.

Partway through the season they realize she doesn't have enough to do, so they decide to make her relevant by... giving her visions! Plot-relevant vision from on high which JUST HAPPEN to come with incapacitating migraines that actually take her FURTHER out of the action and make her even more useless except as a quest-giver. Now, that visions were painful was already established when a man had them, but they never stopped him from coming along on the adventure.

Incidentally, being incapacitated is something that happens to her a lot. Over twenty two episodes she gets: kidnapped by vampires and saved by Angel, attacked by a demon and saved by Doyle, impregnated by a demon-clubber and subsequently mindcontrolled, possessed by an evil ghost, kidnapped and almost sold AGAIN and rescued by angel, then finally hospitalized for the entire finale as a result of excessive visions.

Now, any one of these events might have been okay. The kidnapping trope, while overused, is also hard to avoid and an easy way to bump a plot along. The ghost episode is overused, and it's traditional that a Buffy/Angel finale ends with the removal of all the main character's allies.

But add up each event, along with the victims they save? Over the course of 22 seasons, Joss consistently chose to portray women as helpless, slavish, victimized pawns whenever he had a chance to take their strength away.

The icing on the cake, at the very end of the season he introduces a group of black kids form the project who have organized a vampire-hunting gang. Which seemed pretty badass, and like a potentially neat set of character,s though all he's done with so far is minstrel shows. They're lead by a brother and sister team who are extraordinarily close.

One sibling gets turned into a vampire, forcing the other to destroy them, causing an upwelling of heroic angst? Guess which one?

Look, I like Gunn, (the dude), he looks like a good character, but I might have liked his sister two. A black woman struggling to maintain authority over her brother's gang, while finding time to grieve for him and keep a strong front against the outside world of rich, white vampires could have been an awesome tragic protagonist. Instead we get another macho man vampire slayer.

Fuck.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 7:43 am

Let's leave both the Buffy-Angel Universe alone for a bit and go to the Firefly universe to check on the sexism.

In the movie, Shepherd is killed. Wash is killed. But River is undefeatable. I mean, the movie doesn't even make any sense. It's fun. I enjoyed it. but I know what you guys are talking about. Going back to River, she goes back from a near autistic woman to someone woken up momentarily to be a super awesome lady. But at the end. She I think, she just becomes super awesome on her own. Oh NOES! It's like, I surmounted my conditioning finally or something. Yeah, I call it Deux ex Machina and misogyny.

I'm a whedon fan. His new Dollhouse stuff is good but it's in the same line, I've only seen it passingly but a heavy sleep inducer drugged out woman with barbed arrow through the leg's vein apparently seems to know how to take the outdoorsy man who has the layout of the locale totally set in his mind already. Granted she isn't a nobody in this scenario. .

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 9:07 am

I have nothing but love for Firefly. With the exception of Simon and River (each a bit two dimensional), all the characters had a lot of depth and many of the non-crew members were a mite bit fuzzier than simple cardboard personalities. I sure wasn't feeling the misogyny in that series.

The movie Serenity, however, I think lost something in trying to be cinematic. River going over the top was entertaining, but to me it was too over the top- posing with axes right as the wall was torn down, right after the "sealed" blast door opened... inexplicably. Too much trying to be cool in one scene made me wretch a little bit there. Some of the character performances seemed a bit more strained, likely because the actors had been on hiatus from their roles for so long.

Mal and Inara's relationship is as two incredibly prideful people who won't admit their feelings for each other often times even to themselves. I've never seen Mal imply or suggest that he is too good for Inara, just that he doesn't approve of her job. Yes she ostensibly trades sexual favors for money and prestige. The captain kills people and steals things. There's a whole lot of shady moral areas on that boat.

For Dr. Horrible, I don't think Penny is a bimbo at all and I doubt she was a virgin either, but hey. Hell, she's described as "nerdy." I... I just don't get the misogyny complaint here at all. She is a nice girl who dates an asshole for a short while (gasp!). Her death is tragic.

PL wrote: It can't watch Joss Whedon trash anymore without spotting a thousand little misogynistic little quirks.

It may be that some of those little quirks are blown out of proportion due to your experiences with his other works, I dunno. The offenses in the few works of Whedon's that I've seen (Firefly, Dr Horrible) are so terribly slight that I simply can't get worked up over them or even register them on my radar.

I never really watched Buffy, Angel or Dollhouse. Can't comment on em.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 9:51 am

clikml wrote:I have nothing but love for Firefly. With the exception of Simon and River (each a bit two dimensional), all the characters had a lot of depth and many of the non-crew members were a mite bit fuzzier than simple cardboard personalities. I sure wasn't feeling the misogyny in that series.

I have a number of extra complaints about the series. There were less actors and characters that I liked compared to Buffy. An odd focus on whoring. A captain character I despised (he was a total dick head in many ways). And the entire show had a running theme where captain dick head may as well have slapped a "The South Will Rise Again!" bumper sticker on his space ship. (You didn't notice that last theme at all? Really?)

But as to misogyny in Fire Fly...

It may be that some of those little quirks are blown out of proportion due to your experiences with his other works, I dunno.

I don't know about how little they were in that series. When I sat down and watched firefly with the friendly neighborhood Whedon fans I played a game I called "count the whoring".

My memory for the show is oddly less detailed (even though I actually sat through every damn episode). But with the episode guide to remind me...

There are only actually 14 episodes of the show ever, and they include these...

Episode 4 "Shindig"
Captain dick head gets all in a snit when he encounters his prostitute crush and ship companion on a escort job at a party. The rest of the episode follows the hilarious antics as he very nearly either kills himself or the other guy in a duel of honor based on petty jealousy over a prostitute he didn't pay for and isn't actually in a relationship with.

Episode 6 "Our Mrs. Reynolds"
"As an unexpected reward for an unpaid job, Mal finds himself married to a naïve, subservient young woman named Saffron."
Who then backstabs him and sells the entire crew out to murdering space pirates, because it's her job and she's done this to many men before in her space pirate/whore profession. I can't quite recall but I think she might also then back stab and turn on the pirates.

Episode 11 "Trash"
"Saffron returns to plague Serenity with a scheme to steal a rare antique weapon from a wealthy landowner. Unfortunately for Mal, she neglects to mention just how she came across the information needed to break into the landowner's home." Which is because she married the guy, and is now backstabbing him, and every other man in sight left right and center, again. And the episode in which she is whoring around to set up heists is seriously titled "Trash"

Episode 13 "Heart of Gold"
The crew is hired to fight to the death with armed thugs attacking a brothel, to protect its prostitutes from a total bastard who wants to kidnap his illegitimate son from one of the workers. Only poor writing makes every aspect of the scenario rather unbelievably contrived and poorly motivated. Also. In this episode the captain either sleeps with (or looks like he does can't remember) a prostitute who is the friend of his crush. On the night before everyone is convinced they are going to be killed. And his crush (despite being a prostitute not actually in a relationship with him) gets all snooty about it. And I'm pretty sure the prostitute he does/doesn't sleep with dies for it.
Also the thugs totally look like Devo in the first scene, that's not a misogyny thing, it was just hilarious costuming.
... I also am annoyed that they titled this episode after the space ship from the hitchhikers guide for NO REASON when it was crying out to be titled in some joke after a certain Dolly Parton musical.

So anyway that's 4 out of 14 episodes that are primarily focused around prostitution of various forms, often various nasty forms. Let's not forget approximately half the other episodes went out of their way to either use the prostitute characters prostituting connections, or just for no real reason took precious and limited scenes to watch her leaving or returning from prostituting jobs that bore no relevance to the actual plot of the episode (probably because they wanted to establish her character, which frankly was little more than "high class space hooker" so they had to focus heavily on the career).

And that in no way covers the captain's penis waving "relationship" with the married woman on his ship, and various other women he meets. No mention of Jane (the total jerk murderer cut throat imbecile guy has a GIRLS NAME). And the over arching pan-series, multi-episode plot of a young genius girl who was tortured into an insane war machine who was still somehow so helpless she needed to be rescued by her big brother and carried around naked in a fucking box.

And you know with just a little more class and writing pizazz they might just have gotten away with all that and more. I mean I could live with a show focused largely around the exciting business of kinky space prostitution. But they somehow made it such that it made me feel sleazy and disgusted, and worst of all STILL BORED despite that.

edit: Proof of hilarious side observation, Thug's from Heart Of Gold and Devo or is it the other way around, can anyone tell?