Joss Whedon's Big Damn Movie

Frederick Blichert is an independent scholar, journalist, and film critic. His writing has appeared in VICE, Paste Magazine, CBC, Senses of Cinema, and Bright Lights Film Journal. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Table of Contents


Introduction: Spotlight on Serenity

A Reaver in the Writers Room: The Cannibal Approach

to Box Office Fear (London Brickley)

Completion of Character and Relationship in Serenity (S. Evan Kreider)

Death in the ’Verse (H.S. Hobma)

Cassandra Revisited: River Tam, Hysteria and the Politics

of Ecstatic Revenge (Aviva ­Dove-Viebahn)

“Better worlds”: Western Heroes and the Civilized ’Verse (Frederick Blichert)

The Miranda Job: Serenity as Crime Film (Ina Rae Hark)

Overconsumption, the Natural Environment and Lessons from ­Earth-That-Was (Eric Benson)

“Eat them all the time/Let them blow your mind”: River and the Unacknowledged Corporate Hand in Serenity (Erin Giannini)

Failed Experiment: Miranda and the Critique of Social Engineering

(Andrew Howe)

Miranda: Conflicting Anxieties, Ableism and Population Health

(Max Ferguson)

“She’s a creature of extraordinary grace”: Resistance Through

Dance to the Myth of “Civilized Cultures”(Joel Hawkes)

“The Indians ride over the hill”: Revisiting “On the Paradoxical

Construction of the Reavers” (Agnes B. Curry)

Unspeakable Darkness: Truth, Power and the Taboo of Race (Renee St. Louis)

Paint It Red (and Black and Blue): How Joss Whedon

and Jack N. Green Created the Bruised, Beautiful Look

of Serenity (K. Brenna Wardell)

Spaceships as Soundscapes in Serenity(Holly ­Randell-Moon and Arthur J. Randell)

About the Contributors

Index