River Tam and the Educated Woman

Aug 10, 2007 16:04


It has occurred to me that River Tam (Firefly) is actually a fairly clever remix of Victorian ideas about women's education.

Think about it: A young girl (River Tam) insists on going to a serious school (the Academy, where she studies graduate physics, among other things, according to the R. Tam Sessions) and competing against boys (she says that a boy named Volger is jealous of her in the R. Tam Sessions) instead of pursuing womanly pursuits (dancing), and her foolish family (the Tams) indulge her, only to find that her education has driven her mad and the best doctors (Simon Tam) can do nothing to help.

Only Joss Whedon reworks that so that the crime is not in the girl being smart and getting educated, but in her school/government experimentation on her and her family's failure to protect her.

Like I said, clever.

gender, analysis, firefly, science fiction

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