Kaywinnit Lee Frye
My Thoughts Regarding Kaylee, from Firefly and Serenity
To anyone who knows much about me and Firefly, it's quickly apparent that I have a special love for Kaylee. She's my favorite, and I love her to death. She's perpetually cheerful, she's sweet, she has a sense of humor, a love for machines that sets her apart from your average 'girly girl' and she loves everyone on the ship, even Jayne. (In fact, I always thought Jayne and Kaylee's relationship was rather sweet - he peeked in on her when she was shot and lying in the infirmary, and she climbed up on his shoulders to score (goal? basket?) in the opening scene of Bushwhacked.)
When I watched Firefly with my mom (I tried to get her to be a fan too, but she simply came out of it saying it was 'okay', or 'not bad, i guess') I noticed a few things when I observed her reactions to some of the characters. She mentioned straightaway that most of the scenes with Inara serve to sexualize her and draw in male viewers, and she has a valid point there. I told her my favorite character was Kaylee and that Jewel Staite was gorgeous (which led the conversation in a whole different direction, but that's another story) and then when we were watching Out of Gas - that's the episode where we first meet Kaylee as she's having sex with the mechanic in the engine room and they are interrupted by Mal - I said something about how that was Kaylee back there and my mom muttered 'She's a slut.'
That made me think about Kaylee and sex, much how I thought about Inara and sex, though with her there are all the issues of being a Companion, and with Kaylee, it's just a normal young woman in the Firefly 'verse. There are a few mentions where Kaylee is very open with the idea of sex. She has a good relationship with Inara, who is probably her closest female friend on Serenity, and often says things that might not be considered 'proper' by Simon, which in fact is a cause of conflict between them - Simon either making offhand comments that have to do with Kaylee not being 'good enough' or Kaylee thinking Simon is 'too proper'.
But really, the only point at which Kaylee has a relationship of that sort with anyone (as the Simon/Kaylee thing isn't really concluded happily until the end of the movie Serenity - one happy couple, yay!) is in the aforementioned scene in Out of Gas, where she is having sex with the mechanic of the Serenity, before they actually hire her and she joins the crew. After Mal catches his mechanic with her, he asks him why they haven't gotten up in the air yet, and the mechanic tells him that the ship's broken and can't be fixed. Kaylee of course, saves the day, and Mal hires her.
It is made clear that Kaylee doesn't really care about the mechanic. She's too excited to be leaving her planet and flying on a spaceship to really care that the fact that she's getting hired means that he's getting fired. The fact that they were in the engine room instead of in the mechanic's bunk because Kaylee liked being around the machines makes me think that she was using him to get onboard and get hired as the mechanic. She mentions that she has a natural 'knack' for machines, and that she wants to get off of her planet, so this is plausible, in my opinion. If using the previous mechanic just to get that opportunity makes her a 'slut', then yes, that's what she is.
Kaylee's not exactly created along the same lines as Inara or Zoe. Kaylee's the girl who paints flowers in the kitchen, draws hearts on everything, and loves pink fluffy dresses and looking pretty. When she's given a gun, she shakes uncontrollably with fear, and she can't really hold her own in a fight. Her talent with machines is often used as a counterargument, but that's a 'natural knack', she says that herself, so can you really count that as a skill that you learn (which shows that you are intelligent, or hardworking, or any number of positive qualities)?
Then again, Kaylee is young. Until River and Simon come on board, she is the youngest person on the ship. Mal and Inara treat her like a younger sister, Jayne cares for her though he doesn't really show it, Wash is her buddy who understands how Serenity works, Zoe - well they don't really seem to hang out much, but I'm sure they like each other, and Shepherd Book likes everyone, so that takes care of that. She is more emotional than any of the others - in the beginning of The Message, Tracey's recording affects her more than anyone else even though, at that point, she's never met the man before.
Sometimes the qualities that make Kaylee who she is annoy me. Sometimes her always sunny disposition is too cloying, but most of the time I just can't help but like her. She has unconditional love for almost everyone she meets, always seeing the good side in everyone and everything. It's nice to see that on a crew that is otherwise quite cynical and jaded. She lends a new perspective, and that's always a good asset to have.