Equality Now June Benefit - Can't Stop The Serenity

[politicat]

Feminist SF fans UNITE!

Fans Organize 'Global Sci-Fi Charity Event Of The Year'

Fans of the science fiction movie 'Serenity' will be holding screenings in 51 cities in nine countries to raise money and awareness for Equality Now, an international women's rights advocacy group. In its second year, Can't Stop The Serenity looks to raise over $100,000 in donations for the charity.

Dallas, TX (PRWEB) May 7, 2007 -- For the second year, screenings of the science fiction film 'Serenity' will be held around the world in late June to raise money and awareness for an international women's rights advocacy group. The unprecedented effort marks the culmination of a year's work by fans to bring a writer's vision of equality to a mass audience.

Can't Stop The Serenity
By their very nature, science fiction fans want to improve their world
Fans of 'Serenity,' and its television predecessor "Firefly," are fervent in their support of Whedon's works. That fervor helps drive the CSTS events forward.

More information at
www.cantstoptheserenity.com

(And if you are not familiar with Serenity, Firefly, or Joss Whedon's feminist work... Serenity and Firefly are set in a future where humans have abandoned earth for a distant system and have become highly stratified, with a ruling class of core planets and a less law-abiding frontier. It's an SF Western where the tech that worked survived with little to no change. (The feminist aspect really comes from the fact that, like most of Whedon's work, it's strongly character driven, and the female characters are people who live and work and thrive in their worlds and are not bound by gender roles. Oh, and there's this super-heroine teenage girl... )

[ismnotwasm]

1. Cool--very cool

Want to hear something funny? I was seriously thinking about starting a thread about Octavia Bulter. Thanks for the info, I've found the event in my city and will plan to attend- it sounds right up my alley. (I don't like many movies, except sci-fi, a flaw I know)

(Right now I'm listening to "Carmen of the Spheres" by Greg Fox,-- he took the sounds of planetary orbits, slowed them way down and made music. Eerie stuff, but I like it)

[ThomCat]

2. Cool. I haven't seen it yet.

And it's showing in NYC. :)

[ismnotwasm]

3. Oh, if anybody is interested in eerie planetary music

http://homepages.tesco.net/gregskius/carmen.html

It Really is Different.

I'm into Sci-fi, and I understand those who aren't, but I did want to put in a plug for Octavia Butler (Sorry about the thread highjacking! I encourage EVERYONE to see Serenity though!)


http://www.sfwa.org/members/butler/

She was the first Internationally acclaimed black female Sci-fi author. "Kindred" is an incredible book--Not classic Sci-fi, but very powerful

Here is part of an interview prior to her death, promoting her latest book "Fledgling, (which I haven't read):

"OCTAVIA BUTLER: I'm going to read a verse or two. And keep in mind these were written early in the 1990s. But I think they apply forever, actually. This first one, I have a character in the books who is, well, someone who is taking the country fascist and who manages to get elected President and, who oddly enough, comes from Texas. And here is one of the things that my character is inspired to write about, this sort of situation. She says:

"Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be lied to. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery."
And there's one other that I thought I should read, because I see it happening so much. I got the idea for it when I heard someone answer a political question with a political slogan. And he didn't seem to realize that he was quoting somebody. He seemed to have thought that he had a creative thought there. And I wrote this verse:
"Beware, all too often we say what we hear others say. We think what we are told that we think. We see what we are permitted to see. Worse, we see what we are told that we see. Repetition and pride are the keys to this. To hear and to see even an obvious lie again and again and again, maybe to say it almost by reflex, and then to defend it because we have said it, and at last to embrace it because we've defended it."
AMY GOODMAN: On that note we'll have to leave it there, but we'll continue it online at Democracynow.org. Octavia Butler"



She died a little over a year ago, far too soon. And she's sorely missed.

[politicat]

4. Hijack away!

I love Octavia Butler. She was so wonderful - I heard her speak in 1992. She's one of my heros.

For that matter, I find SF&F to be a lot more feminist friendly than a lot of pop-lit; it beats romance by many many long miles, and while I can see Chick-lit as the literary abandoned offspring of the comedy of manners (which was fairly feminist for its time; Austen's heroines are never weak) it's so not my thing and so not forward feminist. Yes, there are a number of dimbulb SF (male) writers who go off on the free-market libertarian paradise, (and there's Orson Scott Card who is just not to be explained...) but even there...

Between Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Robin McKinley, Sherri S Tepper, Mercedes Lackey, Connie Willis and the rest of the women on my bookshelves.... I'm happiest in the SF stacks.

I think that has a lot to do with the fact that SF tends to be about imagining a better world (except for the dystopias, which have their place) and any one thinking about a better world will naturally think that any world where half of the human race is routinely devalued is not an improvement.

[geniph]

5. Joss Whedon writes the strongest female characters in sf

I dearly love Firefly and Serenity. I went to Serenity Day last year, and had a blast. This year, it'll be in a much better venue - a real theatre, with a film projector and air-conditioning! - here in Seattle.

Besides the superheroine teenage girl, there are also three other strong females in the regular cast - one is a military veteran and combat expert, one is a mechanical genius, and the other is the only respectable citizen on the crew - and a sex worker. (I loved that the sex worker is the only respectable person on the ship.)

We Have Done The Impossible, And That Makes Us Mighty! Browncoats unite!

[ThomCat]

6. I was hoping to see the second season on DVD

while visiting friends. They have the collection. But we had so much to do that we just never got around to it. :(

He does create amazing, strong, well developed characters.

[geniph]

7. Sadly, there was no second season.

Fox (bastards!) canceled it after 13 episodes. That's all there is and there ain't no more. I have the set, and every time I watch it, I get madder about it. Shit like According to Jim or Fear Factor stays on the air for centuries, and they cancel FIREFLY after THIRTEEN episodes?! ARGH!