In the sci-fi series Firefly, two of the main characters--tough-girl first mate Zoe and goofy pilot Wash--are married to each other. They start the series as a long-married couple and they finish it married. They're obviously nuts about each other and they have plenty of sex, and they don't go through any drama with their relationship.
Or rather, they go through lots of drama--attacks by crazed space barbarians and traitorous space pirates and the evil space empire--but their relationship is stable through it all. The series isn't about their relationship; it's about wacky space action and they just happen to be happily married.
(I acknowledge that this is probably because the series didn't run long enough for Joss Whedon to put them through the most miserable, wrenching breakup imaginable, and he probably only kept them together so long so it would hurt more. But let's work with what's on the screen, not what we damn well know was coming.)
Zoe and Wash's marriage made me realize how rare this is in fiction--the depiction of a stable couple as still being interesting people. So often, the formation of a couple is the end of the story--our hero got the girl, credits roll. It's rare enough to see "our hero got the girl, but they still have space pirates to fight," much less "our hero got the girl before the story even started, but they still have space pirates to fight." (It's also significant that Zoe and Wash got together because they were attracted to each other, not because Wash was so good at fighting space pirates that he "got" Zoe.) The idea that life and struggle don't culminate in love, but that your story continues after even you fall in love, is very rarely found in Hollywood.
And it's too bad, because in real life, relationships are not the end. The credits don't roll and you don't get to enter your high score. Life doesn't get magically easier or simpler, and the relationship itself is an ongoing process. Love becomes not a reward that you can sit back and enjoy, but a part of your life. (Oh, and people in relationships still have sex like whoa.) So you're in love, true lasting love; good for you, but together and on your own, you've still got a hell of a lot of battles left to fight.
What are just as interesting are the moments where their relationship comes into play - particularly in War Stories. It's not discussed by any of the characters, but Zoe doesn't choose to pick Wash over Mal because he's her husband, but because he's the very best pilot.
ReplyDelete(I am a massive Firefly nerd)
The trouble with a lot of entertainments is that they require drama, tension, and conflict. Many, many characters do really stupid-ass things, otherwise, there would be no plot. Wheedon is one of the better writers, but still. One of the best endings of Firefly was when everyone sat down to dinner, and you really got the sense of River and Simon had joined a whole family. But an hour of everyone getting along and doing their jobs quietly wouldn't hold people's attention for very long.
ReplyDeleteYay Firefly! Actually, I'm pretty sure Joss wasn't planning a breakup for them; he's talked in interviews about how Fox wanted them not to be married so they could put in more tension, and Joss insisted that they be together already because he wanted to show a stable married couple.
ReplyDeleteI loved the Zoe/Wash dynamic--the juxtaposition of their stable relationship and the uncertain lifestyle of the whole crew really highlighted both at once.
ReplyDeleteAs for the movie: ladies, don't do what I did and watch it when you're all hormonal and prone to tears.
And it's too bad, because in real life, relationships are not the end. The credits don't roll and you don't get to enter your high score.
ReplyDeleteExactly. When movies act like "getting the girl/guy" is the end of the story, it propagates the ridiculous notion that love is a switch you turn on - that once you're in love, everything will just run smoothly on autopilot and you'll live happily ever after.
This belief that love doesn't need maintenance is a big reason why my marriage failed. Although my ex's raging alcoholism also played a part.
I was thinking that while watching Friday Night Lights: it's amazingly rare. I guess writers tend to use relationship drama (or, usually, getting-the-girl-roll-credits) as a default. Sure, any story needs conflict, but there are so many other sources for conflict. Like Reavers!
ReplyDeleteEven better, Wash was funny and brilliant, but not very strong or useful in a fight, whereas Zoe could kick someone to death without blinking, and we were never presented with this strong woman/funny man dynamic as being anything other than perfectly normal.
ReplyDeleteI think Zoe and Wash was one of Whedon's biggest relationship writing successes. They felt like what an actual happily married couple is like. Because hey, guess what, they exist.
ReplyDeleteWilliamthecoroner - I feel the same way about stable relationships as I do about female action heroes--I wouldn't want them to be ubiquitous, but I wish they were more represented.
ReplyDeletePersonal Failure - Yeah, I liked the balance they found between "Zoe is strong so Wash must be stronger" and "Zoe is strong so Wash must be weak." Zoe is strong and Wash is just Wash.
And it's too bad, because in real life, relationships are not the end. The credits don't roll and you don't get to enter your high score.
ReplyDeleteOh my God, it took me FOREVER to learn this (though I say that, at age 26, realizing that some people never figure this out), especially during my horrible abusive first relationship where we spent hours talking about how perfect everything would be "someday." I realized afterwords that I had no clear picture of what someday looked like, and the blurry pictures I did have were boring as hell.
I wish this were a way more common thing in movies and TV so badly.
My wife and I want to be as cool as Zoe and Wash.
ReplyDeleteJust a quick SQUEEEE over this topic and I'll be back later to comment when I have time to read everybody else!!
ReplyDeleteYou've just outlined why I'm immensely frustrated by most romantic plotlines (they have tension! they get together! there's a misunderstanding! they break up! and get together again! repeat ad nauseum!) and tend to avoid shows where romance is a significant part of the plot. It's not that I don't enjoy seeing characters fall in love, but it seems like too much of the time it's used as a cheap tool to milk senseless drama from otherwise perfectly reasonable people.
ReplyDeleteAlso, as you say, there's more to relationships than just starting them.
(And Zoe/Wash FTW! I love those two to a really ridiculous degree.)
Also, williamthecoroner:
ReplyDeleteThat's what space pirates are for! :P
I mean, obviously some shows are going to be more centered around relationships, but it seems like romantic drama tends to be overused unnecessarily when you can get drama out of so many other things (and so many other types of relationships. Look at Supernatural: it's a show that's got an insane amount of relationship drama, but nearly all of it is focused on family relationships rather than romantic ones. And I find it a lot more interesting for that)
@ The EGE ... I thought Zoe picked Wash in that scene because she knew he couldn't withstand torture and Mal could.
ReplyDeleteI also love the way Wash talks about Zoe's beauty as being entirely connected with her *strength* -- she's a warrior & he thinks that is totally hot.
flightless
Because TV and movies that have that dynamic are so rare, it's worth mentioning Undercover Blues, a silly, fun movie about a devoted husband-and-wife team of retired spies.
ReplyDeleteI always thought Zoe picked Wash exactly because he was her husband.
Undercover Blues is one of my favorites (Kathleen Turner and Dennis Quaid having simply obscene amounts of fun), as are both Addams Family movies.
ReplyDeleteThat, to my mind, should be our definition of a romantic comedy- not two self-absorbed neurotic idiots trying to manage basic human relations.
Oh Joss! Makes the best damn shows that get cancelled. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of my two big pet peeves when it comes to film. I wnat stable relationship charachters where the relationship isn't part of the story and I want LGBT characters where their orientation is not part of the story. Why is that so much to ask? It seems clear by the comments here that I'm not alone in this desire.
The Thin Man franchise has a happily married couple as its protagonists. They are films from the 30s or 40s about a married couple that solve crimes.
I see a lot of complaints about movies and tv shows, but this sort of thing has been going on for a lot longer. I'm thinking of the plot of pretty much any Shakespearean comedy or any of the "marry 'em off" Jane Austin novels.
ReplyDeleteLove this post! Zoe and Wash do have their issues (the arrival of Mrs. Reynolds, anyone?) but they communicate and work things out like grown-ups. It's almost impossible to find in today's television.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, I also love that the hero never gets the girl in this one. Mal and Inara never end up even close to together, despite all of the tension. So. Much. Tension.
It might help Mal if he could quit referring to Inara's profession as whoring, and implying that neither whoring nor being a companion is an honorable profession. There is nothing wrong with either, if one has the proper temperament and training.
ReplyDeleteSorry...that's one of my pet peeves with the show (besides it being canceled).
@Heroditus 7:04- I think that's shown as one of the reasons why they don't get together: most other characters on the show defend Inara's right to do whatever the hell she wants (I'm thinking of both 'Heart of Gold' and that one with the ball, and Kayley in the dress? Can't think of the name! At the end, when yer man says he'll ruin Inara's business, she says that actually, it's the opposite- she is more influential than her client). Mal is the only main character who sees anything wrong with what Inara does, and it's still shown to stem more from jealousy than because he thinks she's immoral.
ReplyDelete"I also love the way Wash talks about Zoe's beauty as being entirely connected with her *strength* -- she's a warrior & he thinks that is totally hot."
I loved that about the series- that no-one ever implied that Wash should be stronger, or that he was weak for marrying Zoe, or that he should just sit back because Zoe would do everything. And on the flip side, no-one was implying that Zoe was less female for being a soldier.
And NOW I freaking HATE telephone poles.
ReplyDelete:-(
There are certainly some good examples of married couples both of whose members are interesting people in older movies. Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man and its sequels strike me as such, as do Adam and Amanda Bonner in Adam's Rib.
ReplyDeleteAs for the movie: ladies, don't do what I did and watch it when you're all hormonal and prone to tears.
ReplyDeleteThis applies to guys, too. *ahem*
----
It might help Mal if he could quit referring to Inara's profession as whoring, and implying that neither whoring nor being a companion is an honorable profession. There is nothing wrong with either, if one has the proper temperament and training.
Sorry...that's one of my pet peeves with the show (besides it being canceled).
I believe this is called "making the perfect the enemy of the good". Admittedly, I don't watch a lot of TV, but I can't recall any other American production that gave anywhere near as positive a spin on prostitution as a career as Firefly did. And it would have been pretty boring if everyone on the show were totally socially correct all the time.
----
Sharon: "Shindig".
What Sharon said. Everyone's a little bit ooh-ah about Inara, so her profession isn't just a given; but at the same time, apart from people who are clearly jackasses (the rich guys in Heart of Gold and Shindig; various Alliance types) and Mal (who, like others have said, is pretty clearly jealous), no one has a moral issue with it. And even Mal is pretty clear about where his respect lies when Atherton does his bit in Shindig, even if he's lousy at showing it most of the time.
ReplyDeleteGreat topic...I have seen enough Firefly to get what everyone has mentioned (and to make me want to watch the rest!) and I'm so glad someone mentioned the other example of a healthy and loving yet realistic relationship on TV, Eric and Tammi on Friday Night Lights...and so appropriate for me as I am a sci-fi nerd and a sports geek.
ReplyDeleteSo true that the part where the two people get together is just the beginning...a real relationship should be a team effort: you and me facing the world and the inevitable ups and downs together. Yes, we may constructively criticize each other and process rough stuff in private, but we present a strong, loving, and united front to the world...that's what I like to see in the couples whose relationship I admire, as well as what I strive for myself.
It's so sad that it's rare to see this depicted in entertainment media, but then if your purpose is to support the advertising of products that depend on pitting people against each other and feeding low self-esteem and self-doubt that can be magically "fixed" by buying something, I suppose it's not so surprising :(
Mal could do that, but then he wouldn't be Mal. Mal has seen a lot of the system, but that mostly means a lot of dusty moons. He's NOT some cosmopolitan sophisticate; he IS provincial and his character makes a lot of sense that way. You can feel bad for him that he keeps betraying his disrespect for Inara's profession, but it wouldn't make sense if he suddenly had a revelation that it's all OK.
ReplyDeleteYou could certainly have him try to ignore it and romance Inara anyway . . . but the most realistic way to do that would still involve him trying and failing to overcome his prejudice. Their relationship is two old western cliches in one: the dusty but honorable cowboy/soldier who loves the beautiful but sad whore and would rescue her if he could, and the dusty but honorable cowboy/soldier who loves the sophisticated city woman even though they're from different worlds.
In this case, the sad whore is also the sophisticated lady from "back east," and she's not interested in being rescued . . . so Mal doesn't quite know what to do with her.
Maybe eventually he would have figured it out if FOX HAD MANAGED TO SCHEDULE A GORRAM--sorry, that happens sometimes. It's my rage.
Also, Flightless is right. Zoe picked Wash without hesitation because she knew Mal would last longer and that Mal would expect her to get Wash out of danger. It's not clear whether she was planning to rescue Mal at that moment, but the commentary track makes her motive explicit.
ReplyDelete(I really liked Firefly, but once I got the DVD set, it was the piece that really hooked my wife on sci-fi. She's a fanatic. It's awesome.)
Umm, technically Joss Whedon DID put them through the most miserable, wrenching breakup imaginable.
ReplyDeletethere's something like this in the new series of Doctor Who - Amy and Rory are married, but still go off travelling through space and time and having adventures. it kinda gets complicated when she's pregnant but not, and a clone, and kidnapped. their relationship isn't exactly 'conventional' either, she's often 'the man in the relationship' (i hate that concept, but you get what i mean), and of course there's the whole impact of the doctor in there too. but i think it's another great example of a constant couple in TV, even though he has to be reassured that she loves him and not the doctor (a nice change from the woman being the insecure one).
ReplyDeleteI know this thread is old, idk if you'll see this but if you do ;) I really liked that about Firefly too; I think there's a similar thing between Uhura and Spock in Star Trek XI. They're not married but they're in a healthy, loving relationship while having space adventures. I hope they continue it in the next Star Trek movie!
ReplyDeleteBless this post. It's really opened my eyes, and it's made me realise why I did a double-take (and that I DID a double take) when I found out the two were married. It's a sad fact about media in general that a married couple where the two aren't in any way controversial or creepy, and genuinely and unreservedly love one another, and ARE FRIGGING MAIN CHARACTERS, is so rare in fiction that it can provoke a startled reaction from an otherwise open-minded fellow.
ReplyDelete