Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2021: Week 17

The Rape of Inara: On heroines, consent, and women’s sexuality is an essay by prozacpark about the planned episode of Firefly in which Inara would have been raped by reavers. The episode was not produced because the show got cancelled, but the contents of it were discussed by Tim Minear.

The description of the scene:

It opens with Mal and Inara fighting (as they do). Mal tells her she pretends to be a lady and wants everyone to bow before her and kiss her hand but she’s just a whore. Then the Reavers attack and take Inara. While trying to get her back they learn that she had something that would make anyone who had sex with her die. When they finally track down and board the ship they find all of the Reavers dead and Inara shaking and traumatized. They take her back to the ship and Zoe guards her room. Mal tries to get in to see her and Zoe tells him he’s the last person Inara needs to see. He pushes past her, kneels before Inara and kisses her hand.

prozacpark stated that they were "now gleefully happy that “Firefly” got canceled" in the wake of the revelation, and proceeded to deconstruct the double standard applied to women in fiction regarding consensual sex, as well as the "Hooker with a Heart of Gold" archetype and why these characters are so often considered to be anti-heroines.

The essay prompted further critique of Firefly and discussion of rape as a narrative device in the comments. The essay has since been frequently linked to and cited outside of LiveJournal and has become a go-to essay to support criticisms of Firefly and Joss Whedon's treatment of female characters.