Quite a few emailers have misunderstood my arguably garbled bit about how Serenity would be denounced as fascism. Yesterday, I wrote “In the 1930s, when ideological content was deliberate and ideological deviationism was denounced, Serenity would be villified as “fascist” for its opposition to social planning.”

Lots of people said, in effect, “but Fascism was all about social planning!”

Of course it was. But in the 1930s, anything which undermined the ideological agenda of the Reds was denounced as “fascist” in the 1930s. This is why Communists declared Mickey Mouse to be fascistic, because he — and other popular entertainments — distracted the proletariat from the worker’s struggle and all that nonsense. Serenity would be seen — exactly as Whedon intended it — as a denunciation of collectivism, root and branch. And, even though fascists were collectivists to the core, people who opposed collectivism were called “fascists” by the left — as they are today.