Thomas Shey
Legend
Look, please stop. I've been being super nice about this. I keep saying that I don't like it. But please stop trotting out this whole, "What? How can anyone possible not like this?"
You're going to like or not what you want. But I've seen a bit too much claims that its "obvious" Lost Cause apologism to just let that go. If its too close for you, it is, but that doesn't make your perceptions self-evident.
Whedon based it on a CIVIL WAR book. He has stated, on the record and before it became controversial, that Killer Angers was the inspiration*. None of this is remotely in dispute. It's not just Western Tropes ... it's specific to the Civil War in America.
He has also repeatedly stated that he envisioned Firefly as having been modeled after the RECONSTRUCTION era during the Civil War.
"I was taken with the idea of a civil war and rebuilding from the point of view of people who had lost the war." -Whedon.
I mean- Browncoats. C'mon, man. Like what you like, but don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining. If I don't like something, then I don't like it, and telling me to ignore what I see with my eyes isn't going to change that.
And ignoring the things that clearly point that, inspiration or not, that's not what he's doing doesn't make those go away.