I was a Firefly fan from the very beginning: I was one of the three people who managed to catch Firefly when it aired (out of order and in various time-slots) on Fox. I was a Browncoat long before the official Browncoat board was even created: a rebel fighting for the independents, and for quality televison, in a war we may not have been on the winning side of, but its for gorram sure we weren't on the wrong side, cuz look at us: we've managed to go and get ourselves a little movie called SERENITY! After the cruel cancellation of Firefly by Fox, how's does a little movie like Serenity sit with us flans, do ya think? Pretty cunning, I'd say! Indeed! *Thank you Universal!*
I knit my first Jayne Hat in the spring of 2004 for a Toronto-area con called "Toronto Trek". I got a few heads to turn, which was really nice. In the late summer I went to SFX where I found someone else with a Jayne hat! After that I knit a few Jayne hats for friends and family-members who were fans of the show, in anticipation of the newly announced upcoming movie Serenity! This spring I wore my very fine orange hat to the June 23rd round of "Special Advanced Preview Screenings" of an as-yet-unfinished Serenity. After that I started knitting hats like a mad-person for a Serenity fan-table that a few of us Canadian Browncoats were organizing to promote the movie at SFX 2005. The man we call Jayne himself, Adam Baldwin, was scheduled as one of the guests in attendance. The table was packed with eager Browncoats at all times: you could pick up some really shiny SWAG, like keychains, buttons, and posters, and learn about future Shindigs in Canada. Or you could buy one of our raffle tickets for a chance to win one of our very shiny prizes. We got the word out about the movie to many people. The hats were a very popular item at our table as well, and the nearly 30 hats that I knit sold out in about 2 hours on the first night of the event. Our table raised over $700 for our chosen charity CANFAR (the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research). Adam came by the table twice throughout the weekend to thank us for our support of the movie, and to get his picture taken at the table with us volunteers. Awww! What a sweetie!
So now I've decided to throw my own orange-ish hat into the ring and start knitting hats for them Browncoats as need them. I'm not knitting for very much profit, let me tell you, I'm just trying to help get the word out, and these bright and sunny red, orange and yellow toques act as a bold statement of any Browncoat's loyalty to the fandom. As Wash says in "The Message" "A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything." As Browncoats who've had our favourite show meddled with, and finally cancelled by Fox, we are like Jayne and his cunning hat in a lot of ways: we ain't afraid of nothin' (cuz what could be worse than cancellation?). Therefore I say: Wear a Jayne hat with pride! And for everyone who asks about your shiny new hat, tell them about this brilliant new movie called Serenity. Better yet: show them the DVDs, bring them along with you to see the movie (once, twice, three times, even). Cuz the more people who see Serenity, the more chance there is for SEQUELS! And maybe we'll be on the winning side of this war yet.
Special Edition DVD out in July 2007
Questions? Comments? Email: angela