Throughout it’s global 2011 season, Can’t Stop the Serenity presented to audiences an introductory video which included remarks from Joss Whedon. In those remarks, he discussed the impact of CSTS across the first six years of its existence, and declared his intention to increase his own efforts to promote Equality Now in 2012, the year of its twentieth anniversary.

Hi.

It’s been awhile. It’s been several years, in fact, since they took the sky from me and we, somehow, took it back.

Making SERENITY was, as some of you know, an obsession for me, was a need. A need to be heard, to exist, not to be snuffed out.

Like the show, the movie was very much about the experience of making it. The victory was brief and costly, and ended without much fanfare.

Except, of course, that it didn’t, and a number of people, some of whom are in this very room tonight, kept it going, took it to a real cult status, and, more importantly, more than a cult you made it a cause.

To date, through these screenings the Browncoats have raised over half a million dollars for Equality Now, and a lot of money for other charities as well. I can take credit for exactly none of this, but I can take a minute to tell you what it means, and what it means to me.

Equality Now is basically fighting for the same sort of thing that the crew of Serenity fights for. The right, in this case for women — women in the direst, most poverty stricken, and exploitive circumstances — to be heard, to exist, not to be snuffed out.

Equality Now is not a particularly well-known organization, they’re not flashy, they’re not red carpety, they’re not ripped from the headlines. Advocacy takes time, it takes years. Decades. Decades fighting things like child marriage, sex trafficking, female genital mutilation.

Now, I know that at this point you’re like, “Female genital mutilation! … Who wants more popcorn? Why does Joss come to the nice movie and– genital… trafficking… so cold. I am a leaf on the– no, that’s bad, too. Why…?”

So here’s why.

Next year, Equality Now will celebrate, if that’s the word, will clock its twentieth year — two decades of fighting the good fight, fighting the cause, and in case I haven’t been the clear the cause is that one half of the human race is given the same basic equal rights that the other half enjoys.

Or, not given. Given back.

That is not a milestone, twenty years, that I intend to go unnoticed. I want to make some noise. I want to make a joyful noise, I want to make too much noise. I want the neighbors to complain. I’m tired of being polite about something that matters so much.

As Malcolm Reynolds would say, “It is my target to have the ill behaviors.” I think that’s what he says, I don’t really know that film.

So, next year: more, louder, crazier.

We want to increase membership, we want to increase awareness. We will be doing everything we can to get people to make that small, personal commitment that really does make a difference in what is an actual fight against actual evil.

I want to not just be noticed, I want to celebrate, and I want to celebrate you guys and everything you’ve done, how grateful you’ve made me as an artist and as a quasi-activist, so we’re going to be doing more things.

We’re going to be having some events, we’re going to be having some auctions, things we haven’t even thought of yet.

We may have to have a shindig.

We may have to have more than one.

I will keep you posted.

In the meantime, enjoy the show. Enjoy it more, because you guys have done so much. You have put me to shame, if I had the ability to feel shame.

You’ve helped people around the world who will never know you.

You’ve made me very, very grateful, and you’ve made me remember, time and again, the first rule of flying.

Thank you.