thebitterguy

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reviewer := crazy;
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Probably too much emphasis on the role of women in the show. Although she didn't mention Starbuck at all (which you note), probably because of Starbuck flying in the face of her fauxneofeministtheory lunacy.

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life-on-queen.livejournal.com

Um, I read the first sentence and dude's all the way out to lunch. If anything, it's Flaming Liberal Galactica - of course, what makes the show work on an allegorical level is that so many of the issues play both ways. On the one hand, Roslin (Mary McDonnel) is like Hilary Clinton with balls and morals. On the other, she's also been known to sanction attempted genocide of the cylons and tried to steal an election (because sometimes, as Bush demonstrates, democracy really is wasted on the people).

The recent New Caprica storyline which saw the majority of the human characters under a Cylon occupation has been footballed a bit as either sympathy for the terrorists or NeoCon-ism - but the storyline actually brings in elements from everything from Vichy France to Afghanistan, so saying that they were speaking allegorically about Iraq specifically or any other neo-con cause celebre is pretty stupid.

So yes, spitting distance of crazy.

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uncut-diamond.livejournal.com

And look at what Sharon/Boomer/Athena is going through lately. Wow.

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absinthe-dot-ca.livejournal.com

I haven't seen that many episodes of BSG, but from the few I've seen, compared with this review, I'm beginning to wonder if there are two different series with the same name, same cast, and same crew? This reviewer has a (not-very-hidden) agenda which has very little to do with watching BSG, IMHO.

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thothmeister.livejournal.com

The author here is definitely crazy. Don't let the fact that there's a black Cylon, and the presence of Dee mar this fantasy. The fact that Sharon is Asian, not Caucasian, also escapes them...

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newnumber6.livejournal.com

To be fair, they only watched S1, so I don't think Black Cylon was revealed yet. Dee was mentioned (not by name, but she was the one who 'opens her mouth so easily to the ministrations of the president’s aide trying to get inside info on the fleet commander, Adama' (which, to be not so fair, is not entirely accurate either, it's more of a trade with both sides trying to get info from the other, IIRC)), and Boomer is clearly mentioned as Asian so I'm not sure where you're getting that part. ;)

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Or Dee, or Cally, or Biers, or Cain, or Racetrack, or Kat, or Hadrian, or Seelix.

In my opinion, the male and female characters in the show are pretty much equally accusable of stereotyping. But, ahem, doesn't melodrama depend on stereotypes to a certain degreee? I think it's fairly safe to call BSG a melodrama, isn't it? I'm not sure it has much in the way of pretensions to drama: it's pretty much plot driven rather than character driven (although, the characters do tend to be more carefully drawn than in similar shows, which helps explain why it's pretty good).

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I can understand that response. Early on, the gender stuff was a bit dodgy and the racial stuff was even worse (being largely problematic in the near total absence of any black characters). However, Dee have become a considerably more important character as the show went on (helping to improve both racial and gender problems) and in general, by the end of Season 1, they were doing vastly better wrt gender than they were at the beginning. Both Starbuck and Roslin were fairly problematic from a gender perspective at the start, but were notably better by the end of the season and have continued to improve. Watching president Roslin became an skilled and powerful leader is one of the triumphs of the show. Also, Starbuck's early mixture of obvious celibacy combined with her hard-drinking, loose-cannon fighter-pilot male stereotype was equally problematic, but has again greatly improved.

It is very much a post 2001 geek TV show, which means that the gender equality of shows like Xena, B-5, DS: 9, Buffy, and 2nd-4th season Angel is largely absent from TV. BSG isn't as good as any of these shows wrt gender, but it is also far better than most modern TV.

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Indeed. Season 1 had a number of troublesome elements (althogh it remained sadly far better than any other current US-made geek TV), but the show continues to improve in that regard.

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And dare we point out that the biggest name on the show is not exactly a stand-up caucasian poster boy, is he? I mean, I gathered that Olmos was rather proud of his hispanic and aboriginal central-american heritage?

It's all very well to brand BSG as being "all white" when what you really mean is "mostly not black", but there's a great temptation for this confusion to be made in modern commentary.

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Actually, early on Starbuck fit perfectly. Before the worked on characterizing her better, she was a typical male stereotype (the loose cannon fighter-pilot) but while male versions of this stereotype are always highly sexual, she was (in most of the first season) completely asexual. For most of the first season, the only women who were sexual beings were evil Cylons, making for a nice equation of female sexuality being evil. Since the end of Season 1, this has completely changed, much to the credit of the show.

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bandersnitch.livejournal.com

I find myself in the same situation as this reviewer. I have just finished the first season too.

But I am completely the opposite of what this writer thinks of the show. The slutty stilletto version of the cylon is just in Gious' imagination. Its an implant or subconscious memory.. or something I dont know.

The whole point of the Cylons imitating humans is to blend in and emulate them. Of course they will come in different flavours.

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I can't recall the first season very well (I viewed it largely as background information for the second season), but wasn't quite a lot of it spent lamenting the fact that she a) had lost her own lover and b) wanted to boink Apollo? Or do you mean "highly sexual" in the sense that she was clearly female, rather than just one of the characters who happened to be played by a female character?

I also thought that the fact that the evil Cylons were the only females who were "sexual beings" was more a commentary on the perceptions of the males who fall victim to them rather than any sort of commentary on female sexuality as an evil—but that's probably just another facet of what you're saying. The Cylons were, after all, toasters.

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Isn't part of the fun of BSG the ways in which these stereotypes start to fall to bits with everything else after the initial attack?

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perich.livejournal.com

The thing is, if you're watching a show through a preconceived framing narrative, nothing you can say about it is "wrong." You can find neoconservative inferences in any form of media.

But the fact that he/she pines wistfully for Babylon 5 indicates that he/she is, in fact, crazy. ;-)

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I wouldn't necessarily say "fall to bits" because I think the characters are, at the core, standard melodramatic role figures which remain relatively true to their nature. On the other hand, BSG does things with them, as good melodrama should: they play riffs on them, they confront their natures with conflict, the characters even change over time (slowly, slowly) as they accrue facets of shared history along with the watching audience.

But "stern but wise father-figure who wrestles with his own fears of inadequacy and secrets from his past" is still Adama, essentially. Etc. etc.

The Cylon vibe is interesting, as well, because it allows them to cast stereotypical roles through the lens of a radically different culture.

By calling it melodrama, I don't mean to demean the show: I think it's well made. But it's definitely melodrama more than it's drama.

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Not to mention that it's still not clear whether Gaius-Six is (a) real, (b) a figment of his imagination, (c) a real figment that's brought to life by his imagination, or (d) some strange combination of these or something else entirely.

I have theories on what Gaius-Six is, but they're not really mid-season-one spoiler safe, so I won't talk about 'em here.

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You can find neoconservative inferences in any form of media

Well... it may be true that a reader/viewer can do that, but then the responsible reader/viewer should try and make a decent case that the text actually supports their response.

And certainly something you can say about it can be "wrong", if we understand "wrong" to mean completely or wholly unsupported by the text. But I think you're correct in this respect: "wrong" is a loaded word. Perhaps safer to say only that this particular reviewer doesn't seem to have made a decent case for the presented observations about the text.

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I agree. It is well made melodrama.

I did say "start to fall to bits." I suppose I should have just said "start to develop facets to their otherwise stereotypical natures."

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What I mean is that Starbuck wasn't at all sexual in the 1st season, none of the women who were defined as good were. The women who acted as sexual beings were Cylons. You don't see Starbuck, the president, or any other women who is not evil having anything resembling a sex drive. The same is definitely not true for the male characters. That's the problem I'm talking about, but fortunately, it's not really a problem at all anymore.

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Was the Lee-Dualla-Billy thing in the second season, then? Or is Dee disqualified for her blackness? Again, wasn't there a period early on when Starbuck and Lee have this sort of pining for each other moment? There's also the Cally pining after the Chief thread. Not to mention the presence of Tigh's wife, though she's a bit of a wanton woman and therefore likely evil.

Of the males I thought only Gaius and the Chief demonstrated any sort of sex drive, both on the business end of Cylons... except for the Lee-Dee-Billy thing.

But as I said, my memory of the first season is hazy at best and I tend to smoosh together the seventeen episodes that comprise the first season and early events on the second in my mind.

I certainly think that one can make that sort of argument and read all sorts of gender issues stuff, because aspects of it are present. But it's also too generalised a comment to say that the only women with sex drives are Cylons. It ignores the role of the men in the series at this point—by and large they are devoid of sex drives as well (except Gaius). So possible, potentially interesting, and ludicrous.

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