It's Battlestar day!
Mar. 6th, 2009 04:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenBecause BSG is on again tonight, I'm thinking seriously about how they're never going to resolve any of their plot lines satisfactorily. But I'm still trying to work out how they might, which is endlessly frustrating. Fun! I need the relief, honestly. Last week was decent enough to make me hopeful, and this entire week has been one of disappointing Netflix rentals so I've had nothing else to distract me. (F-list, feel free to remove Martin, Kurt Cobain: About a Son, and Sharkwater from your queues on my recommendation. You'll thank me for saving you several wasted rentals.)
I did finally watch Hello, Dolly last night. It's a confusing story at times because Barbara Streisand swallows a lot of her dialogue. She and Walter Matthau also have negative chemistry, which makes sense since apparently they hated each other. If you, like me, added that one to your queue because of Wall-E, I'd say you can probably skip it and not miss much. YouTube the dancing sequence for "Put on Your Sunday Clothes," and look at some pictures of Babs in her awesome gowns (and equally amazing hats), and you achieve the same effect in under half an hour (instead of over two).
But back to BSG: this article pretty much articulates all the things I have ever thought about this show's problematic representations of women. (Spoilers for recent episodes, so beware.) There's one paragraph in there where the author just lists the incredible number of female characters that have been killed off on this show--usually significant characters for freqeuently insignificant or underexplained reasons. It's fucking depressing. I tried to come up with a counter list of male characters, and it was much, much shorter and had fewer big names. Now, you can argue that that means BSG is doing something amazing having so many female characters be so visibly important that their deaths mean more than those of male characters. Or you could, more reasonably, conclude that that means women are punished disproportionately relative to men.
It's like saying, "Wow, there are so many female characters on Supernatural!" and neglecting to mention that 90% of them are victims-of-the-week, evil (Bella), stupid (Jo), or just there for sex (every one else). Yes, the numbers are on your side. The show is still focused on and supportive of the dudes. BSG isn't quite as bad as that, but given that every female character who steps out of line gets killed, it's not too far off.
I do disagree on one point with that article: being a robot doesn't make a female character less awesome.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
moonlightalice rather excellently reminds me that the show has hardly addressed the moral consequence of the humanoid Cylons' biology: if they're so close to human as to be indistinguishable from them, then can they be said to be any less fully people? I say nay, and I shake my fist at the article on behalf of the awesome female Cylons left. Um, well, Ellen and Athena at this point are the only ones left, but still! ::FIST SHAKING::
This is a very funny reversal toviridian, I am sure. Previously, I always resisted allowing the Cylons to have any of the best or worst of the characters because it would excuse the larger-than-life largesse or pettiness of which humanity is capable to say that those highs and lows were robot perfection or short-circuiting, respectively. She frequently accused me of being Team Human. I didn't ever think that was true. I was just on Team Not Raging Assholes. It happens that many of those people were human. Except, as it turns out, no, no they weren't. So I've always been on Team Not Raging Assholes; it's just that they switched biology on me. To the point where I am now a Cylon defender. What a tangled web we do weave.
I did finally watch Hello, Dolly last night. It's a confusing story at times because Barbara Streisand swallows a lot of her dialogue. She and Walter Matthau also have negative chemistry, which makes sense since apparently they hated each other. If you, like me, added that one to your queue because of Wall-E, I'd say you can probably skip it and not miss much. YouTube the dancing sequence for "Put on Your Sunday Clothes," and look at some pictures of Babs in her awesome gowns (and equally amazing hats), and you achieve the same effect in under half an hour (instead of over two).
But back to BSG: this article pretty much articulates all the things I have ever thought about this show's problematic representations of women. (Spoilers for recent episodes, so beware.) There's one paragraph in there where the author just lists the incredible number of female characters that have been killed off on this show--usually significant characters for freqeuently insignificant or underexplained reasons. It's fucking depressing. I tried to come up with a counter list of male characters, and it was much, much shorter and had fewer big names. Now, you can argue that that means BSG is doing something amazing having so many female characters be so visibly important that their deaths mean more than those of male characters. Or you could, more reasonably, conclude that that means women are punished disproportionately relative to men.
It's like saying, "Wow, there are so many female characters on Supernatural!" and neglecting to mention that 90% of them are victims-of-the-week, evil (Bella), stupid (Jo), or just there for sex (every one else). Yes, the numbers are on your side. The show is still focused on and supportive of the dudes. BSG isn't quite as bad as that, but given that every female character who steps out of line gets killed, it's not too far off.
I do disagree on one point with that article: being a robot doesn't make a female character less awesome.
moonlightalice rather excellently reminds me that the show has hardly addressed the moral consequence of the humanoid Cylons' biology: if they're so close to human as to be indistinguishable from them, then can they be said to be any less fully people? I say nay, and I shake my fist at the article on behalf of the awesome female Cylons left. Um, well, Ellen and Athena at this point are the only ones left, but still! ::FIST SHAKING::This is a very funny reversal to
viridian, I am sure. Previously, I always resisted allowing the Cylons to have any of the best or worst of the characters because it would excuse the larger-than-life largesse or pettiness of which humanity is capable to say that those highs and lows were robot perfection or short-circuiting, respectively. She frequently accused me of being Team Human. I didn't ever think that was true. I was just on Team Not Raging Assholes. It happens that many of those people were human. Except, as it turns out, no, no they weren't. So I've always been on Team Not Raging Assholes; it's just that they switched biology on me. To the point where I am now a Cylon defender. What a tangled web we do weave.
