TELEVISION FOR NEO -CONS?For the longest time I've been telling friends that the new Battlestar Galactica is one of the best shows on television. It's like the West Wing meets 24 with a smattering of Band Of Brothers... in outer space... with evil robots (aka Cylons). It's basically sci fi/action for smart people. Between the exploding spaceships, triple cross betrayals and political intrigue, the show has tackled everything from abortion to theology to alcoholism. Most remarkably, it may be the only program on TV (present or past) where sexual enlightment truly exists. In the world of BG, a women's sex is irrelevant to her profession, ability to perform or the respect she recieves. Sexual politics simply don't exist and the show's femaile characters are just as interesting, flawed, noble and complex as any of the male characters. Maybe moreso.
Which isn't to say sex and/or personal relationships don't exist in the show. They do. It's just that the gender of the characters never informs their professional decisions, emotions or reactions. The women never try to prove themselves equal to the men because in Galactica's universe they are equal.
No character embodies this ideal better than Kara Thrace (aka Starbuck) the sexy, gutsy, devil-may-care fighter pilot who can outgun (and outdrink) anyone in the fleet. There are no caveats to her abilities, no instances of grudging respect from the men or gender-based confrontations with command. She is simply the best at what she does and acknowledged accordingly... except when she screws up. Which she does from time to time.
I'm certainly not first to sing Galactica's praises. The NY Times, Salon Magazine and numerous other publications have all rhapsodized about the show's virtues. So, why are so many of my friends reluctant to check it out? Of all the series, films or music I've recommended, this has been the hardest one to sell. Is it the title? Memories of the inane 80s show? Whatever it is, you really should get over yourself, rent the first season's DVDs and see for yourself how good this series really is.
Now, all this has just been a prelude to what I really wanted to chat about... the fact that hardcore conservatives (neo-cons especially) like some of the same shows I do. Namely, 24 and Battlestar Galactica.
Both are good examples of why I think we are in or entering the true Golden Age of television. And both, to my disgust, have been used as rationalizations and inspirations for supporters of the Bush administration's tactics in the 'War On Terror' (appropriately labeled by Monty Python's Terry Jones as the War On Abstract Nouns).
Right wingnut Lauren Ingram actually cited 24's popularity as a clear indication that Americans fully support the administration's position on torture... even going so far as to suggest we'd like to see things taken a bit further. After all, Jack Bauer (the hero of 24) wouldn't rely on anything as namby-pamby as water-boarding to get time sensitive information. Stripped wires, an electrical outlet and an exposed pair of testicles will do the job nicely, thank you very much.
Anyway, sci fi neo-con wingnuts (call them 'Galacticons') looked to the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica as a rousing endorsement of our 'War In Iraq.' This third season, however, has proven to be a bit harder for them to embrace. But why read my words, when others do a better job of following their knotty logic and outrage?
"But alas, this love affair between Galactica and the right was not to last: in its third season, the show has morphed into a stinging allegorical critique of America’s three-year occupation of Iraq. The trouble started at the end of the second season, when humanity briefly escaped the Cylons and settled down on the tiny planet of New Caprica. The Cylons soon returned and quickly conquered the defenseless humans. But instead of slaughtering everyone, the Cylons decided to take a more enlightened path by “benevolently occupying” the planet and imposing their preferred way of life by gunpoint. The humans were predictably not enthused about their allegedly altruistic rulers, and they immediately launched an insurgency against them using improvised explosive devices and suicide bombers. Needless to say, this did not go over very well in the Galacticon camp."
You can read the whole piece here.
See, now you have an excuse to watch something on the Sci Fi channel. It's not that you're a geek, it's just that you're trying to keep up with cultural-political issues.
4 comments:
Re: TELEVISION FOR NEO -CONS?
Right off the bat, the original Battlestar Galactica ran from 1978-1979 and was revived the next January with the God-awful, forgettable, cartoonish debacle Galactica: 1980. And I object to the insult regarding the original Battlestar Galactica. The orignal show was a product of its time, and far better than acknowledged. The new show's use of human-looking Cylons is cheap and reminiscent of sci-fi's biggest failure: to convincingly portray an alien race as anything other than extensions of humans and their faults. The original Cylons may have seemed like something out of a 1950's movie because they were portrayed as one-dimensional, but there was a frightening aspect with the inability to probe for any human expression in their cold, evil-looking visage. The current show takes on bigger, more adult issues, for which it should be applauded, but Ron Moore's misguided attempt to use "human Cylons" is neither inspired nor original. The show displays Cylons as machines who cannot be detected from humans, but who have abilities inherent that it would be impossible for them not to have internal differences. Moore wants it both ways, and he fails miserably. The original show drew on mythology and the costumes, though outrageous, were cool, original and well-thought. The new show should not have ripped off the name of the old. Making Starbuck a woman pilot and overtly masculine is also not original. In the original show, the dynamic was true to its time. Sheba was the best woman pilot, and she was tough and could be a woman without feeling the need to act masculine by outdrinking the boys. I think they pushed too hard to show the egalitarian nature of the new show, which tries to hard to be something more than it is. This new series would have been welcome if it wasn't a ripoff of the original show. Ron Moore did Glen Larson and fans of the original Battlestar Galactica an extreme disservice.
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. While I see some of your points, I think the show's ambitions far outweigh any quibbles I have with how it compares to the orginal BG's vision.
I particularly like the idea of a monotheistic race of machines imposing their values on a polytheistic human culture. I'm intrigued but what they'll do with this.
Moore has indeed exploded many of the ideas of the original show for good and bad. But I never expected the show to be anything other than a complete reboot of the concept.
And I especially disagree with your comments about Starbuck. the ace-flying and hard drinking are only sprinkles on a very smartly layered cake. I still maintain that I have never before seen a show effectively eliminate commonly-held notions of femininity and masculinity.
The new series's characters have a level of depth, ambiguity and cmplexity the original series couldn't touch.
Thanks for reading. Hope you'll come back.
Jeph:
While I freely admit the new show delves deeper into characterization, the idea of machines having a God is ludicrous to the extreme. I didn't realize the Cylons in this BG believed in a God. Not to impose my personal views, but I've long held that Marxism was dead right about one thing: religion is the opiate of the masses. I personally belive religion and the entire "God-complex" of all of our cultures to be extremely childish drivel. Machines would know inherently that no single being created the universe. I am not a devoted viewer of the new BG, as you probably can tell, so I might be missing something important regarding Cylon monotheism. I'll be sure to ask my toaster what it worships.
And the clothes on the new show! Ugh! Just seeing Baltar and others dressed in suits similar to ours is preposterous, unimaginative idiocy on Moore's part. Just look at our own world. Do Arab cultures, African cultures, not to mention countless others, dress like we do in the west? And we're supposed to believe it's logical for people in the new BG world to dress like we do today? Moore is either too cheap to come up with clever designs, or too stupid to realize how dumb it is.
Their culture is way ahead of ours technologically. Do we Americans dress like we did 150 years ago? Moore and his show are given way too much credit. They have succeeded in the individual relationships and characterizations, but failed almost everywhere else. I don't give any points for ambitions, either, unless they are realized. So far, most have not been. The road to hell is rally paved with ambition, not good intentions.
But keep writing, old man. You are a talented screenwriter and will someday make your mark.
Best wishes and Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!
Happy and Merry to you as well.
Let's hope we both find success in the screenwriting arena...
...and for now, we'll just have to agree that we disagree about BG. I enjoy the show immensely. Though it's recently be overshadowed by my new TV obsession, Veronica Mars.
Hope to see you in the New Year (and attend a few more meetings).
Post a Comment