Entry tags:
BSG meta: stereotypical female plotlines, aisle four!
um. Wow. This came out longer than I thought. (five PAGES long, in fact)
Just for the record, I do actually love and adore the women (and men) of Galactica. That doesn't mean I don't have some critical thoughts on the writing and the plots chosen for them...
Spoilers through season three, spec for season four, and a dip at Razor.
I cut this, from my NCIS review, because I didn't think shoving it in there would be kind to people who don't watch BSG:
Whether this trend continues, I don't know. But it's certainly better than BSG claiming it has gender equality in its characters and then shoving all of the women into mother/nurturer/healer roles while the men fight the war.
The trend I was talking about was the equality of characters. Regardless of gender, NCIS doesn't pull punches, doesn't under-write its women, and doesn't shove them all into one little tiny box. Actually, if you want a character that's shoved in a box labeled 'sexist stereotype', please look no further than Tony.
BSG doesn't pull its punches, either. Women are raped, beaten, wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, healers, priests, devotees, and pilots. Sometimes, they're leaders.
I'm not sure, though, that BSG is really doing a good job keeping those women in equal situations.
Women have been raped--Gina, Athena nearly, and I'd argue that Leoben's psychological torture of Kara certainly counts.
Men have not been. Sure, men get beaten, shot, kicked, maimed (eyes ripped from their skulls), tortured (Leoben, and at least a few of the colonists via Dirty Hands), given truth serums and had things shoved in their ears. But they don't get raped. In fact, to even suggest that a man might be raped sent fandom into a massive backlashy tizzy however many years and months ago that it was that Resurrection Ship first aired.
Fandom thought Helo and Chief were actually gonna get raped.
Luckily for fandom's peace of mind, they didn't.
How about their destinies?
Roslin's going to get breast cancer, and lead them to a new world.
Kara's special destiny means she has to accept that being beaten as a child was a good thing, she can't decide between the two men in her life, and now that she's back, she's some zen-like priestess who's too pure for things like sex or flying. Not to mention, when she was in a cell with a cylon, he gouged out her eye--oh, wait. That's right. Actually, he tortured her with a kid. And when they caught her on Caprica? She was stuck in a farm, where they stick babies in women...
According to interviews and podcasts, there's men in the farms, too. I imagine the budget wouldn't stretch to having Kara walk through a room of men being milked (but they sure didn't mind giving us heavy raider footage, or giving us a crowd of extras at Delphi Union High--I guess, though, they really shot their budget shooting Valley of Darkness, with the dark-lit Cylons storming the Galactica scenes). This fact is never mentioned on-screen (if it has been, someone please quote me chapter and verse so I can go watch it). They didn't take ANY of the men with Anders and Helo, they just took Sue-Shaun and Kara.
Cally. Entirely problematic, because while I find her and Chief utterly adorable, the idea that it was ok for Galen to beat her 'cause she loves him is...
Honestly, I take from Cally and Kara that women are forgiving, and you can do whatever you want to them, 'cause they'll forgive you and take you back (ref: Anastasia Dualla, who cried, even though Lee lost his frakking ring).
This is not to say forgiveness is a one-way street. Adama forgave Kara for killing his son, and Roslin for splintering the fleet.
Sam Anders forgives his wife her many indiscretions (although only one of them ever made it on-screen, which brings that entire chain into question. Though, one wonders if he'd be so forgiving if she weren't in love with the man she's playing with).
Saul Tigh continues to forgive his wife anything up to and including colluding with the Cylons.
And there's a question. Where's the corollary of Ellen Tigh, selling her body to save her husband? Oh, right. That would be Tyrol, getting info and leading a strike to save his wife.
...yeah. Not seeing that as really sacrificing much. I suppose one could say Lee Adama sacrificed his dignity to save Baltar from execution?
Kat - actually, Kat is probably an argument for the side of equality, since her situation is pretty gender-neutral. And you can't tell me a guy wouldn't have offered sex for silence.
Not to mention, Kat's interactions with Kara are one of the few bits that ring as totally gender-neutral. They could be guys, they could be girls. Doesn't matter--similarly, Tigh and Kara are exactly the same. In fact, Kara and Tigh oddly trust each other, despite the fact that Tigh's NewCap life was violent and Kara's was psychologically unsound.
Although, that is kind of my point. Kara got the fluffy gloves, a kid, and a loving Destiny. Tigh got his eye ripped out, was beaten and taunted, and in the end lost his wife.
For every one of Kara's plot-points, the plot has always been the sort that are considered suitable for a female. The Farm, babies, Tomboy who cleans up good (just once, I'd like a girl to be a tomboy and clean up and look utterly AWFUL in her dress), religion, marriage, love.
Athena was put into play specifically to get Helo to love her and have a baby.
Boomer was put into play to... try to kill herself, cause Chief to lie for her, kill Adama and be shot by Cally. So, three out of three ain't too bad. Boomer could'a been a boy. Except for Chief, I suppose, and Cally's jealousy of her?
Racetrack and Seelix and Jean Barolay are too bit to be needed for the big Feminine Mystique ideas. Racetrack finds NewCap, Seelix shoots a Cavil and becomes a pilot, and Barolay just shoots things and snarks. Two of them were also on the Circle, as was Kara. Off-set by Anders, Chief and Tigh.
And surprisingly, it was Barolay and Seelix and Kara who were the hard asses, wanting death.
Speaking of Kara's destiny, how about Roslin's cancer? It's specifically breast cancer. edit:Not something a man can get. Apparently, something a man can get, though this information still hasn't really reached the populace at large. Largely still considered a 'woman's disease'--I imagine if I were to poll 100 people on the street, less than 10% would actually know men can get it. Can you imagine if she'd been male, do you think they would have made it prostate cancer? Yeah, no, I don't fucking think so, either.
So why make it breast cancer? Oh. Right. Because she's a woman, and it has to be a special kind of womanly cancer to get the message across.
Roslin spent most of season three hating Baltar and... and... getting cancer again. Um. While I won't deny the men have been full of hate (please see my boy Sparky with his pen to Baltar's throat), it's kind of sad when the only thing I can think of for season three of Roslin is hatred of a man. Oh, and hitting Tigh for the suicide bombers. She was part of the resistance, and Baltar locked her up and talked to her, at one point.
Ellen Tigh. Had sex to save her man. Also lived her life to the fullest and knew she was loved, so that's at least nice.
Mrs. Adama. Oh, wow. Mrs. Caroline Anne Adama. She was abusive, manipulative, alcoholic... Bill married Kara's mother, essentially. She got pregnant and made Bill marry her, in fact. Although he later used her connections to get back in the fleet. And he still loves her. How quaint. (there's that forgiveness from men for the foibles of their horrible, abusing wives again--wanna bet Kara's daddy was Sam Anders mixed with Bill Adama?)
Elosha. Priestess, who found her faith 'cause Roslin had cancer and led them to Kobol. Died.
Sarah. Leader of the Geminon, which is a bit of a surprise, given they seem to view women as second-class citizens who have no rights to their own bodies. Very religious.
Dee. Poor Dee. She's faithful, trustworthy, snarky (wait, that's comic!Dee, who is twenty kinds of verbal bitchslap awesome. sigh.), and juggles men. Then she has one die, and marries the other because... there's a deleted scene, where Dee says she'll keep Lee until Kara takes him back from her. Wow. Um. Wow.
But Dee loves Lee, y'know. It's just...
And here we stop and ponder Lee, because, really. It has to be said. Dee loves Lee so much, Lee gets fat. You could claim this was a female thing. Women get fat when they're stressed/nervous/depressed/complacent. But so do men. And Lee didn't get fat from stress. Lee got fat because his One True Love didn't marry him. So, there's some technical grey area in whether this is a male plot or a female plot. Not that it really matters. The men have both kinds, as a general rule.
D'Anna. Oh, D. After Caprica, you really are the most screwed-up Cylon ever.
D, at least, gets a plot that could be applied to men or women (even down to the wacky torture and threesome action). She likes killing herself, 'cause she's seen the face of God. Or... Something.
Of course, this all happens, because she was told that if she held Hera (that ol' Hybrid Child), she'd know Love.
(babies again)
Maya, at least, there's no bones about the fact she was there to simply be a Mom. And I can't blame her for that (nor them for offing her, since Jo Lupo is much much hotter).
But Roslin loves Hera, too. Of course, men are allowed to be protective of their children (Helo, Adama, Chief). But none of them seem to be quite so obsessive about them (first, she tries to kill Hera, then she steals her and lies...sigh)
Caprica destroyed the world for the love of a man. She tried to save it for him, too. And now she's stuck in a sort of limbo... (she stole Hera, too)
Since we're back to the Cylons, I should probably note that Boomer has also pretty much been given nothing to do. She tried to kill Adama, betrayed her friends, saved the human race and moved to NewCap where... what? She got an education in the fact that humans don't forgive? We never saw this. The most we saw was her talking to Cally, and that conversation would NEVER have gone well.
Girls don't forgive each other, you see.
Tangent: religion.
D, Caprica, Sharon (both), Roslin, Elosha, Kara, Sarah, Cally, Norah (Duck's girlfriend whose only purpose was to maybe get pregnant and then die so he could be angsty)... all of these women are highly religious. Their belief shapes everything they do.
Of the male characters? I can't think of a single one (outside of Leoben and Simon) who's so religious. Adama, Lee, Cavil, Cottle... all pretty much atheists.
We have no idea if Sam Anders is religious, though he has prayed to the Gods, thanking them for Kara being alive. Hot Dog... Well, he got the funny syphillis, so he might be religious.
Chief is religious now, though he grew up in it. He's (probably) shaped by religion.
Helo seems to at least maybe believe.
Zarek will believe, if it gets him ahead of the game.
Duck was, iirc, agnostic leaning towards atheist (he refused to go to the temple with Norah).
I wish I could say the religious thing was like girls having wings in The Dark Crystal. Sadly, it's not.
Instead, it mostly feels like: to be a spiritual being, one must be a woman or completely off one's rocker (ie, Leoben). Men are rationalists. Women follow their 'feelings'.
Off the religion tangent...
Ishay. Bit-part, has mostly been a no-nonsense medic. One for the side of equality.
Sacia Abinell. Wife turned terrorist because the Cylons killed her husband and she found out Sharon was on Galactica, alive. Her motive: revenge for her hubby's death.
Playa Palacious. Journalist. Frakked Baltar. Occasionally asked The Hard Questions.
Cain. Until the rumors for Razor, Cain really did fit the 'could be male or female' side. Now, though. Sigh. I'll leave her in a 'unknown' state until Razor airs. As another aside: Roslin pointing out they needed to kill Cain was definitely on the side of both awesome AND equality.
Ditto Kendra Shaw.
Showboat. Two seconds of screen-time.
Baltar's cult all seem to be women. 'cause, again, only women are crazy religious freaks.
Gina. Do I even need to elaborate? Fine. Raped, tortured, kept by Baltar. His love brought her back to life. Deeply religious, believed the Cylons would save them. To say 'goodbye' to Baltar, she had sex with him (I've heard, btw, that they were originally planning on having Gina perfectly AOK with sex, and Tricia pointed out that would be utterly and completely impossible, given she was raped. So. Although, generally, fandom does think sex will heal everything, as long as it's the OTP). Killed herself to leave a message for the Cylons.
What's funny is that I've gotten off my topic. To whit: season three (and to a lesser extent, the earlier seasons) reduce most of the women to stereotypical Girl roles.
The women were locked in cute cells and cages, taught school and played with babies while the men did manly things like blow up heavy raiders, throw pyramid balls and chase around with guns. Not to mention dropping battlestars through atmosphere at high velocity.
And while the suicide-bombers were, iirc, equally-divided between men and women, we knew way more about Duck than we did about the faceless woman who was caught for two seconds, and nothing about any of the others.
Hell, I should have remembered: this show really is only about surviving and making babies. And since men can't get pregnant, no wonder the women are stuck in stereotypical roles.
In closing, I would like to propose a challenge. Write fic where Saul sells his body to get Ellen out, where Sam is locked in a cage and told he has a Special Destiny. Where Helo and Chief were raped by the Pegasus crew as Cylon sympathizers. Where the Leader of Humanity is a man dying from prostate cancer. Where it's the men, and not the women, who care for the children of humanity, who make the irrational, emotion-filled decisions.
But don't fucking tell me Galactica has made such great strides at breaking stereotypes for female characters.
PS. For the record, the BSG comic by Greg Pak had one scene that I will treasure forever: new!Boomer is stuck in the cliche "person pops up and evil!leaderguy decides new person is fresh meat and wants them", she kicks the ass of the men and women trying to take her, and turns to take on e!lg. El!g turns to a subordinate and swears mightily, saying "a colonial officer is gonna frak my shit up" (or words to that effect). He doesn't say "damn, that bitch is coming after me" or "a woman is trying to get me", he says "That Colonial officer..." He saw her as a colonial officer first, and a woman, second.
Greg Pak got it. The man who did horrible things to Jean Grey got the 'equality of the sexes' BSG attempts (and fails miserably at) to preach.
Just for the record, I do actually love and adore the women (and men) of Galactica. That doesn't mean I don't have some critical thoughts on the writing and the plots chosen for them...
Spoilers through season three, spec for season four, and a dip at Razor.
I cut this, from my NCIS review, because I didn't think shoving it in there would be kind to people who don't watch BSG:
Whether this trend continues, I don't know. But it's certainly better than BSG claiming it has gender equality in its characters and then shoving all of the women into mother/nurturer/healer roles while the men fight the war.
The trend I was talking about was the equality of characters. Regardless of gender, NCIS doesn't pull punches, doesn't under-write its women, and doesn't shove them all into one little tiny box. Actually, if you want a character that's shoved in a box labeled 'sexist stereotype', please look no further than Tony.
BSG doesn't pull its punches, either. Women are raped, beaten, wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, healers, priests, devotees, and pilots. Sometimes, they're leaders.
I'm not sure, though, that BSG is really doing a good job keeping those women in equal situations.
Women have been raped--Gina, Athena nearly, and I'd argue that Leoben's psychological torture of Kara certainly counts.
Men have not been. Sure, men get beaten, shot, kicked, maimed (eyes ripped from their skulls), tortured (Leoben, and at least a few of the colonists via Dirty Hands), given truth serums and had things shoved in their ears. But they don't get raped. In fact, to even suggest that a man might be raped sent fandom into a massive backlashy tizzy however many years and months ago that it was that Resurrection Ship first aired.
Fandom thought Helo and Chief were actually gonna get raped.
Luckily for fandom's peace of mind, they didn't.
How about their destinies?
Roslin's going to get breast cancer, and lead them to a new world.
Kara's special destiny means she has to accept that being beaten as a child was a good thing, she can't decide between the two men in her life, and now that she's back, she's some zen-like priestess who's too pure for things like sex or flying. Not to mention, when she was in a cell with a cylon, he gouged out her eye--oh, wait. That's right. Actually, he tortured her with a kid. And when they caught her on Caprica? She was stuck in a farm, where they stick babies in women...
According to interviews and podcasts, there's men in the farms, too. I imagine the budget wouldn't stretch to having Kara walk through a room of men being milked (but they sure didn't mind giving us heavy raider footage, or giving us a crowd of extras at Delphi Union High--I guess, though, they really shot their budget shooting Valley of Darkness, with the dark-lit Cylons storming the Galactica scenes). This fact is never mentioned on-screen (if it has been, someone please quote me chapter and verse so I can go watch it). They didn't take ANY of the men with Anders and Helo, they just took Sue-Shaun and Kara.
Cally. Entirely problematic, because while I find her and Chief utterly adorable, the idea that it was ok for Galen to beat her 'cause she loves him is...
Honestly, I take from Cally and Kara that women are forgiving, and you can do whatever you want to them, 'cause they'll forgive you and take you back (ref: Anastasia Dualla, who cried, even though Lee lost his frakking ring).
This is not to say forgiveness is a one-way street. Adama forgave Kara for killing his son, and Roslin for splintering the fleet.
Sam Anders forgives his wife her many indiscretions (although only one of them ever made it on-screen, which brings that entire chain into question. Though, one wonders if he'd be so forgiving if she weren't in love with the man she's playing with).
Saul Tigh continues to forgive his wife anything up to and including colluding with the Cylons.
And there's a question. Where's the corollary of Ellen Tigh, selling her body to save her husband? Oh, right. That would be Tyrol, getting info and leading a strike to save his wife.
...yeah. Not seeing that as really sacrificing much. I suppose one could say Lee Adama sacrificed his dignity to save Baltar from execution?
Kat - actually, Kat is probably an argument for the side of equality, since her situation is pretty gender-neutral. And you can't tell me a guy wouldn't have offered sex for silence.
Not to mention, Kat's interactions with Kara are one of the few bits that ring as totally gender-neutral. They could be guys, they could be girls. Doesn't matter--similarly, Tigh and Kara are exactly the same. In fact, Kara and Tigh oddly trust each other, despite the fact that Tigh's NewCap life was violent and Kara's was psychologically unsound.
Although, that is kind of my point. Kara got the fluffy gloves, a kid, and a loving Destiny. Tigh got his eye ripped out, was beaten and taunted, and in the end lost his wife.
For every one of Kara's plot-points, the plot has always been the sort that are considered suitable for a female. The Farm, babies, Tomboy who cleans up good (just once, I'd like a girl to be a tomboy and clean up and look utterly AWFUL in her dress), religion, marriage, love.
Athena was put into play specifically to get Helo to love her and have a baby.
Boomer was put into play to... try to kill herself, cause Chief to lie for her, kill Adama and be shot by Cally. So, three out of three ain't too bad. Boomer could'a been a boy. Except for Chief, I suppose, and Cally's jealousy of her?
Racetrack and Seelix and Jean Barolay are too bit to be needed for the big Feminine Mystique ideas. Racetrack finds NewCap, Seelix shoots a Cavil and becomes a pilot, and Barolay just shoots things and snarks. Two of them were also on the Circle, as was Kara. Off-set by Anders, Chief and Tigh.
And surprisingly, it was Barolay and Seelix and Kara who were the hard asses, wanting death.
Speaking of Kara's destiny, how about Roslin's cancer? It's specifically breast cancer. edit:
So why make it breast cancer? Oh. Right. Because she's a woman, and it has to be a special kind of womanly cancer to get the message across.
Roslin spent most of season three hating Baltar and... and... getting cancer again. Um. While I won't deny the men have been full of hate (please see my boy Sparky with his pen to Baltar's throat), it's kind of sad when the only thing I can think of for season three of Roslin is hatred of a man. Oh, and hitting Tigh for the suicide bombers. She was part of the resistance, and Baltar locked her up and talked to her, at one point.
Ellen Tigh. Had sex to save her man. Also lived her life to the fullest and knew she was loved, so that's at least nice.
Mrs. Adama. Oh, wow. Mrs. Carol
Elosha. Priestess, who found her faith 'cause Roslin had cancer and led them to Kobol. Died.
Sarah. Leader of the Geminon, which is a bit of a surprise, given they seem to view women as second-class citizens who have no rights to their own bodies. Very religious.
Dee. Poor Dee. She's faithful, trustworthy, snarky (wait, that's comic!Dee, who is twenty kinds of verbal bitchslap awesome. sigh.), and juggles men. Then she has one die, and marries the other because... there's a deleted scene, where Dee says she'll keep Lee until Kara takes him back from her. Wow. Um. Wow.
But Dee loves Lee, y'know. It's just...
And here we stop and ponder Lee, because, really. It has to be said. Dee loves Lee so much, Lee gets fat. You could claim this was a female thing. Women get fat when they're stressed/nervous/depressed/complacent. But so do men. And Lee didn't get fat from stress. Lee got fat because his One True Love didn't marry him. So, there's some technical grey area in whether this is a male plot or a female plot. Not that it really matters. The men have both kinds, as a general rule.
D'Anna. Oh, D. After Caprica, you really are the most screwed-up Cylon ever.
D, at least, gets a plot that could be applied to men or women (even down to the wacky torture and threesome action). She likes killing herself, 'cause she's seen the face of God. Or... Something.
Of course, this all happens, because she was told that if she held Hera (that ol' Hybrid Child), she'd know Love.
(babies again)
Maya, at least, there's no bones about the fact she was there to simply be a Mom. And I can't blame her for that (nor them for offing her, since Jo Lupo is much much hotter).
But Roslin loves Hera, too. Of course, men are allowed to be protective of their children (Helo, Adama, Chief). But none of them seem to be quite so obsessive about them (first, she tries to kill Hera, then she steals her and lies...sigh)
Caprica destroyed the world for the love of a man. She tried to save it for him, too. And now she's stuck in a sort of limbo... (she stole Hera, too)
Since we're back to the Cylons, I should probably note that Boomer has also pretty much been given nothing to do. She tried to kill Adama, betrayed her friends, saved the human race and moved to NewCap where... what? She got an education in the fact that humans don't forgive? We never saw this. The most we saw was her talking to Cally, and that conversation would NEVER have gone well.
Girls don't forgive each other, you see.
Tangent: religion.
D, Caprica, Sharon (both), Roslin, Elosha, Kara, Sarah, Cally, Norah (Duck's girlfriend whose only purpose was to maybe get pregnant and then die so he could be angsty)... all of these women are highly religious. Their belief shapes everything they do.
Of the male characters? I can't think of a single one (outside of Leoben and Simon) who's so religious. Adama, Lee, Cavil, Cottle... all pretty much atheists.
We have no idea if Sam Anders is religious, though he has prayed to the Gods, thanking them for Kara being alive. Hot Dog... Well, he got the funny syphillis, so he might be religious.
Chief is religious now, though he grew up in it. He's (probably) shaped by religion.
Helo seems to at least maybe believe.
Zarek will believe, if it gets him ahead of the game.
Duck was, iirc, agnostic leaning towards atheist (he refused to go to the temple with Norah).
I wish I could say the religious thing was like girls having wings in The Dark Crystal. Sadly, it's not.
Instead, it mostly feels like: to be a spiritual being, one must be a woman or completely off one's rocker (ie, Leoben). Men are rationalists. Women follow their 'feelings'.
Off the religion tangent...
Ishay. Bit-part, has mostly been a no-nonsense medic. One for the side of equality.
Sacia Abinell. Wife turned terrorist because the Cylons killed her husband and she found out Sharon was on Galactica, alive. Her motive: revenge for her hubby's death.
Playa Palacious. Journalist. Frakked Baltar. Occasionally asked The Hard Questions.
Cain. Until the rumors for Razor, Cain really did fit the 'could be male or female' side. Now, though. Sigh. I'll leave her in a 'unknown' state until Razor airs. As another aside: Roslin pointing out they needed to kill Cain was definitely on the side of both awesome AND equality.
Ditto Kendra Shaw.
Showboat. Two seconds of screen-time.
Baltar's cult all seem to be women. 'cause, again, only women are crazy religious freaks.
Gina. Do I even need to elaborate? Fine. Raped, tortured, kept by Baltar. His love brought her back to life. Deeply religious, believed the Cylons would save them. To say 'goodbye' to Baltar, she had sex with him (I've heard, btw, that they were originally planning on having Gina perfectly AOK with sex, and Tricia pointed out that would be utterly and completely impossible, given she was raped. So. Although, generally, fandom does think sex will heal everything, as long as it's the OTP). Killed herself to leave a message for the Cylons.
What's funny is that I've gotten off my topic. To whit: season three (and to a lesser extent, the earlier seasons) reduce most of the women to stereotypical Girl roles.
The women were locked in cute cells and cages, taught school and played with babies while the men did manly things like blow up heavy raiders, throw pyramid balls and chase around with guns. Not to mention dropping battlestars through atmosphere at high velocity.
And while the suicide-bombers were, iirc, equally-divided between men and women, we knew way more about Duck than we did about the faceless woman who was caught for two seconds, and nothing about any of the others.
Hell, I should have remembered: this show really is only about surviving and making babies. And since men can't get pregnant, no wonder the women are stuck in stereotypical roles.
In closing, I would like to propose a challenge. Write fic where Saul sells his body to get Ellen out, where Sam is locked in a cage and told he has a Special Destiny. Where Helo and Chief were raped by the Pegasus crew as Cylon sympathizers. Where the Leader of Humanity is a man dying from prostate cancer. Where it's the men, and not the women, who care for the children of humanity, who make the irrational, emotion-filled decisions.
But don't fucking tell me Galactica has made such great strides at breaking stereotypes for female characters.
PS. For the record, the BSG comic by Greg Pak had one scene that I will treasure forever: new!Boomer is stuck in the cliche "person pops up and evil!leaderguy decides new person is fresh meat and wants them", she kicks the ass of the men and women trying to take her, and turns to take on e!lg. El!g turns to a subordinate and swears mightily, saying "a colonial officer is gonna frak my shit up" (or words to that effect). He doesn't say "damn, that bitch is coming after me" or "a woman is trying to get me", he says "That Colonial officer..." He saw her as a colonial officer first, and a woman, second.
Greg Pak got it. The man who did horrible things to Jean Grey got the 'equality of the sexes' BSG attempts (and fails miserably at) to preach.
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Sigh.
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OH, WAIT. Maya and Mom were friends! I edit my former statement to include 'or dead'.
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Men can get breast cancer. http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_1X_What_are_the_key_statistics_for_male_breast_cancer_28.asp?rnav=cri
Much less common but it can happen. My friend's dad died of it. I get the point you were making, just felt the need to point that out.
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The religion/destiny/victimization thing doesn't sit well with me at all. Both of the main human female characters have mythic destinies, both of which require huge amounts of self-sacrifice and suffering to fulfill. Roslin has to deal with terminal cancer and ultimately (maybe) die, Kara had to suffer her mother's abuse and then give up her life to find Earth. And like you said it's the female Cylons who are interested in religion and love and destiny, and who get victimized over and over. And compare Leoben's "seduction" of Kara to Baltar or Helo's seduction.
And I hate how the minor female characters like Cally and Nora are presented as unthinkingly religious while, say, Chief is more critical about it, and Duck. But I hated how women were portrayed in the Resistance in general. 'Cause, what you said.
OTOH, now that I've typed all that out I can sort of see the flip side of it, too. Like, we may see it as "women are crazy religious freaks" but Ron has actually come out and said that God(s) exists in the BG 'verse, so in that sense it's the women who are right and the men who are silly and irrational. And it does mean they get much more interesting storylines - like, compare Six and Sharon to Doral and Simon. You could even argue that Roslin and Kara have taken over traditional male roles. Roslin is Moses and Kara is fulfilling the Hero's Journey, which traditionally involves a journey to the underworld and a heroic return.
So, I'm not sure I agree that ALL of Kara's plotlines have been girly. What about hijacking the raider, or getting the arrow, rescuing Anders, or almost assassinating Cain? Like you said, Roslin was awesome in that arc, and the gender roles were totally flipped, with Roslin and Kara being all ready to Do What Must Be Done and Lee falling apart, breaking his word and trying to kill himself. And I can think of a few times when Roslin's been the more logical, ruthless, hardcore leader while Adama's been lead around by his emotions. Like when Adama was ready to sacrifice the whole Fleet even after Kara's oxygen ran out. Even stealing Hera was I think an example of Roslin being more of a realist than Adama was capable of being. It wasn't a lifetime TV movie woman steals baby thing. First she wanted to kill her, then she couldn't quite bring herself to do that, she just made her "disappear" and promised to "keep an eye" on her in a totally scary way. I think she probably developed some affection for her in the missing year, but she wasn't exactly devastated when Tory told her she was dead.
Kara got the fluffy gloves, a kid, and a loving Destiny.
I see what you mean, but to me, that was because Leoben was brainwashing her, and he knew that given her history, physical abuse wouldn't be very effective. I know a lot of people think Kara got off easy on New Caprica and I can totally see where you're coming from, but to me, four months of dealing with Leoben's brainwashing/psychological torture, and him manipulating the situation with Kacey to play on her fears of becoming an abuser, was plenty bad enough. And we've had so many instances of women - including Kara - being physically abused that I feel like it's already skewed that way even with Tigh losing his eye. And her destiny may be a positive thing but she did have to die, and it looks from the previews like she still has a lot of fighting to do to accomplish it.
Everything else though, I totally agree with. Actually, as far as season three goes, I agree 100%, except for the fluffy gloves thing, and I'm holding judgement about Kara's destiny. It could be really heroic and cool, or it could be awful. But yeah, the women-as-victims and the Madonna/whore stuff was pretty out of control this season Especially: Mrs. Adama. Oh, wow. Mrs. Caroline Anne Adama. Um, yeah. Jesus Christ, I'm sorry for whoever on the writing staff had the abusive mother and/or helion blonde girlfriend, but enough already.
Well, according to the sides Kara's Dad was a famous, talented musicion (Sam), whom Kara worshiped and who abandoned her with an abusive mother because it all got to be too much for him (Bill). So, I'd say you win. ;)
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I honestly can not think of a single male hero who's had to commit suicide, accept being abused as a child (and it was a good thing he was), is essentially incredibly spiritual, and has a crap ability to deal with his romantic love life. With male heroes, it's always an awesome romance (or just gets the girl at the end), and maybe maybe his parents get killed when he's young (a la Batman). And he might go through Strife and Sturm and Drang, but... nothing like the psychological bullshit Kara did, or having a kid shoved at them that they're brainwashed into believing is theirs.
I want to love Kara's Hero Journey, but... it reads like a bad fantasy novel. The "I got raped and now I get my revenge" type which proliferated the genre about ten years ago. This is not new ground they're breaking. It's really really schlocky old ground, in fact.
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I honestly can not think of a single male hero who's had to commit suicide, accept being abused as a child (and it was a good thing he was), is essentially incredibly spiritual, and has a crap ability to deal with his romantic love life. With male heroes, it's always an awesome romance (or just gets the girl at the end), and maybe maybe his parents get killed when he's young (a la Batman). And he might go through Strife and Sturm and Drang, but... nothing like the psychological bullshit Kara did, or having a kid shoved at them that they're brainwashed into believing is theirs.
Arrgh. So true. I'm really not crazy about the ways in which women are made victims on the show - Roslin is the one exception, and she's potentially a victim of fate, the gods, whatever.
I think I might even prefer "I was raped and now I get my revenge" to "I was raped but it's okay - he was just trying to toughen me up for my own good!" Yick. Katee said that the even filmed a version of her sex scene with Leoben where it was a rape. As it was, it was just supposed to symbolize her "giving in" to fate, and fuel her self-loathing, according to the writer. Yaay. And I know I can be oversensitive about these things, but combine that with what happened to Six and Sharon and Ellen with Cavil - three women who all used sex to their own advantage to varying degrees, and it's just kind of icky. I know it's not that the writers are misogynists or anything like that, it's just a result of them relying way too much on women as seductresses and women as sexual victims. Bound to coincide in yucky ways.
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It's funny that you'd say you might prefer actual rape to what we got. Because I realized that the other day myself--we got all of the fallout from a rape, but no physical evidence of one. And I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. My brain is not all here anymore.
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Um, no. (http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_1X_What_is_male_breast_cancer_28.asp)
Sorry, but that's wrong (http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/malebreast/patient).
Very rare, but still very wrong. (http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk/help/default.asp?page=5075)
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"In 2007, about 450 men will die from breast cancer in the United States."
Yes, a drop in the bucket for men v. women. But still, I wouldn't call 450 men in the U.S. alone a "a few men diagnosed".
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Anyway,
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I poke back because it's actually the misconception that men can't get it that ends in death so many times. We're getting better and better about pounding breast health home in women, but the men seem to think they're immune.
And we're supposed to be smarter than them. ;)
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Plus, like I said - it's not, the word should be out about that, and a death from cancer is no fun whatsoever. Breast cancer is one of the most curable cancers out there - if they catch it early enough.
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Sure. =)
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My friend Dion (who is a guy) had a full mastectomy at 21 b/c breast cancer runs in his family.
If I was capable of making Helo unhappy, I'd take your challenge about he and the Chief; I wasn't so much in a tizzy about the possibility of men being raped (although it's going to be a very cold day in hell before network TV of any variety deals with that subject) I was in a tizzy that my two favorite characters were going to die at the hands of a megalomaniac.
But you have a very solid point here.
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*nods* And, yeah, part of my crankiness about it all is that I really like a lot of the BSG women, and seeing them smacked about in ways that don't really further the plot, just... Bah. Or rather, forwards the plot, but in such a way that it's obvious they went, "well, Character A is a girl, so, XYZ will happen to her. 'Cause, she's a girl, y'know!"
And thank you. I feel much better, having ranted.