![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouseThanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
naomikritzer , I'm all caught up with BSG, including the miniseries/one-off "Razor."
It's set mostly in flashback on the Pegasus before (and just after) she connects with the Galatica and our fleet. This is probably my favorite point in the series, actually. Its before New Caprica and all the insurgency stuff, which I've already ranted about here.
It is revealed that the Admiral of the Pegasus...
...is a lesbian and was sleeping with their version of 6 (the one we later see beaten and raped.) Can I just say: "ugh!" Of all the characters we've seen on BSG, this is the first queer one? And so stereotypically? The Admiral is such a hard-a** that she shoots her XO (and friend) for insubordination in the head in front of the entire bridge crew. She later orders the conscription of a civilian ship, which ends with the massacre of spouses and children (of the conscriptees). She also strips the civilian ship of its FTL drive and abandons those human beings to drift in space... presumably to die. The Admiral is probably the single most evil character in the entire series, including the Cylons. And now she's also the only human we've seen that has a relationship outside of the presumed norm (ie straight.). If you remember, there is at leat one scene in which 3 and 6 are sharing a bed with Giaus. It's overt/canon that they think of their threesome as a single relationship.
Our point of view character appears to be shocked that the Admiral and 6 are lovers, too. 6 says, "What? Are you surprised? She's human; she has needs." It's not necessarily implied that queer is, well, queer in this society, but... well, we certainly have never seen it before among the humans, not even in the background, in any other episode. So, WTF?
I was particularly horrified that the Admiral told the evil torturer on the Pegasus to rape 6. (Okay, she says break the prisoner by "any means necessary" but she uses the terms degragation and shame. And, of course, since the viewer has seen the future we know exactly how this is interpreted.) I've heard other commenters on this episode say that this turn of events makes the Admiral seem less evil, and that her motivations make more sense. She's betrayed by her lover and so this is some kind of personal revenge. This doesn't humanize her to me. I'm sorry, no. If this was played as a male commander who'd had female lover who he then decided to rape... that would just be more evidence that that character was pure evil.
Oh, plus we know she's a coward. We see a flashback scene to her youth/the first cylon war where she abadons her baby sister to the cylons. Okay, sure, it's something anyone might do, but I think combined with everything we now know about the Admiral it was a bit gratutious. Sure, sure, maybe it was a character defining moment, because clearly all her hard-assed-ness is clearly a reaction to her first act of cowardness and not wanting to ever do that again, but... the whole thing just made her look so heartless and unsympathetic to me.
And she's gay.
Great.
This series continues to be one of my favorites while being subltly racist and overtly homophobic. I could have handled this revelation about the Admiral if we'd seen even ONE decent, honorable, heroic (human) character who is gay. But we haven't. All we have is the Admiral.
Some people might feel like jumping on me for my insistance that the other evidence of queerness needs to come from the human side of things, but even if, in the end, the message is that the cylons and the humans are "one," I still maintain that the humans and the cylons need to be judged seperately. They are different cultures. One is monotheistic the other poly. The cylons seem poly-amorous, and (outside of this one instance) the humans are straight. Despite this, I still see "us" as the humans. I'm not going to let this go easily, and I'm really not looking forward to the next season after the reveal at the end of the last. I just hope this show sticks the landing, as it were.
naomikritzer , I'm all caught up with BSG, including the miniseries/one-off "Razor." It's set mostly in flashback on the Pegasus before (and just after) she connects with the Galatica and our fleet. This is probably my favorite point in the series, actually. Its before New Caprica and all the insurgency stuff, which I've already ranted about here.
It is revealed that the Admiral of the Pegasus...
...is a lesbian and was sleeping with their version of 6 (the one we later see beaten and raped.) Can I just say: "ugh!" Of all the characters we've seen on BSG, this is the first queer one? And so stereotypically? The Admiral is such a hard-a** that she shoots her XO (and friend) for insubordination in the head in front of the entire bridge crew. She later orders the conscription of a civilian ship, which ends with the massacre of spouses and children (of the conscriptees). She also strips the civilian ship of its FTL drive and abandons those human beings to drift in space... presumably to die. The Admiral is probably the single most evil character in the entire series, including the Cylons. And now she's also the only human we've seen that has a relationship outside of the presumed norm (ie straight.). If you remember, there is at leat one scene in which 3 and 6 are sharing a bed with Giaus. It's overt/canon that they think of their threesome as a single relationship.
Our point of view character appears to be shocked that the Admiral and 6 are lovers, too. 6 says, "What? Are you surprised? She's human; she has needs." It's not necessarily implied that queer is, well, queer in this society, but... well, we certainly have never seen it before among the humans, not even in the background, in any other episode. So, WTF?
I was particularly horrified that the Admiral told the evil torturer on the Pegasus to rape 6. (Okay, she says break the prisoner by "any means necessary" but she uses the terms degragation and shame. And, of course, since the viewer has seen the future we know exactly how this is interpreted.) I've heard other commenters on this episode say that this turn of events makes the Admiral seem less evil, and that her motivations make more sense. She's betrayed by her lover and so this is some kind of personal revenge. This doesn't humanize her to me. I'm sorry, no. If this was played as a male commander who'd had female lover who he then decided to rape... that would just be more evidence that that character was pure evil.
Oh, plus we know she's a coward. We see a flashback scene to her youth/the first cylon war where she abadons her baby sister to the cylons. Okay, sure, it's something anyone might do, but I think combined with everything we now know about the Admiral it was a bit gratutious. Sure, sure, maybe it was a character defining moment, because clearly all her hard-assed-ness is clearly a reaction to her first act of cowardness and not wanting to ever do that again, but... the whole thing just made her look so heartless and unsympathetic to me.
And she's gay.
Great.
This series continues to be one of my favorites while being subltly racist and overtly homophobic. I could have handled this revelation about the Admiral if we'd seen even ONE decent, honorable, heroic (human) character who is gay. But we haven't. All we have is the Admiral.
Some people might feel like jumping on me for my insistance that the other evidence of queerness needs to come from the human side of things, but even if, in the end, the message is that the cylons and the humans are "one," I still maintain that the humans and the cylons need to be judged seperately. They are different cultures. One is monotheistic the other poly. The cylons seem poly-amorous, and (outside of this one instance) the humans are straight. Despite this, I still see "us" as the humans. I'm not going to let this go easily, and I'm really not looking forward to the next season after the reveal at the end of the last. I just hope this show sticks the landing, as it were.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 10:00 pm (UTC)This is an excellent point.
My reaction to the revelation that they were lovers was that this made the sanctioned gang rape of Six not understandable but even more horrifying.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 10:02 pm (UTC)I disliked the Admiral the moment she came on the show, and Razor didn't change that. Probably just made it worse. Though I must have missed the bit about her younger sister (not surprising since my connection to SF is horribly bad. Can't really see what's going on) - I think that would have shocked me a little.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-15 05:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-15 12:22 am (UTC)And yeah, as I think I mentioned several months ago, I'm not feeling great about this being the first explicit portrayal of queer characters. I'll feel slightly better if we see some more (among the "good" guys) in the future, although it's not ideal. I'll see if I can track down the comment I heard one of the writers made about realizing this wasn't a smart move in this respect...
no subject
Date: 2008-01-15 05:26 pm (UTC)Anwyay, thanks for the clarificaion, and I agree.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-15 12:52 am (UTC)Which sums up exactly how I felt about it.