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lydamorehouseI don’t have cable, so I’m just now catching up on my Battlestar Galactica second season. I am a complete and utter junkie when it comes to this show to the point that I keep trying to convince my partner to lose MORE sleep to keep watching episodes.
My alternate personality previously blogged about this issue at http://tatehallaway.blogspot.com/2005/07/whiteness-of-space.html
I just finished watching “The Black Market,” and I have to say it was aptly named. Though there is not a single black fighter pilot on Galactica (or, it seems to be found anywhere on the Pegasus), the criminal underground is virtually teeming with blackness.
The criminal overlord was the darkest face we’ve seen on this show so far and he was shot, in a way, out of spite (since Apollo had no intention of stopping the black market). Apollo then hands the reigns of the criminal underground over to two slightly-less brown underlings who just happen to be standing around and I was left thinking, “Oh, okay, Apollo, well, if they’re whiter, surely you can trust _them_!”
Then there was the whole issue of “white slavery.” The overlord is selling white children for sexual abuse to the highest bidder, which makes him not only bad, but EVIL. And, I agree. However, that I was supposed to buy that Apollo REALLY cared about his whore’s child grated. I’m not suggesting that I think child sexual abuse is on par with procuring the services of an adult prostitute, but there was something about the way the authors of this episode paralleled those two sexual abuses coupled with the race card that just felt… gross. I guess I felt like it played into the stereotype of the sexually aggressive black man (who must be destroyed to be contained.)
I think, in all honesty, I would have rolled with this better if Galactica could find a few qualified fighter pilots who are black. Why couldn’t the CAG of Pegasus be African American? The Admiral? You could throw that tired old argument at me that maybe no black actors applied for jobs on a science fiction show, but CLEARLY THAT’S NOT TRUE. They all got parts when the script called characters to populate the scary underbelly of the Galactica fleet. There were more walk-on African-American faces in the episode of “Black Market” than I have seen in the entire run of the show to-date.
Plus, this show suffers from comparison to its much more color blind predecessor. On the original Battlestar Galactica, we AT LEAST had Boomer and Col. Ty. It’s true that the current version of the show does have Hispanic and Asian actors in major roles (although making your Asian character an alien is kind of cheating, IMHO.) Plus, you may say that the 1970s suffered from “tokenism,” but I’d still have to say that I’d prefer to live in the future that has African-Americans who have jobs other than that of criminal.
When you don’t, I start wondering what the hell is up with Caprica (why, too, are so few of the survivors on Caprica black??) Apollo’s big revelation at the end of “Black Market” is that Galactica’s fleet isn’t a utopia and it never will be. To which I have to reply: no shit, but not in the way you’re thinking, buddy. Maybe Earth is actually the promised land because we had Martin Luther King, Jr’s dream, and Caprica didn’t. Have we seen for sure? Is the “head” on Galactica labeled “whites only”?
A scary future indeed.
My alternate personality previously blogged about this issue at http://tatehallaway.blogspot.com/2005/07/whiteness-of-space.html
I just finished watching “The Black Market,” and I have to say it was aptly named. Though there is not a single black fighter pilot on Galactica (or, it seems to be found anywhere on the Pegasus), the criminal underground is virtually teeming with blackness.
The criminal overlord was the darkest face we’ve seen on this show so far and he was shot, in a way, out of spite (since Apollo had no intention of stopping the black market). Apollo then hands the reigns of the criminal underground over to two slightly-less brown underlings who just happen to be standing around and I was left thinking, “Oh, okay, Apollo, well, if they’re whiter, surely you can trust _them_!”
Then there was the whole issue of “white slavery.” The overlord is selling white children for sexual abuse to the highest bidder, which makes him not only bad, but EVIL. And, I agree. However, that I was supposed to buy that Apollo REALLY cared about his whore’s child grated. I’m not suggesting that I think child sexual abuse is on par with procuring the services of an adult prostitute, but there was something about the way the authors of this episode paralleled those two sexual abuses coupled with the race card that just felt… gross. I guess I felt like it played into the stereotype of the sexually aggressive black man (who must be destroyed to be contained.)
I think, in all honesty, I would have rolled with this better if Galactica could find a few qualified fighter pilots who are black. Why couldn’t the CAG of Pegasus be African American? The Admiral? You could throw that tired old argument at me that maybe no black actors applied for jobs on a science fiction show, but CLEARLY THAT’S NOT TRUE. They all got parts when the script called characters to populate the scary underbelly of the Galactica fleet. There were more walk-on African-American faces in the episode of “Black Market” than I have seen in the entire run of the show to-date.
Plus, this show suffers from comparison to its much more color blind predecessor. On the original Battlestar Galactica, we AT LEAST had Boomer and Col. Ty. It’s true that the current version of the show does have Hispanic and Asian actors in major roles (although making your Asian character an alien is kind of cheating, IMHO.) Plus, you may say that the 1970s suffered from “tokenism,” but I’d still have to say that I’d prefer to live in the future that has African-Americans who have jobs other than that of criminal.
When you don’t, I start wondering what the hell is up with Caprica (why, too, are so few of the survivors on Caprica black??) Apollo’s big revelation at the end of “Black Market” is that Galactica’s fleet isn’t a utopia and it never will be. To which I have to reply: no shit, but not in the way you’re thinking, buddy. Maybe Earth is actually the promised land because we had Martin Luther King, Jr’s dream, and Caprica didn’t. Have we seen for sure? Is the “head” on Galactica labeled “whites only”?
A scary future indeed.
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Date: 2006-09-27 01:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 02:40 pm (UTC)1. Apollo has been sleeping with a prostitute? As an ongoing thing, for months? I needed waaaaaaaaaaay more setup to buy this. I also needed more setup on the pregnant girlfriend backstory, which to my recollection we had never seen before.
2. The Commander (and former XO) of the Pegasus was a major player in the black market? How the hell did THAT happen? They were latecomers to the fleet; the black market should've been well-established by the time the Pegasus even arrived. I can believe that he muscled in, or inserted himself by using Pegasus supplies or supply runs, but we needed at least a brief explanation. More than Zak's claim that the XO's black market ring approached HIM for help, because c'mon. Zak's been around, and shady, and free to move around, for months. And yet we're supposed to believe that Apollo was willing to swallow that the FIRST he was approached to participate in it was after the Pegasus arrived?
3. While Head Honcho Dude made some good points about the black market serving to alleviate certain supply pressures, there are options other than just continuing to let it operate as a black market. For example, they could institute rationing but say that if you wanted to sell some of your rationed goods, you were free to do so on the open market, and turn the black market into a plain old everyday market. I mean, if people want to trade jewelry, or even food, for whiskey -- okay. Fine. The only problem is when you're talking about trade in people and pharmaceuticals. Now, admittedly, there's a thriving pharmaceutical black market in the U.S., despite attempts to stop it (and the drug trade continues even in countries like Singapore that have absolutely draconian measures against it). But, there are only 50,000 people in the fleet. If you wanted to absolutely eradicate child prostitution and the black market in drugs in a town of 50,000 people, you could probably do it. At the very least, they ought to be able to eliminate the trade in children.
You are totally right about the whiteness of space issue. I don't know why this doesn't seem to occur to the TV producers. I can easily imagine Tigh as a black guy. And they've been heavily recruiting pilots to replace their losses, so why aren't any of their pilots black?
I totally agree, and...
Date: 2006-09-27 04:23 pm (UTC)In some ways, this might have been a better episode if the "main character" hadn't been Apollo, but someone else in the fleet we know less about.
For instance, I found Apollo's squishy morality in this episode out of character. He's not a prostitute type, witness one episode later when Starbuck just wants to frak and he wants to slow down. (Perhaps we're meant to believe that he treats his prostitute differently or with as much care, but that is too "Pretty Woman" for me, and makes me like Apollo less than if he were callous with the prostitute, you know?)
But Apollo is the same guy who, in season one, mutanied in order to perserve the justice/electoral process. Muntany is the worst thing a military officer can contemplate, add to that that his CO is his dad... this is a guy with a HIGH sense of moral obligation. Not the sort to dally with prostitutes... not to mention shoot a guy for "justice" and ignore due process.
Which brings me back to race... in what world is it okay for the admiral's son to shoot a black guy and not stand trial for murder? Isn't it murder? Or are "excutions" the norm in this society? Aren't they always harping on due process? Isn't that why Adoma Senior nearly went to war with the Pegasus not three episodes earlier?
Re: I totally agree, and...
Date: 2006-09-27 06:25 pm (UTC)The whole episode would've worked better with a different character, though honestly I'm not sure who it should've been. Really, they should've just done a different episode entirely to show us the black market and how it operated.
I also remember being appalled by the stupidity of the Head Honcho dude for not just handing the kid over to Apollo and saying that of course they would never, ever engage in child selling again. Because really, like Apollo was coming back to check? Nahhhh. And even if they shut down the child prostitution stuff, it's not as if that was the only really lucrative business they were into.
To quote my old friend
Gobbling up TV
Date: 2006-09-27 02:46 pm (UTC)It was bad. But so good.
I have to watch BG though, and I should do it now, while there are only two seasons to get addicted to on DVD!
--Karen
More addictive than Buffy, IMHO
Date: 2006-09-27 04:30 pm (UTC)TV as drugs.
Re: More addictive than Buffy, IMHO
Date: 2006-09-27 06:18 pm (UTC)Nothing's quite like that, but BSG comes close. It doesn't take over my brain to the same degree, though, so I can watch it. (The problem with gaming wasn't just that I wanted to do it again and again, but that it was an outlet for my creative energy.)
Re: Gobbling up TV
Date: 2006-09-28 08:42 pm (UTC)So last night we started on our son's BG DVD set and I can confirm the addictive quality complete. Good thing his birthday is coming up and Grandma is getting him Season 2.