BSG

[lapsedmodernist]

So I am finally watching Battlestar Galactica for the first time. And, granted, I am only at the beginning of Season 2, but so far I have to say--all of my friends have told me how the show is this clear critique of GWB and Bush-era politics. And...I sort of don't see it? I mean, obviously I see it here and there--but it's not a consistent show arc, more like remixed allusions/tropes of the War on Terror Hot Topics inserted into the plotlines. I think Buffy season 7 was a much stronger, and more developed critique of Bush and the Iraq War.

But maybe it gets more consistent/explicit later on in the show?

Comments

[jactitation.livejournal.com]

Uh, no one told me that, and I never saw it on my own. But I still enjoyed it okay. As drawn-out military wars go, it's right up there with the Macabees!

[anthrokeight.livejournal.com]

Maccabees:

http://visatergo.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/true-facts-about-the-maccabees-by-dan-carroll/

Also, I didn't see it either. I like Edward James Olmos, though.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

lol at that cartoon! I like "the old man" too.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

yeah, I am really liking it but I keep waiting for the War on Terror critiques to show up and, like I said, so far it's more like allusions here and there. Is it good or bad to torture a Cylon? Is Mary McDonnell GWB or not? etc.

[boobirdsfly.livejournal.com]

Yeah I agree with you, it's not consistently that. I don't think it becomes more so later in the show. I think it latches on to the Bible metaphors more than the war metaphors in the end. But mostly I found it existential and nihilistic. In a good and sometimes bad way.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna.

[dcart.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's a clear and consistent critique of GWB and the politics of that moment, but it does more of that in later seasons than earlier ones. I should go back and re-watch it now. I think sometimes it may have felt like a stronger critique than it was simply because so little in the mass media was willing to criticize Bush at all until right near the very end.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

well I will watch all the seasons, and then see if it becomes more obvious to me. Yeah, you are right about the absence of critiques in the mainstream media, which is why Whedon's shows were awesome at the time (among other reasons).

[dithie.livejournal.com]

I, too, have been meaning to watch BSG. I have heard a lot of good things about it.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I am really enjoying it so far, even though normally I don't care for space shows at all. I only decided to watch it because I watched and really liked the prequel (made after BSG), Caprica, which lured me in with an aesthetic/setting I really like (futuristic urban society oversaturated with its own consumption on the edge of the apocalypse), and then I was all invested in the storyline and stuff.

[theorybitch.livejournal.com]

You're right, the critique is pretty scattershot. Although I would certainly keep watching; you have to wait for particular occupation tropes to emerge. I thought of it more as a weird pop culture meditation on the theologico-political than a direct response to the War of Terror.

[isolt.livejournal.com]

I thought of it more as a weird pop culture meditation on the theologico-political than a direct response to the War of Terror.

Yeah I would agree. Baltar's arc makes that the clearest to me.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

so far I find Baltar as a character sooo annoying--his mannerisms and twitches, etc. He is almost as annoying as Jennie on the L Word.

[isolt.livejournal.com]

Something about Baltar pushes all my personal libido buttons, even though it's totally horrifying to be attracted to him. But clearly I can't be the only one, since no one else in the series gets as much hot threeway action as he does.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

ew. I find him so repulsive. I find Apollo really hot. W/Baltar, I have not seen any threeway action yet. Not looking forward to it!

[uberconfused.livejournal.com]

I found all of the characters on BSG annoying--especially Number 6. I couldn't make it all the way through the first season.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

yeah they are both super-annoying, esp. when they are together.

[heresiarch.livejournal.com]

it was? i don't really remember that. i suppose some bits maybe.

it is awesome, though.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

so far it's pretty awesome.

[exterra.livejournal.com]

oh, i saw it and liked it but missed the critique... maybe in a few episodes, but...

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, Buffy season 7! Can't wait to get there. I'm rewatching the whole show. Almost to the end of season 2.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

the end of season 2 makes me cryyyyy.

Finished season 2....

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

*sobbing by myself on the couch*

I blame the Sarah McLaughlin song. Stupid college memories and a cold and .... *pass the tissues, please*

Re: Finished season 2....

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

Oh God the Sarah McLaughlin song, and her mom finding the empty room, and her catching the Greyhound out of town. That season finale always makes me sob! So does the ending of "Passion."

[isolt.livejournal.com]

Wow, now I really want to know what you have to say about Buffy Season 7, because I hadn't thought about it politically that way at all. (Mostly it seemed like Nathan Fillion as the sledgehammer of patriarchy, in a vision of feminism that was much more hamhanded than previous seasons... but I'm open to other/more redeeming interpretations.)

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

well, of course Caleb was a wacky fundamentalist Christian-esque mysoginist who malaproped words and killed "dirty girls." He sounded like Dubya literally--the accent, the delivery, the mangled speech.

But what I thought was even more interesting was that throughout the season Buffy was becoming more and more Dubya-esque, like in one of the episodes (maybe "Bring on the Night"?) I think at one point she even said something like "we are doing it alone" which at the time seemed like an explicit reference to how the war was unfolding. As this story arc progressed, she alienated everyone, everyone thought she was an asshole, she was rigid and inflexible, she got people hurt, and eventually she repented re-gained all her friends only when she re-learned about pluralism and consensus.

[danschank.livejournal.com]

haha, i was just gonna ask about this buffy season 7 allegory myself. makes sense. i forgot that buffy was even ON during the bush years, even though i watched it religiously! i'm getting old...

the iraq stuff on BSG gets briefly very overt down the line, for a few episodes at least, but it's not some overbearing allegory. unless you count colonel tigh and his wife looking totally like john and cindy mc cain (the internet was ALL over this in 2008, haha). i think BSG works best as a critique of military dictatorships, i.e. why it's necessary to have a political system that doesn't answer to military power. also, richard hatch's character (not sure if he's shown up yet) seems o definitely be the "hugo chavez" of the series, as far as i can tell.

also, the 6/baltar dynamic remains annoying throughout. baltar sucks!

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

Aha, I found what specifically I wrote about it back in the day:

http://lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com/160775.html

[isolt.livejournal.com]

Oh fantastic. That is a MUCH more interesting way to think about s7. Caleb then becomes much more interesting too, insofar as he represents, not the patriarchy itself, but the imagined bogeyman of the patriarchy as embodied by Islam. (Because we were freeing the women of Afghanistan and Iraq from their domineering Islamofascist anti-woman rulers right?)

Or is that taking the metaphor too far?

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

you know, I think Whedon is capable of nuanced critique of GWB...I am not sure he is capable of nuanced feminism--but that's ok with me, sure it's super anvil-like in a 2nd wave way, but...at the same time, I didn't think Caleb represented all patriarchy or even the imagined bogeyman of Islamic patriarchy...I thought he represented the fundamentalist Christian republican patriarchy. I think the femininsm layer and the anti-war layer didn't always match up, but that they were both there. It was like a remix.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

nope.

[boymaenad.livejournal.com]

I appreciate your interesting observations and thoughts on these things, even when I disagree. I totally see what you saw in Buffy S7, though I hated that season and I hated watching Buffy be a whole different character for hamhanded reasons. a lot happened toward the end which was totally out of left field for who the characters used to be, and what the job of the show was. I loved the show because it was a positive guide, an escape, a light in the darkness. it became just more darkness to suffer through, for me. and as it did so, all the characters started acting like other people, to suit the puppetmaster's self-important whim. not that I dislike Joss or his work, but I think he thinks he has a Higher Calling too freaking often, and it gets in his way.

that said, I think BSG is not a critique so much as it took elements from all sides of what was going on at the time and let them play out. and sometimes it just put up the story elements from the original series and they happened to have new implications. sometimes the military logic proves correct, and sometimes the hippies win, and just like Buffy and most series, once it gets narrower and narrower and paints itself into a corner, it stops being so broad and grand, and just has itself to deal with, more or less. I think.

I'm going to burn in geek hell for saying this, but I think the miniseries was better than the rest of the series. only about 3 to 5 episodes even begin to approach its greatness and grandness and interestingness. though I only watched them all once so I'd be hard pressed to tell you which ones they were.

I also think Caprica sucked. interesting ideas, bad writing. :)

[yanatonage.livejournal.com]

I've seen every episode of BSG and I went from being a skeptic at the beginning of the show to a strong detractor by the end. It doesn't discuss any of the supposedly heavy topic matter very coherently. If you ever get sick of the show and want to complain I'm right here!