Post of infinite hate

[bigscary]

So the grand finale of the show is a handful of white guys, mostly old, looking at the "Natives" and joking about breeding with them. And again, when the decision is made to abandon their physical culture, technology, and displace the current inhabitants of ReallyEarthThisTime, it's still a mostly male planning-group. Yes, tell me again how this show is arguably non-racist, non-misogynistic, or non-ageist.

Oh, and as to the interminable denouement? Fuck it. It's a litany of the bad choices everyone made before the apocalypse, and it's not explanatory, just embarrassing -- for the characters, the actors, and the creators.

I'm honestly trying to come up with my usual post-BSG-I-actually-watched attempt-at-comedy post, but nothin' doin'. The thing fucking makes fun of itself, and what little isn't second-to-second self-parody is just so infuriating as film making and politics that I can't seem to bring myself to engage with it in any mode but angry disdain.

As it actually ends, the one ray of hope is that given the hominids we saw, they're SO FAR BEFORE the agricultural revolution that they obviously all die out within a decade or two, century at most, and the non-invading hominids actually get their chance, rather than being replaced by obnoxious space-perverts.

OK ACTUAL ENDING IS AN ANTI-ROBOT MONTAGE!

ANTI-ROBOT MONTAGE!

Comments

[avram]

"Where the chips fell"? If character life-and-death really were chosen by a random process, surely we'd expect a few of the non-white characters to have lived to the end, no? Especially if there were "plenty" of them.

Except, as you well, know, the deaths weren't chosen randomly. They were the result of conscious writing decisions. I don't think the writers actually said to themselves "Hey, let's kill off the dark-skinned characters", but on a serial TV show, there are Major Characters with script immunity (meaning they'll survive whatever happens to them; if they do die, it'll turn out to have been a mistake or an evil twin or they'll get resurrected) and Supporting Characters who'll get killed off to indicate how serious the stakes are or give the Major Characters something to emote over.

Somehow, on most TV shows, in most books, on most movies, Major Characters are always white. Battlestar Galactica has turned out to be typical in that regard.

This isn't racist in the burn-a-cross-on-someone's-lawn sense, but it's racist in the sense that it indicates a pattern of race-related thought running through our society, a pattern of which many of us (especially those of us who are white) are unaware, but which contributes to a climate in which non-white people are made to feel like second-class citizens.

[jlc.livejournal.com]

I have to thank you very much for posting this and preventing me from posting a much more rage-filled version of the same.

[avram]

The last couple of months have been an enraging, exhausting, and educational experience for me on this very topic.

[jlc.livejournal.com]

The kerfuffle since January has been rather crazy.

[manwe-iluvendil.livejournal.com]

Sharon Lived.

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

The only surviving character of color was (1) Asian (so you know, not really that far from white) and (2) married to a white guy. And even then she had been divided into Virgin Self and Whore Self, and had to personally kill off Whore Self before she got to survive...

[manwe-iluvendil.livejournal.com]

Do you ever stop to think that maybe you're just overanalyzing? Not everything is a statement or evidence of some kind of agenda. Don't get me wrong, sometimes there are very legitimate complaints in the midst of in-depth literary analysis, but have ou ever stopped to consider that sometimes dramatic choices are just, you know, a story.

And for the record, my best friend is Asian, I've grown up terribly sensitive to anti-Asian prejudice, and I can assure you that, given that they're one of the few ethnic groups it's still perfectly acceptable to mock in jest (i.e. "Me love you long time" uttered by every stupid fucker who sees a hot Asian girl), that is NOT "almost white."

Respectfully, I suggest you might want to take a step back from time to time and refrain from picking every detail of a story apart. It really gets in the way of enjoying anything. Ever.

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

Overanalyzing? No, just analyzing. Dramatic choices are a story -- but stories are very telling.

My issue is that claims of BSG showing a post-racist, post-sexist society are undercut by persistent artifacts from the writers' own society.

It's not that I cannot love! or something; racist elements in Tolkien (ferex) don't prevent me from very much enjoying The Lord of the Rings. BSG just made claims about its society that the writers have (probably unintentionally) subverted by the dramatic choices that were made--choices which were not accidental, nor necessary, but are significant.

[(Anonymous)]

And yes, I agree that they were conscious writing decisions, but then, if I may ask -- and I do so sincerely without any attitude whatsoever -- what would you have done differently? Who would you have killed instead or had present in places? What is your solution. I'm not being an asshole here. I'm really, sincerely curious.

[avram]

The problems in this case go all the way back to the beginnings of the series. To fix them, the writers would have needed to cast more non-white actors in Main Character slots instead of Supporting Character slots.

The sexism issues were slightly different. The problem there, as I see it, is not so much that the show portrays a society that is sexist in much the same way that ours is, but that they do so as the writers claim not to be doing so. Also they could have killed off fewer of the women.

[jlc.livejournal.com]

Also they could have killed off fewer of the women.
You know, the problem to me isn't the body count, it's the fact that the women are consistently portrayed as emotional, irrational, and insane in a manner more in line with Victorian stereotypes of women than reasonable attempts at psychologically complex characters. Or that the women are much more regularly pay dearly for their actions when they make mistakes than the men.

[negativeq.livejournal.com]

Let' see, what would I have done:

First off, as agrumer said, casting would need to have been more diverse. Edward James Olmos would not be passing for white (although to be fair, perhaps the actor never was. He's just light-skinned.) The show needed more re-occurring, racially diverse characters who were NOT Cylons. The cannon fodder Viper pilots from Season 1 were very diverse, but they all died within three episodes.

The body count at the end was actually TOO LOW. Roslin and Kara were already walking dead. Anders was in-a-tub-babbling dead. They don't count. Tory and Boomer were obvious kill-offs Who Had It Coming.

I would have been fine if Boomer somehow managed to survive. If CAPRICA SIX can find forgiveness and happiness, even though she caused more damage than Boomer ever did, then that option should be available to Boomer as well. However I do concede that Caprica made choices that made it easier for her to do so. Boomer kept fucking up.

Helo really should have died. I see no way he could have survived his injuries. It may have worked better if he died during the mutiny.

Honestly, I was certain Bill Adama would fly off into the sun with Roslin after he said farewell to the Icky Twins.

Perhaps the Simons could have defected. Doctors are in high demand!

Dee should not have offed herself. That fate could easily have been transferred to another supporting named character.