I was talking with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
rossaka yesterday about gender and television characters-- specifically Laura Roslin, and it got me thinking.
All my life, the shows I've been drawn to are shows featuring "strong female characters" whatever that means. One character's often enough to hook me on an entire show. The list goes on for miles: Kerry Weaver, Dana Scully, Kathryn Janeway, Kay Howard, Julianna Cox, CJ Cregg, Stacy Warner, Sarah Jane Smith, Martha Jones... And now, Laura Roslin.
I've never really thought too deeply about why I have such a strong attachment to female characters, but Roslin's an interesting case.
Roslin exists in an environment where gender doesn't appear to be an issue. In the world of BSG, planet of origin comes up as an issue. Clearly, whether or not someone is a Cylon matters. What doesn't come up (at least, to my knowledge) is any awareness of skin color or 21st century American conceptions about gender. I wouldn't expect the show to adopt our culture's gender stereotypes, but it doesn't seem to have incorporated any gender stereotypes.
No one claims that Laura Roslin's gender makes her any less qualified to be President, and, conversely, no one argues that she's more qualified because she's a woman. Roslin isn't the only character whose gender isn't an issue. In fact, I can't think of a single instance in which someone's gender comes up at all. I may be wrong about this, and if I am, feel free to correct me.
At any rate, the BSG universe takes a unique approach to gender roles. Yes, Roslin was a teacher, a traditionally female role. Yes, the government position she holds is one that's closely tied to a traditional female role. Yet we're given no reason to believe that Roslin's gender influenced her decision to become a teacher, or that it played any role in her appointment as Secretary of Education (although, to be perfectly fair and utterly brutal, it probably didn't hurt that at some point she started shagging the President).
In fact, we do not see any role that seems to be gender-exclusive. (Again, if I'm wrong, please tell me.) We see both men and women doing jobs that are not typically associated with their gender. From chicks in Vipers to Billy the wonder secretary, there seems to be a fair bit of gender equity within the fleet, at least when it comes to employment. This may not be the case, as we as viewers typically see only those jobs considered by our society to be the roles of men. There's a whole other essay in that, but the majority of the jobs we see being done are military jobs. Within the military, gender appears to be irrelevant, but it may be that there are other areas of Colonial society that are considered gender-specific.
That being said, I think it's fair to say that there isn't an under-riding message that certain things are "women's work" within the context of BSG.
So the question becomes: Does Laura Roslin's gender matter in a gender-equal society?
Certainly, some of her relationships would be different, if she were a man. I can't exactly see Bill Adama snuggling up with a male colleague who smoked him out, for example. (That may have more to do with my thoughts on Adama than on Roslin's gender, however.) I admit that part of what I love about Roslin as a character is the way her relationship with Adama has evolved, because it gives a great deal of depth to what aspects of her the audience gets to see. Then again, Roslin and Adama's relationship isn't based on the fact that he's a man and she's a woman. It grew from a rather tense working relationship into a friendship, and it's not unreasonable to imagine that even if they were both men, they'd still have become friends.
Too, I suspect that if Roslin were male, the male Roslin wouldn't have breast cancer specifically. In fact, I suspect that if Roslin were a man, Roslin would have prostate cancer, simply because breast cancer is so closely associated with one gender (in spite of the fact that it affects men as well as women). I might be wrong about the type of cancer, but I think it's fair to assume that a male Roslin wouldn't have breast cancer specifically.
I can't think of another thing that would be substantially altered by a gender flip, assuming that the production team took the same gender-neutral approach to the character that they do to the show.
Would I like the male version of Roslin? I would love to say, unequivocally, that gender doesn't influence my feelings about the character and that I'd love Roslin just the same if Roslin were a man. The thing is, I can't do it. I'd like Roslin, yes, but mostly, I think I would love to hate Roslin.
I suppose I should explain why I love Roslin, because if I'm going to talk about the way gender informs my own feelings about the character, I should probably articulate what those feelings are. I love the multiple layers of the character. I love Roslin's clear sense of purpose and her refusal to shy away from making the tough decisions. She's got balls of steel, and there's something awe-inspiring about a character who's as hardcore as she is. This isn't someone whose badside I want to be standing anywhere near, however. Beyond which, one has to wonder where the line is for her. Clearly, Roslin is willing to sacrifice a damn lot to achieve security, but at what point is it too much?
Genocide via bioweapon's okay with her. Torture as an interrogation technique's fine with her. Airlocking without trial's okay too. We've seen dissenters are arrested not for any real crimes but rather for their thoughts. She's recommended assassination as a means of solving a conflict over, at its core, leadership style. (And don't get me started on the similarities between Roslin and Cain as leaders.) She's ordered an end to a woman's ability to exercise what she believes to be a fundamental freedom, and let's be clear, if it wasn't abortion, it wouldn't pack the same emotional punch but the outcome would likely be the same. In fact, the only thing Roslin seems unwilling to condone is suicide bombing in a specific situation (and of course, they are all specific situations.) That one example doesn't serve to show us where her line is, however.
Where Roslin's line lies depends, to an extent, on how she gets there. Ultimately, I think Roslin's guided primarily by the greatest happiness principle-- that is, the right to thing to do is that which will maximize happiness (and by this I don't, or rather John Stuart Mill did not, mean the transient emotion of joy) for the greatest number of people. Conversely, the right thing to do is that which will minimize suffering for the greatest number of people. Clearly, when the decision is "Do I let x number of people suffer a great deal to preserve the continued survival of the species?" a lot of people are going to suffer in the name of humanity's survival. It's entirely possible that John Stuart Mill is rolling in his grave right now.
So about that suicide bombing thing. "I don't care that it's effective, I don't care that the Cylons can't stop it. It's wrong." That's a pretty black and white statement against the argument I just advanced, and I recognize that. It felt off to me the first time I watched "Precipice" but I couldn't quite figure out why. I chalked it up to having simply judged her too harshly the first time around. Keep in mind I watched the entire series to date over the course of a week and a half. Watching it again, I'm not sure I was wrong. By "Precipice" the situation is changed. The Cylons, and the humans who've chosen to work with them, are still a threat, yes. People are being tortured, yes, but wholesale slaughter doesn't seem to be the Cylon's goal. With immanent extinction no longer on the table, suicide bombing no longer serves to maximize happiness. I suspect that Roslin wouldn't consider it to be "wrong" if the scales were weighted a bit differently.
And that's what I love about Roslin. For all that she appears to be a bit morally ambiguous at times, in fact she's a character who's behaving with unflinching moral clarity. It's not easy to follow a purely utilitarian code of ethics. Those things that we feel in our gut to be inherently right or wrong must be reconsidered as the situation changes, and it's not easy to reconsider things like torture and abortion in light of changing circumstances.
That's a really long way of saying that I love Laura Roslin because Laura Roslin is capable of being an unflinching bitch with balls of steel because being an unflinching bitch with balls of steel is, from the ethical standpoint she endorses, the right thing to do. I love Roslin because even when the decision tears her up inside, she doesn't back down.
Her ethics aren't the only reason I love Roslin, of course, but with one exception, the things that fascinate me about her stem from her ethical position. The exception is that Mary McDonnell is fucking amazing, but I'm not sure how much weight I should give that in consideration of the character.
So, taking out the Mary McDonnell is fucking amazing factor, would I love a male character who exhibited the same traits as the female Laura Roslin? As much as I like to think I'm above my own culture's gender stereotypes, the answer I keep coming back to is "probably not."
Movies and television are chock full of men who take a hardline, hardass approach. In many ways, television doesn't permit us to see the inner battles men experience when making difficult decisions. BSG is at times an exception to this. Lee Adama's a great example of a male character whose conflicting ideas of right and wrong are made visible to the audience. That being said, simply letting me see the inner turmoil isn't enough to make a male character my "favorite character." If it was, I'd probably like Lee more than I do. (This isn't to say I don't like Lee, mind you, merely to say I'd like him more.)
I think the things I would fixate on would be different. For example, in Roslin-- and most female characters-- I don't find religious belief to be terribly offensive. I'm not saying that faith offends me, but when a person permits faith to dictate (and to an extent inform) their behavior, especially in a leadership role, it usually makes me very nervous. That's likely a result of the environment in which I was raised. I wasn't brought up with religion, but the principle of a wall of separation between church and state was ingrained in me from a very young age. Beyond the American Constitutional issue (and I realize that just how far that wall extends depends heavily on the makeup of the Supreme Court), because I was not raised to subscribe to any religious doctrine, I find religion to be a scary, foreign thing. I don't fully understand it, and all of my efforts to better my understanding have fallen short. Even so, Roslin's belief in the scriptures doesn't bother me, but I know in my gut that a male character who exhibited the same level of faith for the same reason would rub me in a very, very wrong way.
With respect to religion, my own personal and cultural history leave me wary of a man behaving in the exact same manner as a woman. It's not only religion where my preconceptions dictate how I feel about a character.
Too, a man valuing security and order over freedom and equality would make me profoundly uncomfortable. I'm always wary of anyone who places undue emphasis on security, and it's my primary objection to the Bush administration. I'm a civil libertarian, and civil libertarians will always be in conflict with the law and order sect. Baltar hits the nail on the head in the debate when he accuses Roslin of using fear to drive her campaign. It's the same complaint that's been lobbied against the Bush administration for almost seven years. The difference in the BSG-verse, of course, is that the threat is real whereas in our country the threat is pretty much imaginary.
Do I think that the Cylon threat justifies the suspension of civil liberties? No. I firmly believe that as you strip away a society's freedom, you strip away that society's ability to be a society at all. If a woman has the freedom to control her body (and a doctor to administer medical care), for instance, a woman has the freedom to control her body. Period. If you take away a small piece of that freedom, you set a dangerous precedent to take away another freedom. Like, say, the freedom to read a book and make it known that you've read it. Maybe it's the librarian's daughter in me, but I've never hated a character as much as I hated Roslin in "Dirty Hands." A good old fashioned book burning indeed. That being said, I could forgive Roslin for the abortion ban, given the numbers game she's been playing from the start, and I managed to forgive her for Fenner's arrest because I wanted to continue to love her. On abortion, at least, I wouldn't be so forgiving if she were a man.
It's the double standard rearing its ugly head. No one has a right to take away a woman's basic freedom to make choices about her body, but somehow it's doubly offensive when it's a man who cannot, under any circumstances, require the freedom being taken away. I have a harder time with Fenner's arrest and the confiscation of Baltar's manuscript, and in that one instance, I don't think gender played a role so much as pure desire on my part.
Fenner's arrest aside, another factor in my own sexism is the instinctive feeling that men are more aggressive than women. The opposite may be true in the universe of BSG, if Cain and Roslin can serve as examples. Yet my own personal biases are so strong that even when faced with facts to support an alternate conclusion, I can't simply let them go and enjoy the ride.
For someone who considers herself to be relatively open-minded and rational, that's not an easy conclusion to reach. I would love to say that I'm a clear-thinking individual who is totally immune to cultural stereotypes, but if my television viewing habits are indicative of anything, it's that I am at least as influenced by stereotypes as the next person.
I love Laura Roslin for all the reasons stated above, yes. The thing is, as much as I hate it, I also love her because of an arbitrary characteristic and a personal stereotype that is so strong that it pretty much overrides all the other things I like about her. It's not easy to admit, but there you have it.
In other news, I wrote fic.
rossaka yesterday about gender and television characters-- specifically Laura Roslin, and it got me thinking.All my life, the shows I've been drawn to are shows featuring "strong female characters" whatever that means. One character's often enough to hook me on an entire show. The list goes on for miles: Kerry Weaver, Dana Scully, Kathryn Janeway, Kay Howard, Julianna Cox, CJ Cregg, Stacy Warner, Sarah Jane Smith, Martha Jones... And now, Laura Roslin.
I've never really thought too deeply about why I have such a strong attachment to female characters, but Roslin's an interesting case.
Roslin exists in an environment where gender doesn't appear to be an issue. In the world of BSG, planet of origin comes up as an issue. Clearly, whether or not someone is a Cylon matters. What doesn't come up (at least, to my knowledge) is any awareness of skin color or 21st century American conceptions about gender. I wouldn't expect the show to adopt our culture's gender stereotypes, but it doesn't seem to have incorporated any gender stereotypes.
No one claims that Laura Roslin's gender makes her any less qualified to be President, and, conversely, no one argues that she's more qualified because she's a woman. Roslin isn't the only character whose gender isn't an issue. In fact, I can't think of a single instance in which someone's gender comes up at all. I may be wrong about this, and if I am, feel free to correct me.
At any rate, the BSG universe takes a unique approach to gender roles. Yes, Roslin was a teacher, a traditionally female role. Yes, the government position she holds is one that's closely tied to a traditional female role. Yet we're given no reason to believe that Roslin's gender influenced her decision to become a teacher, or that it played any role in her appointment as Secretary of Education (although, to be perfectly fair and utterly brutal, it probably didn't hurt that at some point she started shagging the President).
In fact, we do not see any role that seems to be gender-exclusive. (Again, if I'm wrong, please tell me.) We see both men and women doing jobs that are not typically associated with their gender. From chicks in Vipers to Billy the wonder secretary, there seems to be a fair bit of gender equity within the fleet, at least when it comes to employment. This may not be the case, as we as viewers typically see only those jobs considered by our society to be the roles of men. There's a whole other essay in that, but the majority of the jobs we see being done are military jobs. Within the military, gender appears to be irrelevant, but it may be that there are other areas of Colonial society that are considered gender-specific.
That being said, I think it's fair to say that there isn't an under-riding message that certain things are "women's work" within the context of BSG.
So the question becomes: Does Laura Roslin's gender matter in a gender-equal society?
Certainly, some of her relationships would be different, if she were a man. I can't exactly see Bill Adama snuggling up with a male colleague who smoked him out, for example. (That may have more to do with my thoughts on Adama than on Roslin's gender, however.) I admit that part of what I love about Roslin as a character is the way her relationship with Adama has evolved, because it gives a great deal of depth to what aspects of her the audience gets to see. Then again, Roslin and Adama's relationship isn't based on the fact that he's a man and she's a woman. It grew from a rather tense working relationship into a friendship, and it's not unreasonable to imagine that even if they were both men, they'd still have become friends.
Too, I suspect that if Roslin were male, the male Roslin wouldn't have breast cancer specifically. In fact, I suspect that if Roslin were a man, Roslin would have prostate cancer, simply because breast cancer is so closely associated with one gender (in spite of the fact that it affects men as well as women). I might be wrong about the type of cancer, but I think it's fair to assume that a male Roslin wouldn't have breast cancer specifically.
I can't think of another thing that would be substantially altered by a gender flip, assuming that the production team took the same gender-neutral approach to the character that they do to the show.
Would I like the male version of Roslin? I would love to say, unequivocally, that gender doesn't influence my feelings about the character and that I'd love Roslin just the same if Roslin were a man. The thing is, I can't do it. I'd like Roslin, yes, but mostly, I think I would love to hate Roslin.
I suppose I should explain why I love Roslin, because if I'm going to talk about the way gender informs my own feelings about the character, I should probably articulate what those feelings are. I love the multiple layers of the character. I love Roslin's clear sense of purpose and her refusal to shy away from making the tough decisions. She's got balls of steel, and there's something awe-inspiring about a character who's as hardcore as she is. This isn't someone whose badside I want to be standing anywhere near, however. Beyond which, one has to wonder where the line is for her. Clearly, Roslin is willing to sacrifice a damn lot to achieve security, but at what point is it too much?
Genocide via bioweapon's okay with her. Torture as an interrogation technique's fine with her. Airlocking without trial's okay too. We've seen dissenters are arrested not for any real crimes but rather for their thoughts. She's recommended assassination as a means of solving a conflict over, at its core, leadership style. (And don't get me started on the similarities between Roslin and Cain as leaders.) She's ordered an end to a woman's ability to exercise what she believes to be a fundamental freedom, and let's be clear, if it wasn't abortion, it wouldn't pack the same emotional punch but the outcome would likely be the same. In fact, the only thing Roslin seems unwilling to condone is suicide bombing in a specific situation (and of course, they are all specific situations.) That one example doesn't serve to show us where her line is, however.
Where Roslin's line lies depends, to an extent, on how she gets there. Ultimately, I think Roslin's guided primarily by the greatest happiness principle-- that is, the right to thing to do is that which will maximize happiness (and by this I don't, or rather John Stuart Mill did not, mean the transient emotion of joy) for the greatest number of people. Conversely, the right thing to do is that which will minimize suffering for the greatest number of people. Clearly, when the decision is "Do I let x number of people suffer a great deal to preserve the continued survival of the species?" a lot of people are going to suffer in the name of humanity's survival. It's entirely possible that John Stuart Mill is rolling in his grave right now.
So about that suicide bombing thing. "I don't care that it's effective, I don't care that the Cylons can't stop it. It's wrong." That's a pretty black and white statement against the argument I just advanced, and I recognize that. It felt off to me the first time I watched "Precipice" but I couldn't quite figure out why. I chalked it up to having simply judged her too harshly the first time around. Keep in mind I watched the entire series to date over the course of a week and a half. Watching it again, I'm not sure I was wrong. By "Precipice" the situation is changed. The Cylons, and the humans who've chosen to work with them, are still a threat, yes. People are being tortured, yes, but wholesale slaughter doesn't seem to be the Cylon's goal. With immanent extinction no longer on the table, suicide bombing no longer serves to maximize happiness. I suspect that Roslin wouldn't consider it to be "wrong" if the scales were weighted a bit differently.
And that's what I love about Roslin. For all that she appears to be a bit morally ambiguous at times, in fact she's a character who's behaving with unflinching moral clarity. It's not easy to follow a purely utilitarian code of ethics. Those things that we feel in our gut to be inherently right or wrong must be reconsidered as the situation changes, and it's not easy to reconsider things like torture and abortion in light of changing circumstances.
That's a really long way of saying that I love Laura Roslin because Laura Roslin is capable of being an unflinching bitch with balls of steel because being an unflinching bitch with balls of steel is, from the ethical standpoint she endorses, the right thing to do. I love Roslin because even when the decision tears her up inside, she doesn't back down.
Her ethics aren't the only reason I love Roslin, of course, but with one exception, the things that fascinate me about her stem from her ethical position. The exception is that Mary McDonnell is fucking amazing, but I'm not sure how much weight I should give that in consideration of the character.
So, taking out the Mary McDonnell is fucking amazing factor, would I love a male character who exhibited the same traits as the female Laura Roslin? As much as I like to think I'm above my own culture's gender stereotypes, the answer I keep coming back to is "probably not."
Movies and television are chock full of men who take a hardline, hardass approach. In many ways, television doesn't permit us to see the inner battles men experience when making difficult decisions. BSG is at times an exception to this. Lee Adama's a great example of a male character whose conflicting ideas of right and wrong are made visible to the audience. That being said, simply letting me see the inner turmoil isn't enough to make a male character my "favorite character." If it was, I'd probably like Lee more than I do. (This isn't to say I don't like Lee, mind you, merely to say I'd like him more.)
I think the things I would fixate on would be different. For example, in Roslin-- and most female characters-- I don't find religious belief to be terribly offensive. I'm not saying that faith offends me, but when a person permits faith to dictate (and to an extent inform) their behavior, especially in a leadership role, it usually makes me very nervous. That's likely a result of the environment in which I was raised. I wasn't brought up with religion, but the principle of a wall of separation between church and state was ingrained in me from a very young age. Beyond the American Constitutional issue (and I realize that just how far that wall extends depends heavily on the makeup of the Supreme Court), because I was not raised to subscribe to any religious doctrine, I find religion to be a scary, foreign thing. I don't fully understand it, and all of my efforts to better my understanding have fallen short. Even so, Roslin's belief in the scriptures doesn't bother me, but I know in my gut that a male character who exhibited the same level of faith for the same reason would rub me in a very, very wrong way.
With respect to religion, my own personal and cultural history leave me wary of a man behaving in the exact same manner as a woman. It's not only religion where my preconceptions dictate how I feel about a character.
Too, a man valuing security and order over freedom and equality would make me profoundly uncomfortable. I'm always wary of anyone who places undue emphasis on security, and it's my primary objection to the Bush administration. I'm a civil libertarian, and civil libertarians will always be in conflict with the law and order sect. Baltar hits the nail on the head in the debate when he accuses Roslin of using fear to drive her campaign. It's the same complaint that's been lobbied against the Bush administration for almost seven years. The difference in the BSG-verse, of course, is that the threat is real whereas in our country the threat is pretty much imaginary.
Do I think that the Cylon threat justifies the suspension of civil liberties? No. I firmly believe that as you strip away a society's freedom, you strip away that society's ability to be a society at all. If a woman has the freedom to control her body (and a doctor to administer medical care), for instance, a woman has the freedom to control her body. Period. If you take away a small piece of that freedom, you set a dangerous precedent to take away another freedom. Like, say, the freedom to read a book and make it known that you've read it. Maybe it's the librarian's daughter in me, but I've never hated a character as much as I hated Roslin in "Dirty Hands." A good old fashioned book burning indeed. That being said, I could forgive Roslin for the abortion ban, given the numbers game she's been playing from the start, and I managed to forgive her for Fenner's arrest because I wanted to continue to love her. On abortion, at least, I wouldn't be so forgiving if she were a man.
It's the double standard rearing its ugly head. No one has a right to take away a woman's basic freedom to make choices about her body, but somehow it's doubly offensive when it's a man who cannot, under any circumstances, require the freedom being taken away. I have a harder time with Fenner's arrest and the confiscation of Baltar's manuscript, and in that one instance, I don't think gender played a role so much as pure desire on my part.
Fenner's arrest aside, another factor in my own sexism is the instinctive feeling that men are more aggressive than women. The opposite may be true in the universe of BSG, if Cain and Roslin can serve as examples. Yet my own personal biases are so strong that even when faced with facts to support an alternate conclusion, I can't simply let them go and enjoy the ride.
For someone who considers herself to be relatively open-minded and rational, that's not an easy conclusion to reach. I would love to say that I'm a clear-thinking individual who is totally immune to cultural stereotypes, but if my television viewing habits are indicative of anything, it's that I am at least as influenced by stereotypes as the next person.
I love Laura Roslin for all the reasons stated above, yes. The thing is, as much as I hate it, I also love her because of an arbitrary characteristic and a personal stereotype that is so strong that it pretty much overrides all the other things I like about her. It's not easy to admit, but there you have it.
In other news, I wrote fic.
The first is the use of rape/torture . . . Male Cylons are airlocked. Female Cylons (or prisoners of any stripe) are raped. There was also the attempted prison rape of Cally in S1 and the rape/prison/playing house mindfrak Starbuck went through on New Caprica, and the whole forced pregnancies on the Farm . . .
Yeah Gaius was tortured (by both Cylons and humans) and Leoben was tortured prior to being airlocked. But you never see them go for the total degradation with a man the way they do with a woman.
The second thing that bugs the hell out of me is Laura's role as the dying leader - this may well be a case of me loving the character too much coupled with a careless comment RDM made on one of the podcasts (which boiled down to "we didn't feel we were using her enough, so we brought the cancer back" - (he's later gone on to say things like "we always meant to," etc., but it bugged me to no end at the time and in emanland Woman King is actually a very politically astute episode where Roslin is forced to wrestle with the issue of what to do with these contingency of civilians whose religious beliefs are very different than her own, but no less valid (and THAT'S how you use Laura/Mary, RDM!)) - but anyway, getting back to the real point - there's a part of me that can't help but abhor the message being sent by making Roslin the dying leader (if she really is) because here's a woman who's slowly risen through life from teacher, to secretary of education, to President of the Colonies and grown to function and do well in every role and yet her real purpose in life can't be filled until she dies!?
And I actually once asked the hyperbolic question of if Adama were president (and needed some sort of drama to flesh out the role) and Roslin were in charge of the fleet if Adama would be given prostate cancer, and my answer to myself in that case was "no" - so I find it interesting that you think they'd actually do that.
As far as the real message in your post, the political ambiguities are something I've struggled with, but I think it's actually gender-neutral. The torture of Baltar for example, is something that I wrestle with a lot, in particular in the context of the line Adama hisses "Tell me or I'll let you drown," which smacks of a metaphorical water-boarding, and something against which I've signed numerous petitions. And yet in the universe of BSG - I can condone it. (whether it's because Callis plays slimy so well, or as I noted to someone else, the threats in BSG are "realer" to me than those the current administration tries to scare me with, I don't know).
And in that vein, I'll poke you with another question regarding the political ambiguities and gender as I know like me, you appreciate Michelle Forbes and Cain . . . can you support everything she did?
I think the thing for me is, the way I see it, is that BSG had found a way to take us out of our comfort zone so far as The Role of Woman and the Role of Man, but... without stripping what woman versus man is. You don't have the women are weaker and men are stronger, and you don't have the women don't know much and the men know everything, but... they are still women, and they are still men.
It makes the issue confused. It's not that BSG deleted sex, it's that they gave it less power, while infusing MORE, yet different, power into it at the same time. Roslin is still a woman, and therfore, for her, breast cancer is the most devastating. Kara is still a woman, and therefore, being impregnated is the most horrific thing and is akin to rape.
I'm not sure how to address the men/airlocked but women/raped issue, other than to say... I dont' know. It's easier for a woman to be raped? I dont know.
There's still this conception that women are to be plundered, whereas men, just get rid of them. And specifically in the case of the Six on Pegasus... there was more of a reason there than just "she is a prisoner, we will rape her." She was what, second in command? She was Cain's right hand man, and partner. It was a greater betrayal, it was more personal, they wanted to her hurt here MORE than they would just this random cylon that betrayed them.
And as far as Callie goes, I'd read that as more of "these men have been in prison and haven't had sex in so long they've gone crazy from it and wish to rape the first woman they see".
I am kind of surprised though, now that I think about it, that a man hasn't been raped in some way yet. There's nothing more immasculating than that, nothing more humiliating and degrading to a heterosexual man than to be forcibly made to submit to the will of another. Making him "the woman", if you want to be sexist, of the situation.
And reading over this it's kind of very scary to me that I can talk about rape so logically. LOL! I'm all blah blah blah logical, when under any normal circumstance I'd be outraged. And yes, when I saw Six being raped, I WAS outraged as a woman, but... I guess since it's a tv show I can remove myself slightly and be more, I don't know... objective.
So I don't know, it's a weird balance, and nearly impossible to explain. I think the main thing is that while, yes, the roles of men and women have blurred more than they have in our own society in the BSG-verse, but... they ARE still women and men.
It's easier for a woman to be raped?
Not that I condone it at all, and not that I'm okay with it, let's jsut state that right off the bat.
But what I meant was that... in order for someone to be raped, someone has to DO the raping. And the majority of men on the show (from what we've seen, taking out the slash-tendancies of fandom) are heterosexual, and... and I'll never understand how a dude can get off on raping a woman, but I'm sure they'd rather rape a woman than a man, being that they're straight.
Easier in that, in a traditional way, men fuck women. I just don't think you generally hear of a straight man raping another man unless it's in prison where "any hole will do". To me it makes more sense that a straight man (who is, granted, severely fucked up in the head) would be much more likely to send an enemy man out of an airlock before they'd rape him.
I'm well and truly fascinated by your point about sex in BSG. They haven't deleted that distinction in power (whether anybody could, I know, is a different question) whereas they have tried to blur other gender roles. In fact, they seem to be playing it up. Roslin could have innumerable diseases, but she gets breast cancer. When women are prisoners, they're raped or they're made in baby making machines. And gee, I wonder who's going to bear the burden when abortion is banned? And when Seelix walks in on Tory and Anders, who gets looked at like the slut? It seems I don't really have a point other than to agree with you that it's a weird balance and to wonder about it.
Interesting note here . . . I've had a lot of people try to justify it by that the women were more wiling to give up the tactical information but the men weren't - and I always felt that they never really tried hard enough with the men -- Sharon/Athena would've done anything for her baby. Sharon/Boomer after shooting Adama which should've been a death sentence immediately (and it took Cally to carry it out) was still held in prison. Gina was tortured well beyond any tactical utility solely for revenge. But that didn't happen with either Leoben or Cavil. And even with the circle and the execution of collaborators - you never saw a woman thrown out the airlock - surely women collaborated.
There's nothing more immasculating than that, nothing more humiliating and degrading to a heterosexual man than to be forcibly made to submit to the will of another.
There's a touch of that with the Gaius/Head Six relationship, where it's clear that he's not entirely in control - and yet the same time there's an element of 'seduction' in there that twists it - he's in a way a willing participant.
Which brings to mind another comment where apparently Katee Sackhoff said that the paint sex scene with Leoben was intended to be a rape, and my comment was that I can only hope that she doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about because the cut scenes made it clear that she was aroused and if there's a level of "see, bitch, you really want it" in there then I'm going to have to hitchhike down to CA and kick RDM in the balls. . .
You make a very good point re: rape/torture. Truthfully, sexual violence is one of those things I deliberately block from my mind when it exists in something I otherwise enjoy because it strikes a chord I prefer not to acknowledge the existence of. That being said, you're absolutely right. However, there is an extent to which the show itself attempts to condemn what it's doing while continuing to do it. It's not the "good guys" who are raping Cylons. It's not the "good guys" who turned Gina into a shell of a woman. And while I think the show blurs the line between "good guys" and "bad guys" rather brilliantly, ultimately, our core cast of people seem not willing to fully endorse the treatment, which I think is meant to be an apology for it existing at all, if that makes sense. On a related note, one thing that bugs the hell out of me about media in general is that it's somehow acceptable to show total degradation of women to the point that it's almost-- almost-- no longer shocking to see, whereas that level of degradation of men is something that's almost never shown. I find myself wondering how much of that is writers and show-runners and how much of it is networks and studios vetoing any attempt to reach some sort of gender parity.
At any rate, one thing I thought of after posting is Cally. The way Cally is written in general pisses me off. I genuinely cannot watch part of Lay Down Your Burdens, because the whole "I forgive you for beating the crap out of me because it wasn't your fault" thing makes me ill. I can't get behind her relationship with Cheif at all, and it's because of that. I don't really give a shit whether Cheif was in control of his actions or not at that moment; I can't stand the message that it's okay to put up with being beaten if the aggressor "didn't mean it." I realize that we're supposed to believe Chief's a good guy, or at least we were then and all bets are off now, but I really don't give a damn. Sanctioning the logic that permits the cycle of domestic violence to continue is nothing short of dangerously irresponsible.
which boiled down to "we didn't feel we were using her enough, so we brought the cancer back"
*Blink.* Okay, that's just lazy writing. Seriously. And by "just" I don't mean to imply "merely, don't get upset about it" but rather "fucking ridiculous and now I'm pissed on multiple levels."
The dying leader thing in general bugs me, and I think it would bug me regardless of gender. It feels gimmicky and profoundly unfair. That being said, if it is in fact Laura, your point is well-taken. It's actually sickly reminiscent of the attitude that a woman's only purpose is to be attractive enough to get a man then pop out tons of (hopefully) male babies.
I'm not sure they would stick with the cancer thing had they actually made Roslin male. Mostly, I was trying to imagine a character as similarly situated as possible so as to make for a better comparison.
The torture in BSG is disturbing, but like you, I can justify it better than I can the use of torture by our country. In part, there's the bit about it being fiction and therefore Not About Me (or, for that matter, actions taken by a government that claims to be acting on my behalf). Another issue is the circumstances and the danger being more real. Beyond that, while there are other instances of torture on the show, the drugged interrogation seems to have the benefit of providing at least a modicum of information. I hate to be quite so glibly pragmatic about a subject as serious as torture, but in that specific context, it sort of works. Techniques like water-boarding, forcing a person to stand for days on end, sleep deprivation, etc. have been shown over and over again to provide no valuable information because after being tortured, a prisoner will say anything just to make it stop. In essence, this country's torture is totally without benefit because the information provided is so unreliable and often flat out lies.
I've been thinking about the Cain thing for a while now, and determined that before I can even begin to really think about it, I need to more carefully rewatch pretty much all of the Cain canon. I haven't gotten past enough of the OMG ENSIGN RO AND JULIANNA COX AND CAIN ROCKS TOO AND OMG SQUEEEEEEE yet. I have a very hard time watching Michelle Forbes in anything and actually focusing because of the squee.
That's a REALLY good point, I noted in a comment below that I think some of this might not even be conscious decisions on the part of the show-runners/writers just one of those things that because they haven't made a conscious effort to do hasn't been done . . . but the role of the network in all of this hadn't sprang to mind, and it's an important part of the equation.
I did my JD capstone project on the prosecution of rape as a war crime (or more importantly lack thereof), and for that and other reasons it's a hair-trigger issue for me. (BTW, if you haven't listened to the podcasts yet, you ought to -- really interesting detail with regard to Tricia Helfer's portrayal of Gina -- RDM was going to have her sleep with Gaius in Epiphanies and it was Tricia, who said, "no, she'd never do that." -- it went a long way toward shattering some of my subconscious stereotypes with regard to a woman who's that pretty and a model and never acted before can't be smart. I continue to be impressed by her.).
And by "just" I don't mean to imply "merely, don't get upset about it" but rather "fucking ridiculous and now I'm pissed on multiple levels."
More than a year later, I'm still not over it. In fact, I was at Comic Con last July and quite literally the NEXT one up at the microphone when they called time, or that would've been my question (some combination of that and "what kind of message is it sending re: the dying leader") - which given that it was a "women of BSG" panel (Mary, Katee, Tricia, and Lucy) + RDM and David Eick, I was really curious to see how it would've been handled.
The thing is, I remember reading in a few places that Mary's mom died of breast cancer, and I know she's very conscious regarding how it's portrayed in the show and has said a few times that she almost felt like her miracle cure "cheapened it" for lack of a better word. At the same time though, bringing it back as a plot point for lack of anything else cheapens it just as much, IMNSHO . . . and I get that I'm not exactly an objective viewer having lost so many people in my own family to it, and being far too enamored of the character, but it still doesn't feel right.
I think the thing about the drugged torture of Gaius is, that in fact, even if it was drugs that were designed to cause him to tell the truth, they were drugs that induced a state of fear -- so that it was no different really than a physical torture because he believed his body to be in a state of danger. I would've had a lot less difficulty with something like Sodium Pentathol where it was only his inhibitions that were lowered . . . Although really, the end result was that they got the truth, so perhaps in the BSG 'verse the end justified the means.
And thanks for bringing this up - I've been lacking for chewy BSG discussion for a while.
There was one more thing I wanted to bring up here in that line and that is the idea of deaths in general on BSG . . . I need to go back and get statistics to support this, but I think that as far as 'notable' deaths are concerned the cards are stacked substantially against the women.
On the male side:
You have the LT that Gaius shot on fragged but he was really not a big player.
And you have Billy.
On the female side, you have:
Ellen Tigh
D'Anna (boxed being the equivalent of 'death')
Kat
What's notable here is that both Ellen and D'Anna were killed for 'not knowing their place.' Kat, as well, was rather outspoken, brash, and prone to disobeying, and she died for it. (Though her death was a result of her own actions as opposed to someone else killing her).
Second, so much food for thought here! I would agree with
To that latter question, I think the clear answer is "yes"--though I would frame my own response to it differently than you do. If we actually did live in a society in which all things were truly non-gendered (and I'm not sure such a thing would even be possible or desirable, but even if it were, it's a long way from where we are), then I can see the desirability of looking at characters in a "gender-blind" way. But that's not our world, and I don't feel bad for liking Roslin better because she's a woman than I no doubt would if she were a man. I don't think it means I fall victim to unconscious stereotypes (or, well, I know that I do--we all do--but I'm trying to become more aware of it, and I don't think that's what's really what lies behind my fascination with/adoration of Laura Roslin).
Because we live in a society that views women in power, particularly hard-assed women in power, as an exception if not an aberration, it's that much more important to have those kinds of women represented in media. Characters like Roslin and Cain--precisely because they're complicated and attractive and abhorrent in turns--work to break down cultural stereotypes. Their male counterparts would reinforce those cultural stereotypes. Because we don't live in a gender-equal society, a "gender-blind" approach to character--to say that it doesn't and shouldn't matter whether a character is male or female--is actually (at least in my mind) a prop to patriarchy. It does matter that Roslin is a woman because we need to see women like that. She's a role model, not in the sense that she's someone I'd recommend anyone emulating (eep! she is fucking scary, after all!) but because she breaks stereotypes, and it's important to remind ourselves that women can and should do so.
My $.02 on the matter, at any rate!
And I absolutely agree with you about Roslin's utilitarianism. I think it may have surprised her, actually: I suspect that back before the attacks she fancied herself sort of a bleeding-heart liberal, but when push comes to shove, she discovers she's a utilitarian at heart.
Here's another question . . . I often see a sort of reversal of "traditional" gender roles in BSG (I think, Adama has, for example, shed more tears than Roslin has - Laura has quiet moments of struggle and tears up but she pushes past them whereas Adama actually cries; he also has a tendency to defer the really tough decisions to Roslin (she ordered the assassination of Cain; she ordered the use of biological weapons; she pushed him to call off the rescue of Starbuck in S1)). Do you think were Roslin not portrayed by a woman she would be able to be more "compassionate" (for lack of a better word). Does the character's gender necessitate a need to be somewhat "hard" (again a poor choice of words) in order to compensate for what might otherwise be seen as a weakness of gender?
You're right about there being two different questions, and I'm not sure the first can be answered by anyone living in a gender-concious society.
I don't feel bad for liking Laura better because she's a woman, not exactly. It's unreasonable to expect that I would be somehow immune to the either my own life experiences or the stereotypes of the society that produced me . Mostly, I'm surprised by how just how strongly they're ingrained in me.
Honestly, one of the reasons it took me so long to start watching BSG was that almost everyone who tried to convince me that it was a good show inevitably offered up "the president's a woman" as a reason I should be watching. Sorry, just being a woman with a title doesn't automatically make a character good, worthy, or deserving of my attention and respect, and simply featuring a woman with a title isn't enough to make a show good .
I tend to resist the idea that simply giving a female character a degree of power and putting her on television every week is automatically a good thing for women and society, and I know for damn sure that's not enough to make a show good. Gina Davis played a president, but that doesn't make "Commander in Chief" any better than it was, even if it had been good, I'm not sure that character would have done anything for women's roles in society. I may be wrong, it's been a while since I watched it, but I remember feeling frustrated because her character seemed like little more than a cardboard cutout. BSG is a good show, and Roslin and Cain are good characters, but it's not simply because they happen to have two X chromosomes. You hit the nail on the head, actually. They're not simply women who have power, they're complicated people who are more than a mere cookie cutter of what we think a woman in power should look like.
I would argue that it's possible to be a bleeding heart liberal and a utilitarian-- It all depends on who's defining the terms of the equation. Roslin places survival as being of greater value than pretty much anything else, but it wouldn't be hard to argue that she simply got the math wrong. At what point do the sacrifices make life so unbearable that survival isn't worth it? Is it worth it to live if you have no freedom of choice? What if you slash out free association, too? Free speech? The right to own and control your property? What if it's determined that for the safety of the fleet, everyone must be confined to a cell? At what point have you been made to sacrifice so many of your freedoms that your life is no longer your own? It's easy to think that survival of the many is a higher good than the rights of the few (or the many, for that matter), but what good is surviving if you have no real reason to continue living? Everything turns on how you calculate happiness. I think what likely shocked Laura wasn't her underlying utilitarianism but rather the way she wrote the equation.
First, I think the gender neutrality of BSG has been overrated. Yes I think the society really is intended to be gender neutral and I love that and think it’s admirable. I fell in love with this show when Tigh tossed the table and Kara hit back. But gender can never really be taken out of the equation because the people who produce the show and the people who watch invariably live in a gendered society of some kind. For example, how much has it been emphasized, inside the show and elsewhere, that Roslin didn’t want the power she ended up with? She’s 40-something in the line of succession, she’s just a “schoolteacher,” she never asked for this. Because God forbid we have a woman who wanted the power. Very gendered, that.
would I love a male character who exhibited the same traits as the female Laura Roslin?
The crux of the question is, I think, that I’m not sure I can see a male character who exhibits the same traits that I love Roslin for. Many of those traits would just not be as interesting to me were she not a woman, because much of what I love about her is the stuff that’s unusual for a woman in our gendered society (and I think it was a gendered choice to give her these characteristics). My primary fascination with her is the one you’ve given. She is single-minded and she has absolute balls of steel: inarguably an unusual role for a woman. She sees her mission as ensuring the survival of the human race and absolutely everything she’s done can be explained in terms of that role. But the reason I can watch her do the things she does and still love her is because we also see her practicing talking points without her shoes, getting the giggles before a big debate, and smoking and snuggling with the Admiral during some down time. She is not the caricature of the ball-busting woman in power, though she certainly busts balls. I’m not sure I can imagine a male president being humanized in quite these ways and I don’t think I would care as much if he were. I would like him no doubt but he wouldn’t be so unique. For example, I am still totally in love with The West Wing and Bartlet was an incredibly human character, but I could never love him the way I do Roslin. He was interesting but not fucking groundbreaking the way Roslin is.
One place where I will admit absolute, unbridled hypocrisy is the abortion ban. I can forgive her for that because, again, she’s making sense in the way that she always does, playing the numbers. But if a man had done that I doubt I could be forgiving at all. But that too I think is explained with reference to our own world where I am constantly pissed off at men controlling women’s bodies.
And ultimately of course I’m coming at this from an American perspective where we don’t have many female leaders. So when push comes to shove, a female president knocks my socks off, as I’m sure it was intended to do (hell, just a female Chief of Staff did that for me on West Wing).
Annnd finally I’m not sure I can totally separate the awesomeness that is Mary McDonnell from the character. Because part of why I love the character is because of this phenomenal woman playing her. I just love fucking amazing women of all kinds, and both the actress and the character fit the bill.
Am I sexist? I shrug. I prefer to think of it as living in the gendered world that I inhabit every hour of the week that I’m not watching BSG.
Ultimately, you're right-- BSG will never be truly gender-neutral because no one involved in its production has any experience with gender-neutral society and thus stereotypes can't help but slip in.
She’s 40-something in the line of succession, she’s just a “schoolteacher,” she never asked for this. Because God forbid we have a woman who wanted the power. Very gendered, that.
And when we're shown a woman who does want the power, she's portrayed as having a moral compass that's somehow defective. I don't think that's a fair or accurate way of describing Cain, but it does seem to be the way the audience is being nudged to think.
That's the thing, isn't it? President Roslin is a hardass, uncompromising bitch, but Laura is so very human, and while the two sides, as it were, don't always agree, they fit together in such a way that both are enhanced by the others existence. I too loved Bartlett, but my heart belonged wholly and completely to CJ-- but CJ back when CJ was CJ, for all her flaws, and not the Wells caricature of CJ and all her flaws. And, frankly, I always thought Abbey was a more interesting character than Jed, even when Abbey was making me want to rip her hair out. (This may have something to do with my love for Stockard Channing.)
Yeah, the abortion thing just hits all of those buttons in a very real way. That it does elicit such a strong reaction makes it great television, I'll give it that. As I said, I'm not sure I'd have been able to accept the same decision for the same reasons coming from a man either, and frankly, I don't give a damn that it's hypocritical.
The idea of a female president does appeal to me, but I refuse to let gender be the sole factor in examining a president for me. If I jump all over a female president because she's female, how am I any better than those who would rip her apart for the same reason? We're both reducing her to little more than her sex, and if anything that feels regressive to me. I would have loved a female CoS on The West Wing had the choice felt like it served the narrative well. Ultimately, I'm one of those awful people who will point to exactly three episodes from the Wells years and say "those are the only ones worth watching after Sorkin left." I'm a snob about this, and so please take anything and everything I say about TWW with a grain of salt-- I'm just really bitter.
I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that none of us who have commented on this thread are sexist, if anything I think we're realists.
But, is that true? Because other than Baltar, I don't remember her being okay with the airlocking unless it was a Cylon being airlocked. I think I remember a strong STRONG objection to the traitors on New Caprica being airlocked. Or, was it that she on the outside objected but let OriginalApollo(Zerrick or whatever) do it "under her nose"?
I remember the moment this show floored me for the first time re: gender roles. Starbuck and Lee were arguing, and Starbuck punched Lee... who then, without hesitating, PUNCHED HER BACK. And? It ended in them both bursting out laughing, with exactly no one rushing forward and going "omg, are you okay Kara?" or "omg, Lee, you hit a girl!" Set that in today's society and that is in no way okay, unless it's Spike and Buffy (lol).
I had massive, massive issues with the ban on abortion thing, but I really don't think I would have had less or more issues if Roslin had been a man. I don't think I "rally behind the femmes" as much as you do though. to me I'm judging them more as a nonspecifically-gendered-person than as "it's okay for a woman, but not for a man." I really can't think of any situation in which I would have been pissed/pleased with a man doing the things that Roslin did that pleased/pissed me off.
I do think you're right in that her having Breast Cancer was done specifically because it was a woman, because women associate their womanhood with their breasts, just as men do with their penis. So a man it would have been prostate cancer. But I don't think it means anything more than "this specific person's nightmare coming true" as opposed to "this is to illustrate her femaleness" etc. I think we're agreeing here, but I'm saying it differently. LOL.
I do think there were issues made with her having been a teacher at first... I want to say at least Tigh had issues with it, if not Adama himself. Something about someone saying "I'm not taking orders from someone that teaches kindergarten!" Something like that. But again, it didn't read to me as a FEMALE teacher they had issues with, it read to me as Civilian Person as opposed to Military Strategist.
The book thing rubbed me the wrong way too, but it's pretty consistant with how I see Roslin anyway. She's very... she's extremely worried that seeds of doubt will be put in people's minds and she won't be in control anymore. And not that she's that controlling, but that anarchy = death of hte fleet, and she's the only person she trusts to lead the fleet. IE: Look at what Baltar did, this is what happens when people doubt me and turn to others for help.
And this case, it might kind of be TRUE. so I get it... but I still think, ya know, shouldn't people have the right to be as informed as they can be? Should they really be sheep? And that's a big reason why I love Lee so much because he LOVES Roslin, and he thinks she's right a lot of the time, and thinks she's a good leader, but he is the FIRST one to stand up after Zerreck stages his coup to say "his methods were wrong, but his message is right... you weren't elected by the people for the people." And they forgot a lot of that in season 3 but at the end, at the trial, when he made that impassioned speech, that's why I cried (yes, I cried) because... because my BABY was back. He was BACK.
Now Cain. Cain is a whole other ball of wax. I did have issues with them making her gay, because it just seemed to cheapen her. "Oh, this bitch is butch and has balls of steel and of course she's gay." Other than that, though, I LOVED Cain, and I LOVED that Razor was about her and what she went through. And honestly... I can't say that she was even all that wrong in the long run. Moral ambiguity, yeah, but she was a lone wolf out in the great sea of fucked-up-itude, and she SURVIVED by being a balls out butch bitch with balls of steel and very few morals left aside from "my crew will survive above and beyond all else." I can respect that.
BTW, this conversation is FASCINATING. When are we doing our podcast? LOL. I'd loooove to talk about this shit realtime.
And Spike and Buffy's just totally fucked up on so many levels, if I recall correctly. (By that point I was a casual viewer at most.) Yeah, it's-- I love that scene, because it's so very much about two people, and I love when we get to see people existing as people and not as whatever role they're meant to be playing.
I have to say, I'd have a hell of a lot fewer problems with the abortion ban if the campaign hadn't been a factor in the decision. It's one thing to ban abortion because your numbers are dwindling and you're facing extinction. It's another to ban abortion because you might lose some votes, and without the campaign looming over her head, I'm not sure she would have done much of anything.
Yeah, it's-- Look, when your parent dies from one thing of another, suddenly every day is spent with the lingering fear that you're going to meet the same fate. No, it's not even fear, it's certainty and dread, in a way. To have it confirmed has got to be absolutely terrifying. (Another reason for me to quit smoking.)
Yeah, I think we're agreeing again. No one gave a damn that they were being asked to accept orders from a woman. They gave a damn that they were being asked to take orders from someone with at most a tiny little bit of executive experience and no military experience whatsoever. It wasn't her gender that pissed them off, it was her previous experience-- or lack thereof.
You make a valid point re: the book thing and control. For me, it's a combination of two things, though. The first is that I'm the daughter of a librarian and a scientist, and if anything is sacred, it's the free exchange of information. The second is less personal and more related to the show. Knowledge is power, ideas are power, and yes, she's afraid that if those ideas get out to the fleet that they will attempt to change the power structure. Roslin truly believes that she's the right person for the job, and that the safety of the entire human race depends on the right person being in control. That being said, once you start banning information, you start limiting peoples' ability to think. As you slowly chip away at individual rights, you eventually hit the point where you've taken so much that the equation breaks down. Eventually, the cost is too high. I'm not saying this is the straw that breaks the camels back, but merely it's a really dangerous step in that direction.
I have seen nothing yet, probably will not until I'm home from Philly, pls to not be spoiling kthx<3.
No spoilers for you. I told one friend who asked to be spoiled that Starbuck comes back, shoots everyone except Caprica and Cally, they go and unbox D'Anna then develop the technology to resurrect Lee to take care of the unimportant things like dusting. None of this is true, of course, but until you've seen it, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
In the same manner, the men I like I would hate if they were a woman. I would think them to be a bitch or just plain irritating. (Rodney McKay and Ten come to mind.)
I once had a conversation with a friend about how the type of women I always become fascinated with in fandom are the strong ones like Riza Hawkeye (Fullmetal Alchemist), Samantha Carter (SG-1), Rose Tyler, etc, and then there's Sophia Myles, whom I am desperately crushing on, and she falls no where near any of those categories (she does not seem to have any of those personalities, although her character on Moonlight does, and Reinette in a way had a sort of hidden strength). She replied that perhaps the characters I respond to were the type of person I identified with.
So maybe the response to the strong female characters is a way of admiring what you wish you could be.
And, let's be honest, there aren't that many strong female characters out there. So, when there does turn out to be one, it's survival of the fiittest to latch onto them and hang on for dear life, because they can so easily be destroyed. (They tried to do so with Sam on Stargate and people were furious.)
Anyway, that's just my humble little rant on the subject. :)
I have a really hard time imagining Ten as a woman, because so much of Ten is David Tennant.
Reinette was totally kick ass strong, dude. She knew how to play the system of her time, but she was pretty damn hardcore tough.
So maybe the response to the strong female characters is a way of admiring what you wish you could be.
I think that's absolutely a factor with any character, honestly. There's the theory that we cannot love or hate anything about another person that we don't love or hate about ourselves, and I think it's pretty valid. I'll be the first to admit that I wish I could be as consistent in my actions as Laura Roslin or as unconcerned by others opinions as Sarah Jane.
I've long said that I hate when my ships become canon; so many shows seem incapable of holding onto the essence of the characters I love when they're in a relationship. It's as though writers forget what makes a female character interesting and instead resort to turning her into a ridiculous fantasy of what a woman should be when she's in a relationship. I'm not sure if the problem's a predominantly male writing staff or that it's difficult to write a consistent character for television when they're placed in a drastically different type of relationship. At any rate, great characters are absolutely destroyed far too easily, and it sucks.
You are so friended. Hi, I'm Pearl. :)
And on another slightly unrelated note, I was Roslin for Halloween. No one knew who I was, but I felt ridiculously awesome and empowered.
(I'm also insanely flattered, at the moment:) )
Christie showed me pictures of you as Roslin for Halloween a week or so ago, and I squealed with delight. (I personally think that she's secretly been pushing me to ask her about friending you in hopes of me rambling about knitting and BSG to someone other than her.)
i find the question of "would i love laura roslin if she were a man" fascinating. i've thought about it quite a lot, to be honest, for a good couple of years now, and my unflinching answer is no: i would not love laura roslin as much if she were a man.
my reasons have nothing to do with gender, for i probably wouldn't like laura roslin if she were played by another woman either, but rather with the way i percieve not only characters, but human beings in general.
to explain: when i communicate with a person, or listen to someone talk (tv, movies, doesn't have to be RL) i pay attention more to how they move or speak or flip their hair (or don't) than to what actually comes out of their mouth. why? well, because a person isn't just the sum of what they say, and, besides, people often lie, for one reason or the other. that being said, i do not love laura roslin for what she says, or does, things which are scripted and which could be said or done by anyone else, really, but for what she is. and she is, partially anyways, mary mcdonnell. if it were anyone else playing the role, be that male OR female, he or she would create a completely different laura roslin, even if their lines were exactly the same.
fact of the matter is, i can't separate mary and laura. i am well aware that mary isn't laura, and that laura isn't mary, but when mary is pretending to be laura, she brings something to that character that no one else could bring. there's a part of her (not just physically) that's there in laura, and that part, combined with the character ron created, is what makes laura laura. not to mention the fact that ron took her character in certain directions because he reacted to mary's portrayal of laura.
perhaps that doesn't make much sense to anyone but me. i don't know. but even solely within the context of the show, i don't think i'd care as much for laura roslin (or, as i fondly call her male counterpart, lawrence roslin) simply because HE wouldn't be HER.
whether we like it or not, accept it or not, males and females aren't the same. even in a world where gender wasn't and isn't an issue, there will be a differenciation between genders. like, women give birth, men don't. and can't. women wear skirts and make-up and have pretty hair, and men don't (unless they're baltar, then they have pretty hair). women manipulate men sexually and men fall for it. the reason these societies are "gender blind", so to speak, isn't that they don't notice that you're a girl or a boy, or that girls and boys don't act like girls and boys, but simply because they don't think that your gender matters when it comes to what you're capable or doing. ;)
like i said, i don't know how much sense that made. probably none. there are countless other things i would have liked to touch upon, but this comment is getting too long as it is. besides, i don't know whether those things would have made much sense either. ;)
I hadn't even considered the Mary McDonnell is Awesome issue in any real depth. You're absolutely right about how important the actor is to making a character lovable (or despicable), and for that matter, how inextricably linked they are. Then again, we don't know what someone else might bring to the role. We may still love the character, but love her differently. Or we might hate her. I know that if anyone else were to take on the role now I'd hate them, but if I started from not knowing how awesome Mary McDonnell is in the role... I'm making my brain hurt.
I do agree that there are fundamental physical differences between the sexes, but I'm not quite ready to go much further beyond that in asserting that men and women are different. Ultimately, beyond the obvious differences in the role played in reproduction, I'm not sure how much of the difference between genders we can observe is cultural and how much is biological. Clearly, we can observe differences beyond childbearing, but we're observing men and women who are also products of a society and thus conditioned to behave in accordance with society's expectations. Not everyone conforms to those gendered expectations, but that doesn't mean that society doesn't hold them.
women manipulate men sexually and men fall for it.
Of course, men manipulate women sexually as well (and women manipulate women and men manipulate men). :-D (Kant would say that sex is simply mutual, consensual, exploitation. Well, sex within marriage. Sex outside of marriage is, IIRC, just plain exploitation.)