Battlestar GalacticaFollow

try the BSG web site. there must be somthing on there about it.

The new BSG is pretty freakin amazing.

The old one still makes for great watching too.

I think the new series is great, but never seem to remember to watch it. (Too much time in front of the moniter) Starbuck as a female is still weird though...

I really don't get this mentality at all. There's no purpose in remaking the show as a clone of the old show--the old show sucked. There's a reason it was only on the air for one season.

They had to include more female characters, because active female characters were pretty much non-existent in the original show. The sort of "women on the back shelf" mentality that worked in the late 70s wouldn't work today. Taking one of the primary "hero" characters like Starbuck and making that character female is a very good way to handle the situation.

I must say, however, that even with the inclusion of several powerful female characters, there's still a troubling misogynist vibe that occasionally creeps its way into the show. The Cylons are trying to breed with humans--so they send simpering sex kitten Six out to seduce one man and Boomer to seduce a couple more men. But when it comes to breeding with the human women? They get strapped to machine and medically raped. Why do the men get seduced and the woman get violated?

That this violation of Starbuck happened after she disobeyed orders from her superior officer/father-figure is also very telling. If you look at a lot of fiction, whether literary or filmed, this is a very common story structure. Female character disobeys male/paternal dictums or ignores male advice and ends up getting herself into trouble, frequently by means of some sort of sexual violation, and often needs to be rescued by a male (Helo and Anders.) When male characters buck the advice or orders of those older and wiser, they're generally rewarded and encounter good things. For example, Apollo, who committed mutiny at the end of the first season, ends up promoted and in charge of his own ship. But female characters who do the same thing end up getting "punished" for it.

Now, I'm sure if you asked Ron Moore, he would say the idea of punishing Starbuck with medical rape for being an "uppity woman" and disobeying Adama's orders was the furthest thing from his mind when he scripted Starbuck's trip to Caprica. But then, so would ever other writer or director who has ever employed that same kind of story structure--and yet it is still a very common theme. Which is really kinda telling about how pervasive this idea that women who behave independently have some sort of sexual come-uppance heading their way is in the popular subconscious psyche. We don't even realize we're doing it, but we keep telling the same "Little Red Riding Hood" (which is essentially a cautionary tale about rape) story again and again--little girls musn't disobey or they will be punished, usually by means of some form of sexual violation.

As excited as I am for the new season to begin, I'm absolutely disgusted by the snippet from the preview that aired with "Eureka" a couple weeks ago, where Leobon is saying, "This is Kara--you're mother" which means we haven't seen the end of Starbuck's medical rape/punishment for returning to Caprica. Honestly, she's a powerful character capable of holding her own regardless of her sex--can't we just leave her ovaries out of it?