lesbiassparrow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lesbiassparrow) wrote2006-01-15 05:59 pm
lesbiassparrow) wrote2006-01-15 05:59 pm
Entry tags:
BSG Thoughts on Pegasus Part II
Or, do you have to be good to be saved?
I admit some of my interest in the show has cooled, but that is partially because of the long break. I don't deal very well with gaps of that lenght, unless I've been watching something for years (see: Doctor Who). And I'm a bit ambivalent about where the show seems to be heading in terms of ideology.
Mainly this post is about the shows overriding impulse which seems to be to show human nature up in all of its gritty, violent, petty and vicious awfulness. I don't actually mind that - it's an interesting concept and one that plays well in a claustrophobic setting like the Galactica. On the other hand, I'm a bit disturbed by some of what I feel are the underpinnings of this scenario - that people should be good in order to be saved, or at least, not get nuked by genocidal robots. Have much Cylon philosophy have we had fed to us every week? A fair bit, I would say. And yet we don't get the same weight devoted to what is the overall Colonial philosophy/theology/whathave you. I get a faint whiff that it's just not that interesting to the writers.
The Cylons think, humans react and squabble and tear at each other like animals in the cage. But it's easy to be complacent at the other side of the bars. I think Cain vs. Gina crytallises this for me. Gina was an easy shorthand for all the vices of humans: abused woman, victim kept for the pleasure of her captors, with only the egomaniac Baltar to gentle her back to sanity. Leaving aside the questionable nature of telling a rape story through a man's sympathetic reaction alone and with a sexy and demonic version of the victim standing close by, Gina was a powerful metaphor for human evil. But the show was far more dismissive of the Cylon side of it in the execrable episode The Farm. It's a risky maneouver the writers are taking, ushering our sympathies towards what are bunch of murderous machines, and I am both repelled and fascinated by that angle.
I know that the writers are not necessarily saying that we should believe everything the Cylons say, or that because something is shown that the show runners celebrate it, but we are given a lot of Cylon thought in a way that I am not sure we are give for the humans. The closest was Cain's comments about what you do to survive at the end of the episode, but I am not sure I want to buy into her philosophy either.
I guess it ends up with the question: why exactly do you have to show that you are worthy of survival? Do you have to be good to be worthy of basic salvation - that is, not having someone wanting to wipe you out of existence?
Also I saw the first DVD of Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South and am pining to see the rest. I may or may not have ordered it online with a gift certificate I have in my enthusiam.
I admit some of my interest in the show has cooled, but that is partially because of the long break. I don't deal very well with gaps of that lenght, unless I've been watching something for years (see: Doctor Who). And I'm a bit ambivalent about where the show seems to be heading in terms of ideology.
Mainly this post is about the shows overriding impulse which seems to be to show human nature up in all of its gritty, violent, petty and vicious awfulness. I don't actually mind that - it's an interesting concept and one that plays well in a claustrophobic setting like the Galactica. On the other hand, I'm a bit disturbed by some of what I feel are the underpinnings of this scenario - that people should be good in order to be saved, or at least, not get nuked by genocidal robots. Have much Cylon philosophy have we had fed to us every week? A fair bit, I would say. And yet we don't get the same weight devoted to what is the overall Colonial philosophy/theology/whathave you. I get a faint whiff that it's just not that interesting to the writers.
The Cylons think, humans react and squabble and tear at each other like animals in the cage. But it's easy to be complacent at the other side of the bars. I think Cain vs. Gina crytallises this for me. Gina was an easy shorthand for all the vices of humans: abused woman, victim kept for the pleasure of her captors, with only the egomaniac Baltar to gentle her back to sanity. Leaving aside the questionable nature of telling a rape story through a man's sympathetic reaction alone and with a sexy and demonic version of the victim standing close by, Gina was a powerful metaphor for human evil. But the show was far more dismissive of the Cylon side of it in the execrable episode The Farm. It's a risky maneouver the writers are taking, ushering our sympathies towards what are bunch of murderous machines, and I am both repelled and fascinated by that angle.
I know that the writers are not necessarily saying that we should believe everything the Cylons say, or that because something is shown that the show runners celebrate it, but we are given a lot of Cylon thought in a way that I am not sure we are give for the humans. The closest was Cain's comments about what you do to survive at the end of the episode, but I am not sure I want to buy into her philosophy either.
I guess it ends up with the question: why exactly do you have to show that you are worthy of survival? Do you have to be good to be worthy of basic salvation - that is, not having someone wanting to wipe you out of existence?
Also I saw the first DVD of Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South and am pining to see the rest. I may or may not have ordered it online with a gift certificate I have in my enthusiam.