tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10113687.post116024494712272034..comments2023-11-30T02:30:42.825-08:00Comments on E a r t h G o a t: Battlestar Galactica and the war in IraqGrendelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06664099783685963708noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10113687.post-1163130671797989762006-11-09T19:51:00.000-08:002006-11-09T19:51:00.000-08:00I just want to say that, obviously, the complaints...I just want to say that, obviously, the complaints have proven to be stupid.<BR/><BR/>Just a reminder of how stupid are the people who were oh so genuinely concerned about Bstar's bias, here's Jonah Goldberg today:<BR/><BR/><B>How Bush Should Handle Loss [Jonah Goldberg]<BR/>I think James Baker and Dick Cheney should take Bush out to the woods around Camp David. After 24 hours in a sweat lodge, he should be given only a loin cloth, a hunting knife and a canteen of water. Bush should then set out to track and kill a black bear, after which he should eat its still beating heart so he can absorb its spirit. He should then fly back to Washington in Marine 1. His torso still scratched from the bear's claws, his face bloodied and steaming in the November chill, he should immediately give a press conference at which he throws the bearskin on the front row of the press corps, completely enveloping Helen Thomas, declaring, "I'm not going anywhere."<BR/><BR/>This will send important messages to Democrats and well as to our enemies overseas, who are no doubt high-fiving as we speak.<BR/>Posted at 6:49 AM </B><BR/><BR/>Is he being ironic? Why? To what rhetorical end? Is he hoping humorless liberals will fail to get the joke? Ok, fine. But then what does that accomplish, exactly? <BR/><BR/>There's a simple answer here, of course. <BR/><BR/>He, like all such people who start offensively stupid arguments for a living, is a tool. <BR/><BR/>Here's the problem with the world today: we are beset by ironic tools.<BR/><BR/>Yep. That's right. The very best sort of tool. We're thick with em. And even they don't know what the hell they're even doing here. So how am I to know?cfphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13229011285921460494noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10113687.post-1160759566150473222006-10-13T10:12:00.000-07:002006-10-13T10:12:00.000-07:00Pete said, "If a television show- a television sho...Pete said, "If a television show- a television show!- can't show torture or resistance to an occupying power without being labeled as partisan to one side or the other in the current debate, that's fucked up. It just displays the problem with the debate. We've gotten to the point where simply dramatizing or talking about something honestly and with complexity is a partisan act."<BR/><BR/>I'm painting this on a pasteboard and wearing it around downtown today. Come watch. So well put.TJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13088461995698326658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10113687.post-1160608718496334212006-10-11T16:18:00.000-07:002006-10-11T16:18:00.000-07:00Well, he of course thinks it's "stupid," because t...Well, he of course thinks it's "stupid," because the purpose of sci-fi is escapism, a point that seems to exist in complete ignorance of the history of the genre, but hey.<BR/><BR/>I love his notion, too, that this new "relevance" shows that the show is no longer "literary." I would think that displaying a hairy moral issue from multiple angles is one of the things literature does best. Again, I have to wonder what Mr. Goldberg is reading if he thinks a work of art cannot both be controversial and literary. I can't think of a great work of literature that doesn't address difficult questions. <BR/><BR/>I'm all but certain that the show is moving towards more nuanced and complicated cylon characters, and that assumption is a big part of my comments here. I saw a lot of clues for this in the premiere. Did anyone else pick up on that? I have a feeling that the moral decisions are only going to get more and more complicated. <BR/><BR/>One of the things that makes BSG so great is that the moral decisions never feel "forced" as Goldberg claims they do here. If I didn't find all of this dramatically persuasive, I'd probably be annoyed myself.cfphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13229011285921460494noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10113687.post-1160595800587977502006-10-11T12:43:00.000-07:002006-10-11T12:43:00.000-07:00Oh Bihari! They get those DVDs out superfast. Wo...Oh Bihari! They get those DVDs out superfast. Won't be too many months before you'll get Season 3.0, I'm sure. But also sorry if you've run into too many spoilers here.<BR/><BR/>And Mr. Goldberg has written <A HREF="http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTc5ZTFlMTE2ZmM5ZWI4NDIxYzIwMTYxMWMzZjE1NmE=" REL="nofollow">an article </A>filling out his opinions on Battlestar Iraqtica. If I get time, I may respond here. To be honest I haven't read it yet.Grendelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06664099783685963708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10113687.post-1160486058892449342006-10-10T06:14:00.000-07:002006-10-10T06:14:00.000-07:00I was a little cranky with that last one. Sorry.B...I was a little cranky with that last one. Sorry.<BR/><BR/>But one more thing-<BR/><BR/>We live in a time in which a lot of things are "partisan" for no reason other than to allow for the appearance of legitimate disagreement where it otherwise would not exist. <BR/><BR/>If a television show- a television show!- can't show torture or resistance to an occupying power without being labeled as partisan to one side or the other in the current debate, that's fucked up. It just displays the problem with the debate. We've gotten to the point where simply dramatizing or talking about something honestly and with complexity is a partisan act. It begs a lot of questions about the terms of debate.I'm sick of the right wing in this country getting to define all the terms. This is a direct consequence of political correctness. <BR/><BR/>So maybe, in the current sense, BSG is being partisan. But certainly not in any legitimate sense worth entertaining. What frustrates me most is that some of you, who I know share my politics, are satisfied to believe that BSG is sticking it to the man. But in the satisfaction of that, we concede, once again, the semantics of the debate. They'll still apply when we are talking about something more important.<BR/><BR/><BR/>This makes me want to roar.cfphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13229011285921460494noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10113687.post-1160449129767916372006-10-09T19:58:00.000-07:002006-10-09T19:58:00.000-07:00You're all wrong. Here's why.BSG seems to be expl...You're all wrong. Here's why.<BR/><BR/>BSG seems to be exploring something that resonates with the current state of world affairs, sure. While I'm sure they're glad to exploit that resonance to the fullest, I think it's probably tertiary. I think this is especially true given that the show seems to be on the cusp of complicating its moral universe, big time.<BR/><BR/>There was a phrase uttered in passing by Leoben in the premiere- in telling Starbuck all about how much she was going to love him, he mentioned his own "spiritual clarity." That, I think, is the show's newest and most central theme. Whereas the last two season have largely explored questions of political legitimacy and democracy-- not, exactly, irrelevant to current affairs-- this third one seems to be going for something more cosmic.<BR/><BR/><BR/>People do interesting things when they have "spiritual clarity." Awful and beautiful things, noble and ugly things, atrocious and necessary things, and I expect that the show will be exploring all that on both sides of the conflict. Like most modern folks, I simultaneously crave and distrust "spiritual clarity." Good drama can show how a person can claim and surrender the moral high ground all in the same action. "The Wire," for those of you who have seen it, is full of that sort of thing. <BR/><BR/>I don't mean to sound like a relativist. I'm not, and I don't think Ronald Moore is, either. I think he's exploring fallible righteousness: a very interesting and very current fact of the world. People can be sympathetic and wrong at the same time. They can even be right and wrong at the same time. The best characters, to my mind, usually are. <BR/><BR/>Is that criticism of the American Right? Maybe. But these days, pretty much anything that isn't an express affirmation of the American Right is attacked for its bias. So fuck them anyway. I don't exactly trust Jonah Goldberg to make these judgments for me. I think we can be pretty sure that so long as the show provides its situations with more nuance than assholes like Goldberg are comfortable allowing to ANYTHING, they're going to have a problem with it. I mean, honestly. It's a really kind of fucked up what's controversial in this day and age. The American right has spent so much of the last six years justifying unchecked authority that any challenge to the very idea-- even on the level of a cable drama-- is subject to suspicion. What are they going after next, Law and Order? Now there's a show that speaks truth to power.<BR/><BR/>I'm joking about that last part.cfphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13229011285921460494noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10113687.post-1160360951622406842006-10-08T19:29:00.000-07:002006-10-08T19:29:00.000-07:00"It's interesting how just a couple seasons ago, t..."It's interesting how just a couple seasons ago, the human crew of the Pegasus under Admiral Cain was being allegorized as the evil American soldiers for their gleeful torturing of a Cylon, and now the Cylons are suddenly representative of American power."<BR/><BR/>That is so true. Thanks to hormonedoc and plutoniandepths for commenting on this. For the record, I never said it was an allegory, and I appreciate that a show that is about an occupation has parallels with other real-world occupations. Iraq happens to be the one Americans are concerned with most right now, and that is why I submit that the show can be seen as subversive.<BR/><BR/>I didn't meant to imply that I thought that Ron Moore set out to make an allegory about Iraq. But even if he had, any artist worth his salt would deny it. Tolkien always claimed that the Ring was not a stand-in for nuclear weapons, but it's very hard to not see it at least partly as such, given that he composed the book in the 1940s-50s. I go so far as to claim that an artist is not in fact the final say-so on the nature of the subtext of his work. The reader is, or in this case, the viewer. Art comes at least partly from the subconscious, and no matter what Ron Moore's conscious mind says, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...<BR/><BR/>But I agree the show confounds simplistic analysis and ricochets all over the political spectrum. I would welcome further insights from people like you, who clearly have studied the show much more than I have. One thing I haven't read much about -- I am only a moderate fan and have not looked into the doubtless extensive theorizing about this -- is the fact that the Cylons seem to be kind of Christian fundamentalists, whereas the colonists are polytheists -- specifically Greek god worshippers. Now that's just really odd and fascinating.<BR/><BR/>I was not aware of political battles raging about the show and have no intention of joining any. If as you say both sides of the current spectrum bludgeon the show to justify their own worldviews ... man, that's a great compliment to Ron Moore and the creative team behind the show.Grendelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06664099783685963708noreply@blogger.com