There’s a great article by Jonah Goldberg on the Commentary Magazine website about the political seduction of Battlestar Galactica, and more generally about how the broad political climate affects works of science fiction. I think Goldberg really hits the nail on the head in describing the brilliance of the first two seasons of BSG, and how the writers’ decision to change the apparent arc of the show with the New Caprica plot line led to the incoherence that finally resulted in the tremendously disappointing ending.
I think the first two seasons of BSG are some of the best sci fi ever to appear on television, and I’ve offen wondered where it went wrong. Goldberg’s got it.
Interesting article, but I disgree with the central premise. He claims that the New Caprica story arc is based on the United Stats occupation of Iraq, but then says:
Most egregiously, the human suicide bombers are not young men brainwashed in a madrassa and promised eternal life with 72 virgins, nor are they threatened with the murder of their families—the tactics used by jihadists to create their human bombs. Rather, they are decent, calm, and composed men and women fighting in a noble cause. Taken seriously, this romanticization of suicide bombers and “insurgency” has a cascade of revolting implications. The insurgency in Iraq was not an authentic resistance like the Warsaw Ghetto uprising or De Gaulle’s Free French forces. The ranks of terrorists in Iraq were overwhelmingly made up of Baathist remnants of the Hussein regime and al-Qaeda interlopers with their own imperialist ambitions for a worldwide umma.
Well, that’s probably because New Caprica - like most of BSG - is not an exact allegory to the United States today. Ron Moore has said part of the inspiration for the resistance on New Caprica was France in World War II. Its not an “Iraq Storyline”, just because it has some similarities to what was/is going on.
Articles like Jonah’s tend to show the author’s bias as well as the show’s.
Actually, I think the show did suffer a bit from ‘Iraqification’ at that point. The original plotline was more in keeping with the logic of the show. The resistance was going to be kidnapping cylons and keeping them alive. The remaining ones were going to be freaking out because they had no idea what was happening.
I haven’t had the chance to read the linked article yet, but this was my view of NC as well - sure, it’s allegory, but it doesn’t map exactly, which makes us examine our expectations and biases more than it would otherwise.
Where did you hear this? Was that mentioned in a podcast that I’ve since forgotten? It would have been a cool direction to go on. I find that the New Caprica storyline could’ve gone on a bit longer (maybe even an entire season) and directions like that could’ve made for some interesting plots within it. I did like the idea of having the suicide bombers be the guys we’re supposed to be rooting for, as it’s morally ambiguous at best. But, I think that aspect of the storyline will likely age the worst as Iraq becomes increasingly stable and the war (hopefully) a distant memory.
I don’t think that New Caprica needs to be an exact analogy for Iraq for any of Goldberg’s main points to hold, namely:
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[li]The New Caprica plot line disrupted the narrative arc in the show, causing the writers to abandon some of the tantalizing plot seeds they had established in seasons one and two, and (worse still) leaving the Cylons with so little plausible motivations for their actions that the writers had to twist themselves in knots to come up with what the “Plan” was. Turns out that “They” didn’t have a plan at all. Cavil had a plan. A silly one.
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[li]The New Caprica plotline put the audience in a position of being temped to empathize with suicide bombers without the show taking into account the mindset of actual suicide bombers and the kinds of cultural environments from which they come in real real-life. As if suicide bombing is what any reasonable society might do in reaction to occupation. To say that NC was in part an analogy for occupied France is a cop-out. The Free French didn’t use suicide bombing as a main tactic – the NC resistance, and Al Quaeda In Iraq, did.
[/li][/ul]
At it’s best BSG respected both sides in the arguments over security/survival versus individual autonomy. The NC plotline didn’t
You don’t think suicide bombing is a viable tactic given the situation presented during it’s use? IE: a graduation ceremony inside the Cylon HQ compound where A. Sneaking in was impossible. B. A raid was suicide. and C. You had somebody willing to do it?
As far as I remember that’s the only time it was used, you show me a better plan and we’ll talk until then I’ll continue thinking your ideals are more important than the war.
Well, my point isn’t really to criticize the character’s decisions (although I do think those decisions deserve criticism, that’s just not my immediate point). My intent was to criticize the writers decisions. The writers created the circumstances in which suicide bombing may seem to some viewers to have been a reasonable choice. I think that’s a poor decision, artistically and morally.
Imagine the worst category of action that you can. Let’s take child abuse, I can’t think of anything worse then that off the top of my head. A clever sci fi author could contrive a situation in which child abuse might seem reasonable in the context of the story – say a “Village of The Damned” remake. I think that would be a pretty disgusting thing for an author to do, to find some way to tell a story to get the audience to root for child abuse. (Just to be clear, no such thing happens in VOTD. It’s a classic. I highly recommend it.)
In fact, I just saw a movie that I had the same thought about (fortunately not involving child abuse). The movie was “A Boy and His Dog”. It may be the most misogynistic movie I’ve ever seen. At the end of the movie, the main character–I’d better use spoiler text–
[SPOILER]
The protagonist decides to murder a more or less innocent woman in order to feed her to his starving dog.
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What I found so objectionable about the movie was that this action, in context, seemed borderline reasonable.
I have the same problem with the NC plotline as well as parts of Anders plotline on Old Caprica, in which Anders blew up a purely civilian Cylon target – not with a suicide bomber, but through an act of terrorism nonetheless.
Given your view, would you say the writers of The Last House on The Left or The Hills Have Eyes are reprehensible for creating a situation where brutally murdering the antagonists is justified?
or is justifying murder not objectionable?
Also I just read the summary of A Boy And His Dog and gotta say, I don’t find it nearly as borderline as you do. Not even close. Girl knew exactly what she was doing by bringing him underground and has likely done the same before. She’s not even close to innocent and his dog, his only friend was in need.
This is right wing propaganda bullshit, but what can you expect when the guy who wrote the article also wrote a book titled “Liberal Fascism,” wonder if he got help from Ann Coulter. I would like to think that anyone with some sense in their head would come to the understanding that suicide bombing is wrong, but the supposition that merely getting people to think about both sides of an issue is somehow worse, is a form of intellectual cowardice and borders on thought control.
I don’t want to get too deep into partisan politics on a sci fi forum, but just as an aside: “Liberal Fascism” is an engaging read, it really challenged a lot of my assumptions about political labels. While I’ve never read any books by Ann Coulter, I’ve read plenty of her newspaper columns, and Goldberg’s work is nothing like hers, as should be apparent just from the Commentary piece. I doubt very much that she helped him with his book. The magazine, National Review, at which Goldberg is editor-at-large fired Coulter after a particularly intemperate column she wrote. There’s no love between them.
But back to the topic at hand. I think one of Goldberg’s stronger points in the Commentary piece was that using the pose of “merely getting people to think” or “just posing questions” about an issue in order to dodge responsibility for the message one is presenting is a bit of a cop-out. As Goldberg puts it:
These failures are attributable not just to the allure of ideology and the desire to stay “relevant” but also to Moore’s fraudulent notion that merely “asking questions” isn’t itself a form of ideological commitment. Indeed, most propaganda is often posed in the form of invidious questions. A merely loaded question—have you stopped beating your wife yet?—is one thing. An invidious question is one in which evil fictions are given parity with truth. “I’m not saying the Holocaust didn’t happen, I’m just raising important questions.”
The way one frames the questions itself entails assumptions about the subject matter. The questions we ask–and don’t ask–are in some ways just as important as the beliefs we hold.
What was so great about the first two seasons of BSG, and parts of the remaining two seasons, was that the questions being asked, and the way they were asked, seriously grappled with both sides of difficult and important issues for which no answers are easy. I just didn’t think the NC plotline gave serious consideration to the horror of suicide bombing.
Let me put it this way: At its best, largely in the first two seasons, BSG gave the impression that the writers were genuinely grappling with the same dilemmas with which they presented the audience; in contrast, the NC plotline gave me the impression that the writers had already made up their minds and that they were preaching to the audience as if there were an easy answer, the writers knew what it was, and the audience needs to be shocked so that we’ll wake up and see things as they do.
Alas, I haven’t seen either “The Last House on The Left” or “The Hills Have Eyes”. Are they any good? I recently signed up for Netflix, so I’m on the lookout for movies to add to the queue.
On “A Boy and His Dog”, I guess you and I will have to agree to disagree on the topic of when it’s appropriate to kill people to use their bodies as food. As for myself, there are no circumstances in which I would kill a person in order to use the body for food. None.
But given your position on “A Boy and His Dog”, that the circumstances presented therein justify, by your lights, murdering a human being to be used as food, do you agree that such a work of art is a little bit sick?
The older Last House is better than the newer, the newer Hills Have Eyes is better than the older. They’re both good.
I completely disagree with you on it being sick. It’s a work of fiction that sets out a very specific instance of it occurring. Scifi in particular is known for this type of thing and it’s one of it’s best qualities: To make you think about what you’d do if things were different.
Lemme throw a situation out to you. Post Apocalyptic landscape. You and your family are living in a prison set up as a refuge. A band of child soldier-raiders attack your compound. Are you justified in killing them to protect everything that matters in the world to you?
You’ll probably answer yes.
Let’s throw a hiccup in the works though. Both your group and their group is starving. You manage to kill them. They have no food. Your people need to eat and every food source has been exhausted. Do you eat the raiders?
If you say no to that well…I don’t want to be with you if the craaaaaap hits the fan
What I probably should have said is that his article smacks of the perpetuation of the false dichotomies inherent in American politics. I have never read Liberal Fascism, and I never actually thought Ann Coulter was involved, but she regularly uses that kind of terminology to spread distrust(among other, very transparent agendas she champions).
My point, because I dont disagree with you completely, is that part of learning to think critically is reading the intent behind a question or a statement; you cant learn to think critically if people tell you how to feel(I felt goldberg was doing the same thing he accused Moore of doing).
I thought BSG shed light on a very complex issue, and perhaps (if only for a moment) got people to think about the nature of terrorism, sacrifice and the cost of survival. Maybe they should have said more, but I think the fact that they said anything at all should count for something. Now if youll excuse me I have to finish my OC marathon…
Thanks for the movie recommendations. Especially during October, I like horror.
As to your hypothetical, I suppose there might be Donner-Party-like circumstances in which I would eat the flesh of a human who had already died (although I might not, hard to say without being there), but I certainly would never kill someone for the sole purpose of eating the body.
Perhaps I’m being too hard on “A Boy and His Dog.” The movie wasn’t really intended to be taken seriously. The writers were going for pure shock value along with black humor. I do think the ending was sick, but a sick joke can sometimes be a funny nonetheless. I don’t think that, on the whole, either the movie or the joke worked artistically, but that’s a judgment call.
BSG I take a lot more seriously. I think the BSG creators were, in general, engaged in a serious attempt to examine difficult real world issues. I just think they failed in the case of the New Caprica plotline.
I agree with you that sci fi at its best makes the audience think. But that doesn’t relieve the creators of their responsibility to present the topics about which the audience will think in a way that points towards the truth – or at the very least doesn’t point towards a vicious lie.
I am curious, BSG aside, whether you think works of art, as a category, are capable of embodying a lie. Could any piece of fiction ever be a lie of the sort I am describing? Or is all fiction absolved of this responsibility by virtue of merely making the audience think?
Suppose, for example, that work of Nazi fiction was designed to make the audience think about the question of whether greedy, perverted, disloyal, traitorous, conspiratorial Jews deserve to live or not? Mere asking the question is itself, in Goldberg’s terminology, ‘invidious’. The right questions to ask in that context are, in my opinion, about how stereotypes can cloud peoples opinions of other groups. The Nazi propagandist can’t escape criticism of his work merely by claiming he was “only asking questions.” Some questions are THE WRONG QUESTIONS.
Now BSG is nowhere near as invidious as that, and its creators aren’t evil. I’m using such a stark example to clarify a more general philosophical issue. Can art be invidious in the questions it asks? I think it can. I think “A Boy and His Dog” was a bit invidious, and the BSG New Caprica plot line more so.
Propaganda can be, but that’s by definition a different category than fiction. It’s not really worth comparing the two.
Fiction though? It can present sick idea that make you go “Aw that’s gross/that’s terrible/I can’t understand why they’d do that” but I don’t believe that fiction in and of itself can be sick in the sense that it shouldn’t exist
