Because it’s about the future!
(Old joke, I know. I’m old, so them’s the jokes.)
Where have you been? (I’m assuming you’re the same JP from the blog early on.)
Leah, thanks for your support! Lest it be unknown, Barb, who called in and joked about Chuck being cranky, is a good friend- and having met her in person and spent time with her crazy brain (jk Barb!) we know she meant it in complete good-natured fun. Or you could see her recent post in the thread for podcast #102! Hardcore!
jp, it means a LOT to me that you appreciated this discussion. I wanted to bring it up in the 'cast because I thought it was very interesting, but I was pretty nervous that I might misrepresent what I was getting at or inadvertently offend listeners.
I teach African American studies as well as writing and American lit, and though I’m part of the ethnic majority in the U.S., I have great interest in and concern for issues like these- they reflect a lot about our society, as you said, and that includes all of us. Thanks so much for your support on this.
Audra! Love the callsign!!!
Thanks! Solai chose the name and fixed it up for me. Woot!
(It’s getting difficult to write about normal things without stopping to think, “Is someone going to write IYKWIM after this??”) 
Giving credit where credit is due, The Lonely Toaster came up with that one. My credit is scouring all the entries and doing some quick wiki searches.
here’s another one of my favorite Valkyries
Audra,
I just listened to the podcast (someone might have already posted this)…
After “you are so pretty” Baltar says to Roslin “You know why I’m so serene right now?” …because I know God etc.
his nose is stuffed and it sounds like he says “sex.”
Anyway, back to the race issue (it’s always about race 
) it is legitimate to wonder why the ethnic characters in American entertainment seem to always fall into the same pigeon holes. I watched the movie “Better Luck Tomorrow,” which is a rare movie by Asian Americans, about Asian Americans, that’s not intended to teach anybody anything about Asian Americans; and as an Asian American I was BLOWN AWAY that someone that looks abstractly like me could be a lead character and not just helping a white character “keep it real.”
Nobody is blaming white folks or calling the show racist; but you must admit that an older black woman who is spiritual and wearing some cloth in her hair is a cultural reference.
Ok, enough. Yes, Pike, it’s me, I was lost during the hiatus, but now I’m back watching the show, just as obsessively as before! Since you last saw me, I have moved to China to start my own podcast (http://SpanishPod.com)… yes, China, long story. BSG is not broadcast here, and it’s no longer available on iTunes… but I manage to watch it legally online at TVU.
And sometimes, I pirate it. Arr!!! I don’t care, I am a Cylon!
Glad to see you back! Get a parrot, and you can join Tigh and Gaeta (and a fair number of former iTunes users) in the warm waters of the bay…
For those interested about the ethnic stereotypes in BSG and film and tv in general you can check out your local library.
Or if you don’t have time for that Audra posted on the blog back in August. An interesting discussion ensued (of course).
It can be found here.
I may have to go back an re-read.
Audra, would you mind asking Chuck if he could write a program to automate the process of the adding the “IYKWIM”? It’s getting to be a real chore to have to perform the insertion myself. I’m sure there’s a way for software to analyze a post, indentify the doubling of the entendre, and them perform the “IYKWIM” insertion. (Oh, I’m bad bad bad bad bad…):eek:
oh no don’t worry its fine the podcast was six times better hahaha. i’ll have to call to get sean to admit it that he loves Helo though lol
they have pharmaceuticals to help with that problem, thot
The first time Roslin had one of the jump flashbacks, I totally thought of Ghost of Christmas future. I should have known Audra picked up on that too.
LOL! My six follows me wherever I go! And it’s a fair size, too- I’ve had years of bus driving to give me more than adequate, as Chuck would call it, “chair spread”!
No rash, though. A little chafing in warm weather, but no rash…
Oh, and no one really watches it anymore except the hub, and he’s blowed up now… :eek:
I’ve noticed this truism especially in horror movies. Any time that a crazy old person, especially if it’s an old black woman, is spouting warnings, they’re the only one who really knows what’s going on. Off the top of my head: The Shining, The Stand, Jeepers Creepers. I’m sure there are more.
However, I don’t think it’s necessarily always a black person in this role. I think it’s generally some sort of “other-as-sage” archetype that’s just prevalent in literature written by white men. I think it’s natural to make the character with ultimate wisdom be something other than themselves, a woman, a child, the elderly, a member of another race or religion, some sort of special insight borne of their innate “otherness”. Think of the ancient kung fu master, the wizened crone, the kid who sees reality in the fairy tale, the migrant worker warning of “El Diablo”, the aborigine who recites the old legends, etc. Despite how different they seem from each other, they’re essentially the same, a character who’s “different” and therefore special.
Remember this guy?
In what way? :eek:
The clean viper IS the fifth cylon!!!
I think a lot of that is just the reality of TV and movies being written primarily by white males. You write what you know. It’s definitely more cosmopolitan than it used to be, but a lot of the time ethnic characters are going to be based in large part on stereotypes. Or the writers overcompensate and make these “super” characters in order to specifically avoid the stereotypes.
Nobody is blaming white folks or calling the show racist; but you must admit that an older black woman who is spiritual and wearing some cloth in her hair is a cultural reference.
I think that’s one of the reasons there have been so few black characters in the re-imagined series. Those few there have been are either minor or short-lived. Elosha was by far the longest lasting and most prominent black character on the show, particularly interesting since she’s been dead for over two seasons. I joked about this in the recent captions thread, but it’s true that the original series was somewhat more integrated (if not quite as diverse), considering that Tigh and Boomer were major characters who appeared in every episode. Even Simon is by far the least developed Cylon; the Sixes and Eights are, by comparison, developed into several versions of their characters. It really does seem like they just don’t know what to do with a black character. 
That’s funny. My first thought was “It’s a Wonderful Life”. I wonder if Elosha got her wings? :rolleyes:
I haved to put in my two cents on this. If Helo did athina wanna be, I think it would still be cheating.
I’m a believe r that it is not our memmories that make us who we our. It is our choices, what we take from those memmories that make us who we are.
BTW, Audra, I also heard the “I want to have sex with you” line with balar
Two things I want to say about that:
-
Even though I’m an English major, I never get around to doing any classes or so on African American lit, my main areas of study lying elsewhere, so I appreciated the little lecture. I did some post-colonial lit, but that seems to be quite disconnected from African American studies?
-
I’m saying I appreciated the lecture because I had never noticed those things before. Coming from a cultural background where I’m not constantly surrounded by black persons, one might assume that I’d be even more sensitive to such issues, but I think the exact opposite is true. Having seen what, a mere handful of different black persons in my life (outside my time in the US), I had been completely oblivious of such things as Audra mentioned. I tended to just African American actors as characters, without giving any thought to the possibility that they could fulfill some kind of stereotypical role. So that was interesting.
Opens up a whole variety of “Ride of the Valkyrie” jokes.
I never have these problems.
Now, to each his own, but I’m not gonna let any machine do my insertions.
Kai Opaka returned in one episode as a vision I think, very brief tho. I think it was when Sisko gave up his title as emissary.