GWC Podcast #103

Podcasts Galactic Watercooler
#81

Ha. That reminds me of a story about “loss in translation.” To cut a long story short, I studied my junior year of college in Exeter, England. My girlfriend of the time had a flat mate who was a lesbian. One morning I woke up and went to the kitchen where Amy the flatmate was dancing around, bouncing up and down and generally exuding energy.

“Boy Amy” I said, “You are full of spunk this morning!”

She dropped her dish and looked at me piercingly. A moment passed between us. Suddenly she started laughing hysterically, practically falling to the floor.

“Solai!” she gasped between peals of laughter, “do you know what spunk means on this side of the pond?”

“No, I…” it didn’t take more than a second for my mind to figure it out. The lesbian full of spunk rolled around the floor laughing her arse off. :smiley:

#82

Audra and Gang,

  	Thank you all for your continued wonderful podcast and examination of all angles of sci-fi, race, culture and deeper issues in Galactica and beyond.  You gave me a lot to think about in your “Mammy” discussion on race and gender in popular sci-fi fantasy.

I’m not sure if anyone’s brought her up, but Zoe from Firefly certainly doesn’t fit into the typical African-American female stereotype role of spiritual guide in contemporary sci-fi (and by the same accord, Gina Torres also fits another strong archetype of “Warrior Woman” in both her role in the Matrix as the widow of Dozer and in Xena and Cleopatra 25-25…come to think of it, Gina Torres has singlehandedly created an entirely new racial stereotype for black women in American Sci-Fi Cinema…but I digress).  Another black “warrior” character in sci-fi/horror would be Kendra, the Slayer who came after Buffy and before Faith.  And Halle Berry as Storm is actually elevated to “goddess” status, if you superimpose the comic book character’s history onto the film character.

Obviously these are few exceptions in comparison to the rule of stereotype, but it is a start.  Keep up the amazing work, and congratulations on your first sponsor.
#83

Oh, and if the cylon Baltar was chatting up about God was a girl…and if she was eating up his “mack” as much as it looked like “she” was…DAMN, Baltar is a PIMP! He can charm the sheet metal off a robot! And that’s why he was elected President. Suck on that, Roslin!!!:stuck_out_tongue:

#84

That’s a really good point about Gina Torres. However, mentioning Firefly I was reminded the episode Safe when Simon and River got abducted by townfolk in need of a doctor. The first person to raise a stink about River being a witch was a woman the would fit the stereotype. It’s arguable whether the stereotype holds up because the town is subsequently revealed to be quite diverse such that clearly the producers are not implying that people of color are inherently more spiritual, but it may raise the question why the one character that serves as our window into this community’s thinking is a kindly, spiritual, care-giver of color?

I’ll admit though that there’s a fine line between characters actual manifesting stereotypes and viewers trying to pigeonhole people into stereotypes…

#85

Whush dat? I can’t harlee seeuuu, Sparky. (hic)

all’s I know ish I’s on da fluuuooorrr laffin’ my aarse uff! (hic) hahahahaaa…

nah- I get the nervous laughs when I call anything in- I just tickle myself! The lack of sleep I was experiencing didn’t help, either!

I got it, GR: IYKWIM!

Stage fright manifests in many different ways :o - my best bud in high school still hasn’t quite forgiven me for forgetting an entire page of lines in our scene from the Odd Couple! lol!

You must have been cracking up at my callsign Solai! Why you no share sooner!? lol!

Audra sed I can has cheezburger now! I gon hav wun!

#86

Doesn’t the last episode of the season have to air before this one becomes the Penultimate ??? Hmmmm ???

#87

Wow. I just spent much too long thinking about that…

#88

im with stupid

#89

Heh - the mental image I had was more of the 'mhuh - you go girl. Talk to the foot ‘cause the hand ain’t listening’

#90

Heh.

I have a similar tale from a colleague of mine who used to work for Boeing.

Once upon a time the US management came to see British Aerospace, who were doing some of the flight control systems on the 777.

Big-wig manager gathers all the workers in big hall, stands up on podium to deliver big morale building ‘rah-rah go git em speech’ (if you know Brits, you know this really ain’t gonna work - the British shield of cynicism way too strong). Tells them of progress, says how happy he is with their work, their vigour, and how he looks forward to see them show him their spunk in the rest of the project.

Cue shattering silence, followed by UK manager quietly whispering to US bigwig what spunk means to Brits.

US bigwig steps down from podium without doing any of the rest of his big speech.

#91

Solai goes R-rated! That’s actually awesome. Reminds me of the time a friend asked me whether I thought that a mutual acquaintance’s behavior indicated that he was gay. I thought for a moment and then started to reply, “Well, if I were gay, then I would…”

Said friend said, “Wait, wait, wait, repeat that?”

Dumbfounded, I realized what I’d said. And then we both laughed so hard we cried.

#92

I believe the question has come up before as to whether the bulletheads can have groinal attachments a-la Kryten.

Imagine if Baltar had worked his magic and it had turned out all ‘crying game’!

Alternatively… maybe that was a ‘chick’ cylon… why am I put in mind of Futurama here? Its not gonna go well for Gaius. Bender ‘bending’ Rodriguez could tell him that! There’s got to be a good 400 pounds of tin there!

#93

Well, following that line of logic, even good opinions about the writing would be disposable. Even though I am not a writer I’ll still continue to say this show has the best writing I have seen on television (though I don’t watch much TV anymore). Sometimes they screw up and it stands out, but only because they’re normally so great.

Hey, speaking of writing, did anyone notice they gave Roslin some light-hearted lines (which I cannot find right now) that almost seemed un-Roslin? Another thing that stood out was Baltar talking to the hybrid. James Callas is just naturally funny and I love it when they give him a chance to ham it up a little.

Oh and what a jolly little happy dance I did when D’Anna returned! Gods, I love that character for some reason.
This was just one of the best episodes of the series.

#94

Until my viewing was so rudely interrupted I was enjoying wholeheartedly the return of comedy Baltar.

(really badly paraphrased here…)

Roslin : Tell me about the opera house, TELL ME ABOUT THE OPERA HOUSE

Baltar : Your doing it wrong, you obviously have no clue

Roslin : … mrrmmm

Baltar :THE OPERA HOUSE!! I WANT TO KNOW

Roslin : Awww Jeez

#95

You know, I’d like to see a few academics apply a stereotype to Uhura’s granny stripping scene in Star Trek 5. That would be a riot to read.

#96

Lots of comment to this one:

When someone mentioned the idea that Nick-A-Nite would start playing Playboy after 11 I had to pause until I stopped laughing. But, think about it, Nick used to play Three’s Company after 11…

While I don’t always agree with everyone’s opinions on stories, I don’t need to to enjoy the podcast. Keep up the good work and don’t let the haters get you down. Oh, and congrats on 103 podcasts. :slight_smile:

Stargate, especially the first five or so seasons had a lot of black actors. I think that is a show that managed to avoid a lot of racial stereotypes. Scrubs likes to play with stereotypes, especially with Carla. And the famous posters.

#97

Ok that was something I did not need reminding of… I was trying to eat!

#98

Awesome discussion of the mammie stereotype. BSG is one of those shows that thankfully doesn’t usually use stereotypes, but that doesn’t mean that they might not sneak in or be there but used in a different way.

I felt the mammie vibe much more from Sarah the Geminese representative (with the whole religious bit), to be honest when I saw Elosha on screen I was so thrilled to see a black woman on the screen again that the stereotype didn’t even ocurr to me. I mean, when was the last time we saw Dee?

Hmmm maybe we could read Kindred for the book club…

Edited to add: it also always grabs my attention to see a mass of white women (with the one lone long-haired man) with a few minority women in the balcubine harem space…

#99

What’s interesting also is that just because they access the memories doesn’t mean that they have to share the emotion behind them, right? I mean, if Boomer’s memories are accessed by the other 8’s, does that mean they’d be more likely to go along with 1-4-5?

#100

It’d be a variation on “The Oversexed Negro” stereotype. I’m sure it’s been done more than once.

And academic writings on this stuff are only inadvertently entertaining.