what words are you speaking?
it was in the right place…trust me…all the right places.
besides when did it HAVE to fit into the episode. :eek:
It was no coincidence that T’Pol’s uniforms had no pockets.
Do any of the uniforms have pockets? Just where will Starbuck keep her lucky panties? Don’t…ask me what I am talking about. I have no clue
I did email Sean 15 reasons why he rocked. I don’t think he liekd it thoughb ecause he never eplied lol
I’m sure he’ll jump in and tell you himself, but you totally made Sean’s day with that. He liked it at least enough to tell me about it. 
Actually Emily I was going to read them on the next cast. Of course I loved them how could I not! I thought it was the coolest thing I’ve gotten in I don’t know how long!
Don’t tease me…you have no idea. 
Jokes aside I envey you every moment you spend with them. Tanks are the coolest machines ever created by man…other than Cylons of course.
wow. BRAVO AND THANKS! i am so glad you guys are bravely mentioning this topic. i couldn’t agree with StevieSpin and Trillian more. there were a few characters i hoped would be revealed as gay, but alas no. i am a lesbian woman of color, and cant help but say to myself, “here we are, America 2008 and still a ways to go in representation…”
thanks guys… you rock.
Oh…then I won’t tell you about smart rounds, or ranges so far we have to adjust for curvature of the earth…tactical networks…
nope…can’t tease you. Won’t do it.
Lips are sealed.
No idea. I only noticed a few. Tpol, Dr Crusher (blood rush to the brain…need to sit…whew…ok), Troi,…just a couple. I hardly noticed any others.
Haha awe sean, that made me feela ll wrom and fuzzy inside lol.
As soon as that game comes oout on PC I’ll buy it, 
Chuck, thanks so much for the very nice words! I was totally thrilled to hear my comments on the podcast, btw, so thank you Audra for that. This forum is a great place!
So I totally disagree with Audra about David Bowie being hot in Labyrinth. It might have had something to do with when I saw the movie, at the time I thought his look in the movie looked really out of date. It looked like mid-80’s glamour rock, which makes sense since the movie came out in '86, but I didn’t see it until about 1990 (I was about 14). Actually, his whole look creeped me out so much I still don’t like him. I thought his pants were too tight/suggestive for a kid’s movie. Not to mention the whole pervy bit about a guy that age (he was 40, at the time) trying to seduce a teenage girl (15 is how old the character was). But the ball scene was amazing anyways!
But I totally agree with Audra about Legolas. He’s really hot and somehow mesmerizing. And I, too, think Orlando Bloom is merely so-so. I have no idea why. It doesn’t make any sense to me, is it just the blond wig and the elfin ears? Is it something to do with his personality? I don’t know, but it certainly indicates what a good job Orlando did playing him. Somehow he can act better looking than he actually is.
Its the tights…admit it…
and the fact that he has no pockets.
Are there Cylon tanks? Are they named Fred?
Audra, Chuck and Sean–Don’t know if you’ve already been alerted to these nuggets of coolness, but a media company has been issuing complete DVD-Roms of Marvel comics, such as “44 years of the X-Men”, The Complete Captain America, The Complete Iron Man, The Complete Incredible Hulk, Ghost Rider, Fantastic Four, Avengers and Spider-man, with about 500 issues per disc for about $40-$50 each. They are freaking amazing. You can find them on Amazon.com by searching “GIT Corp.” They even have a complete run of Mad Magazine and National Lampoon on disk. Amazing. Hope you find them as cool as I do.
I’m with SS, trillian, and adoracion on this one (and Chuck). And I think it’s great we’re all sharing ideas on this.
I’ve been thinking about how difficult it is for me to speak articulately about gender and sexual orientation in sci-fi. I think part of it is that I lack knowledge about it, and another part is that it’s hard to make convincing arguments without at least some evidence to support what you’re saying. Sometimes I (we?) might think that this stuff is pretty easy to see, but like StevieSpin said, we’re not all looking from the same perspective, so we notice different things depending on our own life experiences.
In an attempt to create informal evidence to support this idea - here’s a brief gender-based analysis of some of our favorite sci-fi creations:
Star Wars (all): Men: comfortable, non-revealing outfits, unless you count a little Han chest hair in the '70s. Women: Metal bikini, implied sexual “slave,” half-ripped off clothes in part I, need rescuing.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (as someone recently pointed out): I know, not sci-fi, but high on the Watercooler’s list of cool stuff. Men: smart, adventurous, brave. Woman: vain, shallow, scantily dressed, screams a lot, needs rescuing.
Transformers (2007): Cool-ass robots: all male. Men: Smart, geeky (equals cool in my book), average attractiveness, the hero of the story. Women: Astonishingly attractive, main character wears midriff-revealing shirt in jaw-dropping scene intended for Shia as well as guys in the audience. Also, her only contribution is driving a truck at the end even though the real action is done by Bumblebee.
Back to the Future (I, II, and III): Not overtly sexist, but traditional roles still apply. (See “Get your meathooks off of me!” and “Hey you, get your damn hands off of her…”) Women: need rescuing in every movie (Lorraine once in part I, once in part II, and Clara Clayton twice in part III).
Star Trek OS movies: Too much to list. All officers are white men or white male aliens, with the exception of one Asian man and one black woman in a miniskirt. Men: commanders, warriors, deciders. Women: operate the switchboard.
Also, here’s an interesting article from 2006 on women as a growing percentage of gamers and how that affects new game content.
http://www.theeyeopener.com/article/2681
FWIW, some of our favorites are also quite progressive in terms of gender, like BSG, Firefly, and sometimes the Matrix. The one thing that’s still missing almost completely in sci-fi is gay human characters. And I agree with trillian that it was kind of a bummer that, while making a cool stride in having a strong character in BSG like Cain be gay, she also was stereotypical in enough ways that I noticed the same thing. Gina: not stereotypical, but not human, either.
Audra, all the stuff you’re describing is big, blockbuster-type stuff, all written in the US and realized by the Hollywood dream factory. So, no small wonder that it’s conservative as far as gender issues are concerned. I can see three reasons for that
a) the lion’s share of audiences for those movies are still male and belong to a certain age group (a huge percentage of adolescent males). So, quite naturally these movies are tailored to what these people want to see or what the studios think they want to see. And I, for one, like seeing hot chicks in need of rescuing, because it makes me feel like I could identify with the male hero, like hey, yeah, I could be the one rescuing the hot chick and getting the benefits. I wouldn’t mind gender issues coming up in movies or having a story that would question my point of view or the way I think about things, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to demand that those things come up in movies. I would watch it, but I wouldn’t force anyone to write or produce it.
b) the big studios are going to be the last ones to change/adopt a new way of thinking about a whole lot of social/gender or other issues. This is firstly because they have huge concerns about money - they can’t just produce a 200 million $ movie that fares poorly at the box office because the young male audience didn’t want to see a geeky guy with lots of pimples getting rescued by an overweight albeit smart chick wearing gray jumpers or something like that. If you’re looking for something progressive, it’ll probably be an independent movie or a book by a small publisher that starts it all.
c) and this is a personal opinion: the US is a very conservative country and even though a lot of individuals might have very modern and progressive attitudes, the society as a whole seems to cling to values and/or opinions/attitudes that from my liberal (in the original sense of the word meaning libertine, not leftist) European perspective seem to be quite conservative, maybe even antiquated. Now, of course I haven’t seen all the countries in the world, but I’ve traveled to most European countries and I have family in the US plus spent a semester at a college in Kentucky. I’ll give two examples: 1) the current US presidential campaign: the fact alone that religious issues are playing a role AT ALL, or that “moral issues”/“moral values” are tied in to religion would be unconceivable in Europe, or Germany respectively. In my opinion, and I’m not a political scientist, but a historian, one of the markers of a truly modern state is that it is uncompromisingly secular. Religious beliefs belong into the private life, not the public life. A lot of the rhetoric from leading US politicians/public figures makes people roll their eyes over here (“God’s chosen country” “God bless America” - the whole city upon a hill stuff - pretty much like the Federation looked down upon the Bajorans)
2) I lived in a dorm in Kentucky and they had one dorm for guys and one for girls and there were all kinds of silly rules, you had to sign in when you wanted to visit the girls’ dorm and so on - these people were all of age and and a lot of what I saw there, not only the gender segregation, made them feel like kids and patronized. And the fact that it was a Catholic college doesn’t change anything, either. I study at the only Catholic university in all the German-speaking countries and nobody, absolutely nobody cares about your sex life or your moral attitudes or your stance towards abortion and you don’t have to be Catholic or Christian to enrol, either. If you’re Jewish or a Jedi or an atheist, you’re welcome. All that really matters are your grades and nobody on campus would try to talk you into a “True Love Waits” kind of thing.
I’m sure I could think of more examples, but this post is already running long.
So, in conclusion, you can’t expect the big studios, who are ultimately a mirror of society, because they will write and produce the stuff that people will pay money to watch, to put out movies that have progressive views, unless society doesn’t change first. Moreover, it’s funny that you view BSG or the Matrix as being “progressive in terms of gender,” because within the belief system and spectrum of values that I was brought up in, I would just consider them “normal.”
Another point: I think that if we’re looking for progressive stuff, we’ll have to turn our eyes to smaller movie or publishing companies. Like, I don’t know if these things exist in the US, but I know of a couple of book publishers in my country that specifically publish only gay/lesbian SciFi/Fantasy.
Lastly, please don’t think I was bashing on the US, I love y’alls country, I have a lot family in NY, Boston and LA, I lived there for a while, I dated a real cool southern girl from Tennessee and I’m by no means anti-American. All I was trying to do is provide an outsider’s perspective that is of course a limited one, as I’m only one person and only have so many experiences to draw from.
Wow…Galaxy Ranger said it all. While it was fun to comment on the nature of dress of the Sci Fi as above, GS is right…Hollywood influenced too much, and I am not sure how much of a mirror our studios are.
Most americans view our celebrities as nobility. Something to aspire too…personally I see them as bums. Just like me, albeit with larger problems and pocket books but bums nontheless. hollywood doesn’t reflect me.
Truth be told I am more interested in the story then who is fracking whom.
yeah, from a historical point of view, there have been two basic ways that an underclass would deal with an upper class/nobility: a) they wanna be like them, like the slaves in Ancient Rome had no desire to abolish slavery, they just wanted to get free as individuals so they could rise the social ladder or b) they want to get rid of the upper crust altogether and make everyone equal - the basic idea of communism. Just that it didn’t take long until the top echelons of the communist party had established themselves as a new ruling élite. but I’m rambling.
personally I see them as bums. Just like me, albeit with larger problems and pocket books but bums nontheless.
Well, I guess it’s as the saying goes, you will only find out about a person’s true character when they’re either rich or famous or powerful. I wouldn’t condemn all people in the industry at large, they’re just people like you and me and like you and me, some of them are flawed and screwed up and it just shows, or shows on a bigger scale because they’re important or the media make them look important. I mean, has the question ever been asked why we’re making such a big fuss about actors? In Elizabethan England, actors were considered to be on the some social level as pimps. But then again, gladiators were hugely popular in Ancient Rome…
hollywood doesn’t reflect me.
I wonder to what extent such a statement could be regarded as wishful thinking. I would bet that all of us here on the forum were immensely influenced by hollywood as kids and a huge part of socialization in today’s world works via TV. We should do an experiment and raise a couple thousand kids without any TV or video game influence whatsoever and see what they turn out to be like. Would they have better grades? Would they be more athletic?
I would say that we’ve all been more influenced by Hollywood than are consciously aware of.
Truth be told I am more interested in the story then who is fracking whom.
I totally agree. It’s not total BS to philosophize about how many guys Starbuck did in how many episodes, but I wanna know about how the mythology and the story will go on.
Hey Audra, I certainly agree with you on in general on this issue, but there are a few specific modifications I would make for some of these shows:
In an attempt to create informal evidence to support this idea - here’s a brief gender-based analysis of some of our favorite sci-fi creations:
Star Wars (all): Men: comfortable, non-revealing outfits, unless you count a little Han chest hair in the '70s. Women: Metal bikini, implied sexual “slave,” half-ripped off clothes in part I, need rescuing.
Mostly right on, except I would argue that regarding gender SW was quite progressive for its time. Leia took a lead role in her own rescue (once she was busted out of the cell) and wasn’t afraid to pick-up and use a blaster (in fact she’s the first main character in the series to shoot a Storm Trooper). When she was a slave girl, she singlehandedly dispatched her enslaver.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (as someone recently pointed out): I know, not sci-fi, but high on the Watercooler’s list of cool stuff. Men: smart, adventurous, brave. Woman: vain, shallow, scantily dressed, screams a lot, needs rescuing.
However, like I hinted at before I think Marion in Raiders is certainly Indy’s equal regarding the adventurous spirit of the movie. I think I could be argued that Lucas has done a pretty good job (at least relatively) with respect to his female characters (but I’d have to think about it further). The female lead in Crusade was single-minded and conniving, but in the end she was revealed to be the main villain and which villain isn’t? As I said before, it was the female lead in Temple that pretty much ruined the movie for me.
Transformers (2007):…
Women: Astonishingly attractive, main character wears midriff-revealing shirt in jaw-dropping scene intended for Shia as well as guys in the audience…
Agreed, but I only saw this movie on seat-back screen on a cross country flight. I might have to take a second viewing on a bigger screen before I pass final judgment.
Back to the Future (I, II, and III): Not overtly sexist, but traditional roles still apply…
It would be interesting to do a more systematic comparison between the female leads in Lucas vs. Spielberg movies. I don’t know how to parse the relative influence in the different Indiana Jones movies though. My first initial thought is that Spielberg tends to be more ‘traditional’ than Lucas. Lucas made on of the first sci-fi movies where a woman was the lead (human) role. Okay, maybe ‘Howard the Duck’ isn’t the best example…
Star Trek OS movies: Too much to list. All officers are white men or white male aliens, with the exception of one Asian man and one black woman in a miniskirt. Men: commanders, warriors, deciders. Women: operate the switchboard.
Agreed. But at least the first season of TNG took great strides towards gender equality by putting men in miniskirts too!
FWIW, some of our favorites are also quite progressive in terms of gender, like BSG, Firefly, and sometimes the Matrix.
I guess my point here is that these shows aren’t a quantum leap (which come to think of it didn’t have any female lead characters) from its predecessors, but that I think I can see a clear progression.
Now there is the newer trend to have action adventure movies like Tomb Raider, Ultraviolet, and Resident Evil fronted by what could be crudely described as eye-candy that also kicks ass. Then again the good guys in the more traditional action adventure movies could be described in the same way.
The one thing that’s still missing almost completely in sci-fi is gay human characters. And I agree with trillian that it was kind of a bummer that, while making a cool stride in having a strong character in BSG like Cain be gay, she also was stereotypical in enough ways that I noticed the same thing. Gina: not stereotypical, but not human, either.
Agree completely…
As GR mentioned this was a product of it’s time. Gene Roddenberry (hey wait a sec, GalaxyRanger / Gene Roddenberry. GR and GR, hmmmm. Alright, focus. Focus!) was constantly fighting with execs about what he wanted on his show and why. It was important that the Vulcan stay. It was important to have a black woman officer on the bridge. It was important for an Asian to drive (now that’s just a bad joke, sorry). Anylu-lu, Gene did that because sci-fi should be used to make a statement about our current lives. It was about how differences can be worked out and people can work together. Scifi should be used as a mirror, to look at ourselves and reflect ugh bad pun on our failings and potential failings and where we need to improve.
I really like the way BSG did the same-sex relationship. It wasn’t done like ‘Oh there is the gay’ much like most comedies and sitcoms and even some dramas let’s face it like most media. Here’s the token gay! It’s done best when you don’t even notice. When characters aren’t written as male or female, just human and a male or female can play them. You don’t think of Cain as male or female. It’s Cain. Unfortunately I can’t help but think of Six as female, but that’s just me. Tricia does such a chameleon job that she really sells the grease monkey tech and you forget about the ‘red dress’.
The best example I can come up with right now is that Ellen Ripley was originally written as a man. When you watch ‘Alien’, you’re not thinking ‘Ripley needs Dallas to save her!’ You’re thinking ‘Kick that alien’s butt, Ripley!’ I can only imagine the frusatration the gay community might feel when characters are ‘revealed’ as gay. For example, ‘Dumbledore is gay.’ WTF! From Star Trek: First Contact ‘Lt. Hawk is gay’ Really? And? The producers of BSG got it right. The big shock, for me anyway, is not ‘Oh she’s gay!’ It’s ‘Cain is human and capable of a relationship!’
Way back when I first heard ‘Starbuck is a chick’, I thought, “That’s interesting.” Then I experienced it and it was the first moment I knew this show had something special. The character Starbuck is not a male or female but a person. The writers did not play on stereotypes.
As mentioned, Firefly got it right also. Except Inara, the female roles could have been males. It would have made it even more interesting if Inara was a male prostitute and the sexual tension was still there between Mal and Inara. But as mentioned, you’d never sell that. Even better, you could probably sell it if you made Inara a hermaphrodite-type alien and a prostitute with the tension with Mal but played by a male.
My point is scifi done right tackles those issues head-on and causes reflection. Space battles and scantily-clad babes are great and part of the genre. But truly great scifi or any literature is when it makes you think while entertain.
I forgot about ‘Alien’, good catch. My first impression just now was that Alien was quite progressive for its time. But now the more I think about it, I wonder if Ripley was changed to a woman because the original Alien is more of a horror movie than an action movie. Her role could be argued to be an extension of a Jamie Lee Curtis like role in Halloween or The Fog. Granted Segorney (sp?) make a smooth transition to (and did an AWEsome job at) the ‘independent, think-for-yourself, ass-kicking’ role in the subsequent alien movies that have traditionally been male dominated.