Last week saw a bit of controversy in the Stargate world, surrounding a character description for the upcoming Stargate Universe episode “Sabotage.” (Read all about it here, including the producers’ response issued right here on GateWorld.)
We’ve seen outcries all over the Web, ranging from “That’s an insensitive way of talking about disabled persons,” to “They’re indulging the cliched male fantasy of lesbians having sex with men,” to “It’s a violation of Camille’s body to have Dr. Perry use it that way,” to “That’s rape, so the story is abhorrent and the episode shouldn’t be made.”
Setting aside the many misreadings and misrepresentations of what the casting call actually said, I’d like to offer my own response to these criticisms. But first, a word must be said about what character breakdowns and casting sides are, what they’re for, and why it’s not fair for viewers to draw conclusions or pass judgment based on them.
At the end of the day, I want to suggest to you, these criticisms entirely miss the point of why science fiction depicts controversial, often disturbing things.
Breakdowns Are Not ‘Real’
By that I mean that they are not a part of the story being told. Unlike a production photo or a clip from a trailer, a character’s description in casting documents may finally bear little similarity to the character as she is depicted on screen. Script pages are also usually from early drafts, and can be rewritten. Or tweaked on set by the actors and director. Or filmed, then cut. (Television is a long, creative process involving contributions from hundreds of people.) It’s an early look at what might be, followed by months of refining by everyone involved. Only the dialogue that is written, interpreted, acted, edited, and aired is worth judging.
To the degree that a character breakdown does correspond to the final product, it is only a snapshot — a single brush stroke in a large fresco.
There is only one way to judge any episode of television: Watch it. The Internet age has brought us a world of pre-production criticism, which is just ridiculous considering the sort of medium that television is. It presumes that one can accurately see an artist’s finished product before it has begun, that one can peer at Michelangelo’s marble slab and comment on the anatomy of David.
Casting Documents Aren’t Meant for You
They are behind-the-scenes production documents, often not even written or vetted by the script’s author, often exaggerated to serve their one, single purpose in life: to give casting agents who look at a zillion of these things a sense of the sort of actors that the show’s producers would like to see audition.
Reading casting documents — and in many cases, even the “sides” that consist of pages from a working draft of the script — is a poor substitute for seeing the final product. Passing judgment on the writer’s decisions at this stage is a little like debating a movie you’ve never seen. You’ve read a bad review, you’ve heard people talk about the trailer, you’ve seen a late-night interview with one of the actors. All these things might help you learn a little more about the movie, but it doesn’t mean you’ve seen it.
Till then, you just aren’t qualified to criticize.
Depiction Does Not Mean Endorsement
Have we forgotten the value of the science fiction genre and dramatic story-telling as a whole? Good television asks hard questions, and sci-fi in particular is good about studying the human condition and engaging tough issues. That means showing characters doing some damned distasteful things. Stargate is no exception. The shows have explored important issues such as torture (“Abyss,” “The Serpent’s Venom”), slavery and coercion (much of the Jaffa storyline throughout SG-1, though episodes like “Cor-Ai” and “Threshold” spring to mind), degenerative disease (“The Shrine”), and religion (all of SG-1 Seasons Nine and Ten), to name just a few.
As a series that is more intentionally dramatic than action/adventure, Stargate Universe will be doing this sort of human exploration even more. Among the many sci-fi plot devices that enable this is the long-range communications device, which allows someone from Earth to occupy the body of a Destiny crew member while that person in turn occupies the body of the person back on Earth. What sort of moral dilemmas might that bring up?
In “Sabotage,” the Destiny crew will grapple with a twisted mess of issues about identity and sexuality. What do you do when you are stranded galaxies away from your loved ones, against your will, with the very real prospect that you will never see them again — only to wake up in someone else’s body back on Earth, able to see them and talk to them and touch them again? Or, what if you’ve been without the use of your limbs all your life, and now inhabit a body that is strong and agile?
Is it ethically permissible to pose as that person? (You might watch “Avalon, Part 2″ before you answer.) To kiss someone you love? To kiss someone that person loves? To have sex? Or, from the other side of the equation, if you fall in love with someone who is occupying the body of someone else, can you act on that? What if two lovers both find themselves in other people’s bodies? What if you don’t know that it is temporary? If your lover is transplanted to a robotic body? Is cloned?
These are interesting science fiction questions, which force us to re-examine where we think the boundaries of identity and love are drawn. Yet they are exactly what those who object to this body-swapping episode are taking issue with. It’s not right for Eleanor Perry to do what she does with Camille’s body — even moreso because the two women have different sexual orientations. It’s not right for Nicholas Rush to sleep with her while she is in someone else’s body (gay or straight).
All very right. That’s exactly the point! The episode presents dilemmas, shows characters making choices, and then — we can hope — facing the consequences of those choices. If every character on television acted wise and upright all the time, those stories would have no conflict … and no reason to watch.
The mere depiction of these things doesn’t make the episode bad, or offensive, or poorly written. The writers are attempting to pose difficult moral situations and ask hard questions, and show us more about these characters by how they respond — then, by how others respond to their choices. Perhaps Dr. Perry is selfish and ultimately abusive of the gift she has been given; perhaps Rush is one step removed from a rapist, and an incident like this could permanently color his already tense relationship with Camille. Don’t assume that these things are going to be glorified simply because they are depicted.
Don’t Pretend All Questions Have Easy Answers
Science fiction is at its best not when it is merely depicting distasteful things, but when it is asking hard questions. Questions that don’t have an obvious “right” answer on moral grounds. If your long-lost love knocked on your door wearing someone else’s face, how would you respond to them? If you have been immobile all your life and had the chance to take over someone’s body, would you do it? If it was temporary, what would you do with that body?
What if it was the mind of your spouse, and the person whose body she occupies has given consent? What would you do?
If you fell in love with someone but had no way of interacting with them except through another person’s body, how much is permissible? (Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “The Host,” in which Riker played host to a Trill symbiant in love with Beverly Crusher)
If you had to choose between the survival of two different species, what would you do? (SG-1’s “Scorched Earth”)
If you had the power to protect your world at the cost of a few civil liberties, or at the expense of an uncooperative enemy, would you force your will on them? (“Absolute Power”)
If you transform your enemy into a human like yourself and change his life forever, what are your responsibilities toward him? (Atlantis’s “Michael”)
If the only way to correct your mistakes and save an innocent life is to let yourself be eaten by an alien monster? (“Miller’s Crossing”)
What would you do if you learned after the fact that a co-worker had raped you — but you have no memory or personal experience of it because your consciousness was in another galaxy at the time? … And it was entirely consensual with the person occupying your body, so from his point of view it wasn’t a rape at all? … And you’re a trillion miles from Earth with no ship-bound legal system to resort to?
Would you hate him?
Would you refuse to work with him?
Would you kill him?
My point is simple: Good science fiction puts its characters in frightful situations, with ethical dilemmas that make us think, “What would I do in that situation?” They make us talk with one another, learn something about one another, and learn something about ourselves. It’s why I love sci-fi.
Stargate Universe and shows like it put characters in difficult and at times ethically ambiguous circumstances. This shows us what those men and women are made of — and, in how we judge their actions, what we are made of, as well.
Editorials represent only the opinion of the author, and not necessarily that of GateWorld and its owner. In this case, however, the author happens to be the owner. Go figure.
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OMG your actually trying to justify this!!!
Its rape end of!
shepsgirl4ever | August 17 @ 5:09 pmInteresting post. But “one step removed from a rapist?” WTH? He IS a rapist, if that scene from the sides ever gets aired. And I have no desire to watch a rapist as one of the main characters on a Stargate show.
Sylvia | August 17 @ 5:22 pmIf we grant that the scene in question = rape, is the problem people have with the fact that it’s a main character involved, or that it’s being shown at all?
Television and film have been depicting rape without glorifying it for years. The Battlestar Galactica episode “Pegasus” comes to mind, where it was very disturbing yet done to make some pretty heavy moral points.
Now if, in “Sabotage,” it is done and the three characters simply move on as if nothing has happened — say, as in the Atlantis episode “Irresistible,” where a sort of long-term date rape drug was used and consummated marriage(s) was at least implied — then I would agree that it’s a bad thing for the show to depict and then fail to address.
Darren Sumner | August 17 @ 5:32 pmMy thoughts exactly, Darren. To modify an expression, you can’t judge a show by its breakdown. Thanks for posting it.
lordofseas | August 17 @ 5:33 pmYou People are morons! It is a tv show. No one is suggesting that rape is right or wrong for that matter. It is entertainment. Sure we may not like a situation they put some one in but the great thing about watching it on tv is if you dont like it turn it off or change the channel. I am looking forward to seeing that episode. It will surely cause drama on the ship and that makes for great tv. AND KEEP IN MIND IT IS ONLY TELEVISION NOT REAL LIFE! The writers on the show have always entertained me with their creative stories I have cringed a few times from what I have seen on SG1 and SGA but I always felt it was necessary to make a great show. So in closing keep up the great work on the shows and please dont let people that like to start trouble because they have nothing better to do make you change any thing that you think will make good tv. Damien Butler Olympia Wa.
butler75 | August 17 @ 5:40 pm@Darren, NO THE MAIN PROBLEM IS HE IS A RAPIST it doesnt matter who he is or what rank or what whether, sorry whats difficult to understand that concept the womans body has been violated, raped. Heres a question if the person was a man an had his body taken over by a gay man an used for sex, how would you as a man feel about ie do you think you would have been raped an would you be ok with it an as male viewer would you then be happy to sit an watch the show with the said rapist in it week in week out?
shepsgirl4ever | August 17 @ 5:45 pmSo it was important for the casting directors to know that the quadriplegic character is sex-starved? Or maybe they didn’t understand what quadriplegic meant, so they needed it spelled out that her body is ‘useless’? Sorry, but these sides are crude and rude and were put out by the same guys responsible for the show. It’s a peek behind the scenes at how their minds work, and it’s pretty ugly. I have no faith that these people will handle the subject matter in a tastefull manner.
KayD | August 17 @ 5:47 pmOK i think a thing to remember is this is a darker Star gate series.Second as Damien said before me its TV not real life, no one is saying that rape is right or wrong.TV sometimes can climb beyond the normal cliff, have you ever watched HBO showtime. I’m looking forward to SGU and this episode because its something that hasn’t been done before in TV. You can complain all you like but in the end its up to you to keep watching or watch something else.SGU is supposed to have six people kill themselves by the sixth EPISODE its supposed to be dark and focus on the crew and how they survive with one another and their demons are let loose on each other, while battling different alien foes and going through space. Watch or don’t watch its that simple.
Durrkid34 | August 17 @ 5:51 pm@ Durrkid34 yes your right, watch or dont watch it is a personal choice, so I think you can guess what I will be doing, Stargate is turly over in eyes dead an buried. I am so disgusted by this my anger as a woman an that will not be leaving me anytime soon, I even now have no desire to even see or buy a SGA or SG1 movie if it has anything to do with these people.
shepsgirl4ever | August 17 @ 6:06 pm@shepsgirl4ever – Your comment asking if it was a gay man and how we’d feel? I think you’re missing the point. It’s a personal question for YOU to answer. But, most importantly, in the case of this ethical question, it’s whether “you” includes your consciousness AND your body, or just your consciousness.
Cheshil | August 17 @ 6:09 pm@KayD – did you miss the part where Darren points out that breakdowns aren’t usually written by the people who write the episode?
We already know well that the SGU characters will not be the sort of archetypal heroes we’ve seen on SG-1 and Atlantis, and that Rush in particular is not going to be lovable or heroic. Yes, a main character on a Stargate show might end up being, in the final judgment, a bad guy.
I find that fascinating. And I hope that, as a bad guy, he gets what he deserves for his actions.
Darren Sumner | August 17 @ 6:11 pmEven if the writers did say her body was useless, it is a description that fits whether it is in good taste or not. They were getting the point across plain and simple.
As for the whole “rape” thing. Camille was not the conscience in control of the body, and the other person went on with life, living as she saw fit with her new physical capabilities.
Camille, when she finds out, will not be too happy, and might see him as someone who took advantage over her. But in fact, he did nothing like that and should not be seen as a rapist.
Yes, I might not be too thrilled if this happened to me. It doesn’t mater what gender i am, or what gander the other person was regardless of my sexual orientation. But in reality, the “rapist” is in no way at fault. He received consent and as we will find out, probably will not be the one who begins it.
Whether she has a problem with his actions while she was not in control of her body is not a real issue – it was not her. And this is the exact problem and question they will address that will bring the “darker drama” that they are aiming for.
You may not enjoy this Battlestar Galactica like (at least drama wise) Stargate show, but it is what the show is, and if you don’t like it, this show may not be for you. It is as simple as that.
AmbassadorKosh27 | August 17 @ 6:25 pmSo, you think that by insulting us you’ll make us go away? This entire article is written in a horribly condecending tone, and I for one, don’t appreciate it. It doesn’t matter if the casting documents are for us, the very fact that such a offensive bag of stereotypes is being bandied around by TPTB is disgusting. _You’re_ _still_ _not_ _getting_ _it_.
Yes, science fiction is a place to explore some topics that are too much for the mainstream media. Yes, in the past the genre has opened new avenues and taught us things about ourselves -> even dark things that maybe we’d rather not have known. The point is, I don’t trust you. I don’t trust the people who are making SGU, I don’t trust the actors, and I certainly don’t trust the “Syfy” (BTW: gag) network to treat the issues with the respect they deserve. If a casting call is so offensive, I have little hope that the final product will be much better.
I will not be watching SGU or any further SG-1/SGA movies.
I will not be watching SyFy.
notwatchingsgu | August 17 @ 6:39 pmThat the casting description and script pages were not final versions or written by the writers/show runners is not the issue, in my opinion. The folks in charge of the franchise have clearly created an environment where insensitive and thoughtless treatment of women, people with disabilities, people of color, and in fact just about anyone is acceptable as a starting point. Describing the physical condition of the character as quadriplegic is more than sufficient to convey the casting requirements – describing the character’s body as ‘useless’ is unnecessary, cruel and insensitive.
I agree that science fiction can and should take on complex moral and ethical issues, however the creators of the Stargate franchise have a poor track record of treating any of the aforementioned groups thoughtfully and in a sensitive and nuanced manner. The episode ‘Irresistable’ springs to mind as an example of poor handling of consent issues – the administration of a date-rape type drug was played for laughs, up to and including Rodney slipping some of the drug to John without his consent as the humorous tag to the episode. I have little confidence that the show runners will do a better job with ‘Sabotage’, and to suggest that people should not air their concerns based on both the past history of the franchise and the actual circulated documents seems to me dismissive of legitimate concerns.
Sweeneybird | August 17 @ 6:49 pmIf you do not see how horrendously offensive this entire concept is I despair of having a conversation about it. butler said “no one is suggesting rape is right or wrong”!!!!
Sylvia | August 17 @ 6:51 pmWhat the everlovin F????
IT IS WRONG! How is this even a question?
I am pretty much done with this debate as I feel like I am hitting my head against a solid brick wall of ignorance.
Just as I am sure that I am done with SGU, if themes like this are in play.
I’ll preface this by saying I haven’t actually read the scene from the sides, so if there’s something vital I’m missing, please point it out. But I have read the initial article, and this editorial, and my understanding of the episode’s scenario is that a woman – a quadreplegic – is bodyswapped with one of SGU’s main characters, and while temporarily in posession of the main character’s functional body, she and another main character have sex. How is that rape?
You are your mind, your body is where you live. If you and your family did a house swap with a family from another country, would you have sex with your wife in their bedroom? Potentially a bad analogy.
But at the end of the day, the two people participating were fully willing. If anything it’s a breach of trust between the owner of the body and the occupant. Camille gave up her body so the other scientist could save the ship/crew, not so she could use it for sex. If I lend someone my car and their friend pukes in the back, I’m mad at my friend for not taking care of what I entrusted to them. Yeah, I wouldn’t be too fond of their friend either, but ultimately my anger would be focused on my friend for letting their drunk/car sick/whatever friend in there in the first place.
And yeah, Rush would have some culpability there, that would strain the relationship with him and Camille, because he should have considered she’d be uncomfortable with it. But it isn’t rape, the body’s sole occupant was willing, end of. Taking advantage of a situation yes, but rape? I’m not seeing it.
Especially considering Camille is back on Earth during this, dealing with both the quadraplegic body and also the presence of her lover. At the end of the day, if she gets back to the Destiny and finds out what happened, personally I’d think she’d understand. Considering a) how hard a time she’ll probably have had as a temporary quadreplegic, and then realising that the other woman had lived that way her entire life, and b) having probably used (or at least wished she could have used) the other woman’s body in exactly the same way with her lover on Earth. Thus making the only two possible differences between the two women/situations either a) actually going through with it and b) a prior relationship between the bodyswapped woman and the (desired) sexual partner.
Camille will have the right to be freaked/creeped that a coworker has had sex with her body, and that her body has been in sexual contact with a gender she doesn’t find attractive, but her body wasn’t helpless or forced or coerced, and it takes two to tango. I’m gonna go with violation of trust on this one. And heck, like I said I haven’t read the scene, but I doubt Rush says anything like “I could take or leave it as far as your personality goes love, but the chance to have sex with that ice queen lesbian’s body? I’m game, sign me up”. He’s probably, I would presume, at least a little attracted to the girl (who after finally scrolling up, I have learned is called Dr. Perry).
Stoko | August 17 @ 7:07 pm@Stoko – in what way are we separate from our bodies? If your body dies, you’re gone. If you’re asleep or in a coma and someone has sex with your body, you’ve been raped. The fictional ability to separate body from consciousness does not relieve anyone of the responsibility to obtain consent from the owner of the body before engaging in sex. Sex without consent = rape.
Sweeneybird | August 17 @ 7:16 pmYou guys are crazy.
jumper2 | August 17 @ 7:17 pmIt’s a TV Show.
Geez, dude.
It’s not a matter of what questions are raised. There’s no way Wright had in mind making Rush a complete villain from episode 16 on. He’s the main lead! Clearly Bradley didn’t think it would be seen as rape nor that it was that big a deal either way. Maybe Wray would slap Rush’s face next time she saw him in her own body, and that would be the end of it.
Yes, it’s not the depiction, but you have no idea if the script as BW and the freelancer wrote it had any real consequences. Past history indicates not.
Now that the crapstorm has happened, I bet half the stuff in the sides won’t be there in the final episode. Not out of realization what they had written was vile, but because they don’t need the bad PR.
The examples you site show Stargate at some of it’s weakest. Sheppard asking someone to commit suicide for Jeannie was not dealt with as a moral issue. Michael’s creation was not dealt with as a moral issue. They were just brushed over. The standards need to be way higher for SGU, and the fact those sides were written is a sign that is not happening.
cynical1 | August 17 @ 7:20 pmDarren,
I will confess to not getting all the way through your write-up – I stopped at the line “It’s not meant for you” re: Casting Call.
Whilst I agree that they are no substitute for the finished article, that does not mean that they can say what they want.
These, in particular, were insensitive and offensive in their wording – just because people were not meant to see them does not mean this kind of behavior should be condoned. Isn’t that like saying something misogynistic/racist/homophobic about a person and justifying it by saying “well, nobody heard me?”
The reading of the casting call raised peoples’ hackles, yes but the following explanations and drafts and whatnot failed to alleviate peoples’ worries. Just because something is a trope, it does not make it acceptable – especially if there appears to be no discussion or hints that this will be addressed.
I enjoy Stargate, and always have, but they have really dropped the ball on this one.
All that needed to be done was an apology and admission that whatever they wrote – which I am sure was with the best of intentions to be a good story – reads as something completely different and perhaps needs re-considering in some parts.
Sometimes, you need to take a step back and admit your wrong and, sadly, those in the industry seem to be the least capable of doing this.
All we ask if for the guys to do this – people respect you all the more for it.
jmf | August 17 @ 7:26 pmCamille will have the right to be freaked/creeped that a coworker has had sex with her body, and that her body has been in sexual contact with a gender she doesn’t find attractive, but her body wasn’t helpless or forced or coerced, and it takes two to tango. I’m gonna go with violation of trust on this one. And heck, like I said I haven’t read the scene, but I doubt Rush says anything like “I could take or leave it as far as your personality goes love, but the chance to have sex with that ice queen lesbian’s body? I’m game, sign me up”. He’s probably, I would presume, at least a little attracted to the girl (who after finally scrolling up, I have learned is called Dr. Perry).
Sorry, just because the mind can not consent does not make rape any less rape. This is akin to giving someone ryhypnol which makes consent impossible (if you are not in your body you can NOT consent) and increasing the sex drive.
The scene as described is rape pure and simple. In addition disabled people are in fact able to participate in sexual activities and it is insulting to turn them into people who would allow another person to be raped merely to have a different kind of sexual experience.
The breakdowns we have been presented with are disgusting and insulting, not thought provoking. Perhaps a re-write is in order.
LindaH | August 17 @ 7:33 pmoh my god THANK YOU! You recognize, and are willing to go on record, with this intelligent breakdown of why science fiction is so good. It questions the status quo, brings up the what if, and shoves the possible outcomes right in your face. I don’t want to be fed a watered down pablum of dreck because it is safe. I want to see individuals deal with moral ambiguity, ethical travesty, failings of character – basically, their humanity, right or wrong.
At the end of the day, only one thing is certain regarding this latest pre-production leap to conclusions. The episode has not been completed, it has not aired, and cannot be judged until it has done so. Let it stand, or fall, on its own merit.
zats_clear | August 17 @ 7:39 pm@Sweeneybird – in what way are we separate from our bodies? I think pretty much everyone who believes in an afterlife, religion aside, would have a bone to pick with you there. Ghosts, out of body experiences, Heaven, Hell, I’m not saying I believe in such things, but many do, and every single one of those things requires the mind to exist beyond the body. I’m not talking real world fact, I’m talking hypothetical concept, which is what much of sci-fi is.
In SGU, they have body swapping. How are we seperate from our bodies you ask? By leaving them entirely, that’s how. By picking up sticks and moving, wholesale. In the Stargate world, a consciousness is transferable, transmittable, duplicatable. You are your mind. To borrow a rather blunt phrase from Supernatural, your body is a meat puppet that your mind inhabits.
@LindaH, no, this is specifically not akin to giving someone rohypnol. By doing that, you supress a person’s ability to choose what happens to them, you force yourself on them. Hence, rape. Which brings me back to my fundamental point, your body is not who you are, it’s where you are, which isn’t something that’d ever come up in the real world, but as Darren said, it’s the kind of interesting moral dilemma sci-fi allows us to explore.
If I’m in my home, and someone breaks in and points a gun at me, and threatens to kill me unless I give them the contents of my safe, they have threatened my life. But if I were away, and I came back from a month long vacation to find my house burgled and my safe empty… Yes, that would be a crime, of course, but a different one. B&E, theft, not blackmail/threatening/possibly attempted murder.
If you’re not in your body at the time, and someone else is, and they’re doing things with it that you wouldn’t approve of, then that sucks. But the things they do never happened to you, they happened to your body, and that’s a definable difference. Not one that would occur in reality, but a definable difference. Same way if you were possessed and you killed a guy, you didn’t kill him, whoever possessed you did it. You swap out of your body and someone has sex while in it, you might be grossed out but it never happened to you. You weren’t in there, repressed, helpless, unable to affect your life, you were out there, living your life in someone else’s body, wishing you could have sex in it yourself, which doesn’t really give much room for complaint.
And surely to say “disabled people can have sex” is as much a generalisation as it would be to say they can’t? Not that anyone actually said they couldn’t, just that this one specific character is disabled in such a way that she can’t?
Stoko | August 17 @ 8:02 pm@jmf:
Yes, finally. I agree with you: defending the wording of the casting call by saying “it’s not meant for you to see” is frankly, astonishing – it reminds me of people who have said racist or homophobic things in front of me and, when I have pulled them up about it, defend themselves by arguing, “well, obviously I wouldn’t say that in front of a black/asian/gay person.” As though, as a straight white woman I would have no reason to be offended!
The fact of the matter is, this has been poorly handled from the get-go. Disabled people, no matter what their condition or level of disability, are not “useless” – I don’t need to be disabled myself to see how this is hugely offensive. The notion that disabled people do not experience “intimacy”, and that despite the fact that Eleanor is supposedly a brilliant scientist at the top of her field yet needs to have sex (in a fully-”able” body, mind, because accept no substitutes) to be a complete person, is just beyond belief. The idea that someone, anywhere thought that this was a solid premise for an hour of television makes me want to weep.
If I were a lesbian and I awoke from a “body swap” (geez, how tired is that for a sci-fi storyline? It is 2009, right?) to find that I my body had been used to have sex with a man, and not just any man but a trusted colleague, I would be pretty hacked off, to massively understate. I mean, what if Camille were to get pregnant by Rush? Has anyone even asked that question? How does that play out? God, the level of fail here is unfathomable.
I am sorry to say that as a viewer of SG-1, SGA and the SG1 movies for these past 10 plus years, I don’t have faith that this will all be handled sensitively. And that is what is at the heart of the matter here: people are being told to wait to see the ep before prejudging the writers and producers, yet in the past any complaints or concerns after viewing have simply been brushed off with a feeble, “Oh, I’m sorry you felt that way. Next episode…” In other words: waiting until the ep has wrapped and aired will be too late. God, remember Rapey Lucius Lavin from Irresistable? The writers hadn’t even CONSIDERED that the story could be taken that way. It shows a remarkable inability to follow through on a premise.
I have no doubt that sci-fi can be used to ask the tough questions, to make us think and challenge our own perceptions of the world and other people. I just think that this group of writers and producers has a long history of setting up a contentious premise, raising issues of serious moral dilemma and soul searching for the characters… and then by the next episode all is forgotten, the reset button has been pressed and there is simply no follow up.
Can anyone say, hand on heart based on all the previous evidence on SGA etc, that the whole Camille-Wray sexybodyswap isn’t going to be just handwaved away as “one of those things”, never mentioned again? I wish I still had that kind of confidence in the writers.
bluejello | August 17 @ 8:11 pm@JMF. Why don’t you give Darren the courtesy and read the entire thing.
@THE CHARACTER BREAKDOWN. The writers are saying that THIS CHARACTER has not been able to express intimacy and that this CHARACTER can finally do that. They are not saying that every person with this disability is completely and utterly unable to ever share any level of intimacy in their life. Once more, for those of you who don’t understand.
Just because the writer’s have created a character that hasn’t been able to express intimacy, does not mean that they are saying that no disabled person can’t.
Just because the writer’s have created an apparent “rapist” does not mean that they think that rape is OK.
As Darren said.
They are creating situations and characters that will make us THINK…that will make us question the human condition.
When BSG rape scene between the Cylon and the LT happened, people were not running around the net saying ‘zomg, this is so wrong, the writers should apologise’… it made for some great and controversial television. Plain and simple.
jasonreadett | August 17 @ 8:15 pm