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Darren and David step aside this week for a discussion on the role and portrayal of women and gender in the Stargate universe. Joining David (who acts as moderator) are two of our favorite guests from podcasts of yore — Louisa Robison and Tame Farrar. We’ll talk about everything from how much (or how little) the women characters have been fleshed out, men showing emotion, to SGU‘s lesbian relationship.
Is Sam Carter faultless? Are Vala and Sam two sides of the same coin? How do Drs. Fraiser and Keller compare? And does Stargate‘s all-male writing team need a woman to better capture the voice of women? We’ll look at all these questions and more in one of our most challenging discussions in 80 episodes of the GateWorld Podcast.
And we’ll hear from listeners on the voicemail line! If you still want to voice your opinions on this important topic, call now and we’ll fit in more on next week’s show.
SHOW NOTES
Discussion – Women In Stargate
- Related Episodes:
“Children of the Gods” (SG-1 Season One)
“Lost City” (SG-1 Season Seven)
“Quarantine” (Atlantis Season Four)
“Adrift” (Atlantis Season Four)
“Life” (Universe Season One)
| This Week’s Listener Question: What is your favorite episode from Stargate Atlantis Season Three, and why? |
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Next Episode: Atlantis Season Three! Our Stargate History” series continues with the third season of Stargate Atlantis. Call in now and join the show!
I agree with pretty much everything said in this podcast about women in Stargate. Honestly, I think the only sci-fi shows that have handled female characters well are Farscape, Firefly, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Female characters in Stargate really don’t get any “action hero” moments as the male characters, and when they do its almost laughable at the cliched way in which the situations are handled. Teyle being the best example of an underused female character. Weir I think had some good moments, but after the first season of Atlantis she lost a lot of her edge.
Thanks so much for having the women on the Podcast, very enjoyable and I always love Tame on the show! I am nostalgic about Vala now, but at the time of the original airing I pretty much stopped watching the show because of the focus on her. Several years later, I can watch her without cringing. But I thought they just brought her in for the sex appeal to the fanboys. But I loved Claudia on Farscape so it wasn’t the actress. I always loved Sam because she showed us a very intelligent and capable woman and never thought she… Read more »
I think a lot of the female characters are often no more than the sum of who they’re sleeping with. It’s like they get so caught up in ‘omg, we’re writing a GIRL!!!!!!!!!’ that they forget that she’s a person first. And they don’t write her as a person, they can’t seem to get past the cleavage to see the person that’s underneath. I can agree with sylvia that the secondary characters seem to fare better, and so do the secondary male characters. I personally think Lorne was the best example of an officer on the whole of SGA. And… Read more »
The women in the Stargate universe are not written very well, period. Sam was probably the best, because at least – for the most part – she was not squeezed into a tight (midriff-baring, at times) outfit. I think I read somewhere that Amanda Tapping told the writers to write her as a man, and she’d take care of the rest. Sam was probably the only well-written woman on the series. There was a lot of potential with good actors wasted because the writers just did not know how to write women. Keller was probably the worst (no offense to… Read more »
I think it would help if they just wrote characters, and not fuss over the gender. Don’t focus on ‘i’m writing this young woman, how would she act???’ Instead think ‘ok, there’s this 24 year old child of a us senator stuck on the ship, how would they act?’ I think Janet, beyond Hathor, was the only female on the show that wasn’t defined by her gender. She was the doctor. And – again ignoring Hathor – was there any instance when Doctor Frasier couldn’t have been a male and still been the same basic character? I’m not saying they… Read more »
I think one of the best Teyla moments in SGA was when she kicked Michael off the ledge to his death. She took ownership of her destiny and made a decision to act. More moments like this would have made me a happier Teyla fan.
Firstly, let me congratulate you on the subject of the podcast and on bringing women to talk about women. Having said this, I must say that I haven’t been so disappointed since the podcast about SG- season 10. I thought the whole point was to have 2 women with different views of the female characters; as it turned out Tame and Ms Robison agreed with each other almost all the time and it was David who did most disagreeing. In this light I can’t help but think the combo of him and one of the ladies would be more interesting.… Read more »
I think the women were written very well in battlestar galactica. They were strong and independent but not mary sues. I think the portrayal of women has gotten worse from sg-1 to atlantis to universe. The three most important characters are all men (rush,young,eli) and the women are written as afterthoughts. This needs to change.
I liked Weir and Teyla, but Keller was a blond love interest slash damsel in distress slash the resident whiner. In one episode she kicked some Wraith butt, in the next all she could do was stand around and whimper in fear – the inconsistencies were painfull to watch. Her favorite occupation – kidnapping victim! Give me Teyla and her stick-fighting any day.
I think, thus far, the comment i shook my head about the most was the gentleman that said (paraphrased) how much he liked vala because she was so flirty and would have sex with you as much as shoot you. I’m sorry, that attitude is one that’s used to ‘keep women in their place’. If a woman gets ahead, well she must have slept her way there. etc, etc. Then again, maybe that’s the demographic the writers are trying to appeal to, the ‘lowest common denominator’ of wish fulfillment and hopeful thinking? as to Sam never being called on her… Read more »
I have to agree with Petra. I was looking forward to this podcast, but this was very disappointing to me. When you said you were going to get two women with differing opinions on the female characters, I hoped you would actually have two women with differing opinions. I also hoped you would actually get a couple of women who actually relate more to the female characters than the male ones. Your commentators say that Sam was one dimensional because she was too perfect, but they think the male heroes are multi-dimensional when they were portrayed as being just as… Read more »
“They criticize Sam for being too strong, too smart, too confident, but then go on and criticize Keller for being too insecure and hesitant. What do they dislike about Teyla and Weir? That they let the guys get away with too much and seemed to be too submissive at times? And yet they love Vala and find absolutely nothing wrong with the character even though she was almost always portrayed as the stereotypical ditzy, flirty sex kitten who let men like Daniel walk all over her. She had many, many flaws but few really useful and redeeming qualities. And she… Read more »
I wanted so badly to get in on this discussion, I was yelling at the podcast icon on my screen. I’m surprised how often I disagreed with Louisa and Tame. I agree that the way female characters talked or behaved was frequently a man’s stereotypical idea of a woman, and it could be grating. I don’t want to dump on the writers for the Carter character’s perfection. I believe Glassner and Wright were trying their best to write a character women could admire. I do want to say to Tame and Louisa, the idea of the Vala character being the… Read more »
I apologize to the readers for that bad first post getting in. I couldn’t delete it.
I don’t want to name names, but those of us who followed the SG-1 writers noticed the deterioration of the portrayal of women in SG-1 followed the change in writers. Early in the series, the writers – one frequent writer was a woman – wrote the episodes with the female characters acting as I would hope to act in tough situations, sensible and as a trained soldier and scientist, physician etc. Toward the end, the writers seemed to write the female characters to suit their personal fantasies.
Guys, if you really objected to the conclusions made in this week’s show, I’m pleading with you to call in and voice your opinions for the listener mail at the end of the next podcast. Keep it polite and it will get played.
There are plenty of cases when the guys messed up. Daniel shooting a tank of goa’uld and alerting the whole planet to thier presence. Teal’c going jaffa revenge. Jack disobeying hammond. Daniel waking up the Ori. Shep disobeying Weir. Rodney blowing up a sun, etc, etc. and the boys rarely got called on their actions and even less often were held accountable. All these characters are over the top, tis the nature of the beast. however, take the relationships out of the men’s roles (ie do away with keller or ishta or drey’auc or sara or sarah or…the list goes… Read more »
<> Odd about the Cameron aspect, as the actor was older than the rest of the lead characters. Oh well.
Don’t worry David, I’ll call in. After I listen to the podcast (and take notes). I’ll listen with an open mind and not let what was said here influence my thoughts.
This was a really interesting podcast. I’d been disappointed in the past when David and Darren weren’t hard enough on the decline in quality during season 10, so I expected the discussion of women in Stargate would follow a similar trend.
It was surprising to hear such a tough, mostly negative look from two Stargate fans. I might not agree with everything said, but I appreciate the more critical approach.
For me, it is disappointing that women still seem to mostly identify themselves through their failures and so Vala(of all the females in all the SG series) get’s nominated the most “real” female character *because* she fails to reach the “Carter ideal”. It is *beyond* sad, that then this Vala even gets nominated as a role model. Give me two dimensional goody two shoes heroines (or heroes) any day -as role *models*- but please, not the space bimbo with mixed in comic relief traits. To quote Mel: ” If a character has lots of flaws and you like her and… Read more »
Maybe some of what’s lacking is ‘realistic’ reactions. (bearing in mind that ‘realistic’ is a relative term). By this i mean…Pete should have been smacked upside the head or lectured for his stunt. Sam should have been ticked off at how he treated her, and she should have said do. Vala should have at least yelled back at Daniel when he lectured her in Unending. Cameron should have at least been uncomfortable at the command situation. Sam should have been annoyed. It was a huge elephant in the room that was never dealt with (beyond a ‘oh, no you stay… Read more »
Well, hope dies last ;o). And while I don’t think Chloe coming at Rush with her fists after her fathers death was particularly ladylike, I do think you are on to something with the “realistic reactions”. Because there seems to be a gender template for “a character breaks down” or “a character looses it”. If the character is male, he might: fistfight, shout someone down, threaten, tell someone off, ignore. If the character is female, she will most likely: cry (or almost cry, if you’re supposed to be a “strong” female; most likely in the shower), scream or have a… Read more »
The character Janet Fraiser was one of few well written female character on the show; the original portrayal of Weir was good too. In fact Janet is one of the best females in all of sci-fi. While I picked up on “something” between her and Daniel their “something” wasn’t so obvious as to be annoying… unlike Sam and Vala. Vala was annoying. Whenever the character drew breath to speak I found myself flipping the channel until I thought she was finished. The whole Daniel/Vala thing was forced. Oh the actors worked it, they are that good, but the writing was… Read more »
It’s strange watching a show with so many female characters and not identify with any of them. Heck, I didn’t even like most of them.
I did see that one of the new SGU writers is a woman. It’s been a long time. Not to put too much pressure on her, but I have hopes that the characters and relationships will be more realistic.
@Hatusu
You don’t like most of them? Wow. Watching the series must indeed be weird for you.
Fortunately I don’t have this problem. :) I don’t necesserily like how certain characters were written (Vala and her 4 personalities..) but I like almost all the ladies on SG-1 (minus Lam)and SGA (minus Keller) and I can identify with some of them.
As for SGU, I’m very disappointed in Chloe and rather indifferent about Wray, but I really like TJ, Vanessa James and Lisa Park. Hopefully with the new writers onboard they won’t share the sad fate of SGA ladies.