>> Someone on the Empire website was talking about the A-Team movie casting, and made a comment I had to pass on: "They've done it before, why not get Katee Sackhoff to be Face? She rocked as Starbuck."
Bwahahahahahaha. For those of you who don't get the joke, Face was played by Dirk Benedict, who also played Starbuck in the original Galactica. He's still sulking about the fact they brought his character back female.
I have mixed feelings about his response - on the one hand, I think it's adorable how much he still cares about his show. It's a not very well regarded bit of space-fluff he was in when he was a kid - he doesn't have a duty to it, and yet its legacy is still really important to him. This means an awful lot to me, especially if you compare it to certain ex-Doctors who mercilessly take the rack out of their episodes in the commentaries, and are on record saying they quit because their first two seasons were shit. Oh, thanks. So I'm an idiot, then? And excuse me, you actually left before the real grot set in.
In addition, his ranty article about how he loathes the new series is well written and funny to read, lambasting his replacement as "Stardoe", and raises several complaints that I have touched on. I have particular sympathy for this:
"Witness the "re-imagined" Battlestar Galactica. It's bleak,
miserable, despairing, angry and confused. Which is to say, it reflects, in
microcosm, the complete change in the politics and mores of today's world as
opposed to the world of yesterday..."Re-imagining", they call it.
"un-imagining" is more accurate. To take what once was and twist it into
what never was intended. So that a television show based on hope, spiritual
faith, and family is unimagined and regurgitated as a show of despair,
sexual violence and family dysfunction. To better reflect the times of
ambiguous morality in which we live, one would assume."
New Galactica is its own creature, and I don't disapprove of bleakness and ambiguity full stop - but the way the show does it tends to wind me up. Nevertheless, if that were it, then it'd be OK. The problem is, it's written from a perspective which is (to my mind) mysoginistic and painfully, unforgiveably heteronormal. Complaining that "the war against masculinity has been won", and being criticised for "treating women like "sex objects". I thought it was flirting. Never mind." Read it, and you can tell he's an American. I'm going to assume, on good evidence, that he's homophobic - which is a shame, because he's really rather yummy, and I now feel morally dirty having a crush on him. His very quick assertion that the Face is "blatantly heterosexual", despite being a character in the world's most homoerotic genre, actually makes me want to go and find A-Team slash*. That impulse, taking into account my dislike of slash interrupting platonic buddy movies, should give you an insight into how much this essay angers me. He continues:
"I'm not sure if a cigar in the mouth of Stardoe resonates in the same way
it did in the mouth of Starbuck. Perhaps. Perhaps it "resonates" more. Perhaps
that's the point. I'm not sure. What I am sure of is this… Women are from Venus.
Men are from Mars. Hamlet does not scan as Hamletta. Nor does Han Solo as Han
Sally. Faceman is not the same as Facewoman. Nor does a Stardoe a Starbuck make.
Men hand out cigars. Women `hand out' babies. And thus the world, for thousands
of years, has gone round."
If your eyebrows aren't a little raised at that statement, then get the hell off my blog. I can almost see where he is coming from - Stardoe is an interesting creation compared to Starbuck, and Calypso and I have discussed before how Princess Hamlet would differ from Prince Hamlet. Almost. He manages to frame a potentially interesting line of argument in the most offensive way possible. In comparison, at least Classic Doctor Who wasn't always brilliant.
He might even have a point if Stardoe turned out to be pointless token casting - but she wasn't. She has rightfully claimed her place as one of the greatest and most iconic sci-fi heroes ever. She is easily the most brilliant female ever created in the genre - rounded, macho but never at the expense of what we'll call her femininity - in short, realistically, brilliantly human. Think Amanda Palmer in space. And just like her character, she'd have no problems putting the male contestants into their place - easily one of the greatest sci-fi heroes full stop.
From pleasant (if picky) indifference to the A-Team movie casting choices, I now have a no. 1 vote: Katee Sackoff can play Facewoman any day of the week!
Finally, you know those students I've been following in Iran? OK, well I mentioned a few days ago that their university dorm had been attacked by the Basij - ain't it convenient for us confused westerners that they've practically called their secret police "the Baddies". They even posted some photos of the aftermath, which have provided an uncanny mental image of Vapitreem and I crouched under a table in that foul kitchen, both wearing discarded pans as makeshift helmets, along with Jeremy still attempting to revise during the shelling, and with half of the lightside dead or dying in the quad. Kinda brings it home. Although we'd be fine - the Dude would protect us. Just so you know I ain't kidding, the BBC have just posted a video of the attack.
The internet is incredible. Every time there's a "next big thing" on the web, the media always grumbles about how rubbish it is. Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. It's people writing on auto-reactionary "hmmm, look MILLIONS of people are using these web services. I'll write an article about how they are all wrong!". Whatever goes down in Iran - and I'm hoping for c) fizzles out before it b) turns nasty - no one can touch them now! Sure, they waste time, and sure, maybe you just don't get it, but it is actually saving lives and making a difference in some weird way. I' feeling a little less optimistic today, though - the people I'm following haven't tweeted for days. I hope this means their battery has died.
*For honour's sake, for dignity, I did go on one of my annual Livejournal binges, and it does exist as I knew it must - according to Fanhistory, A-Team slash has been around since 1986 exactly. I actually think the evidence for even semi-canoical based slash is very unconvincing, and yet I'm a little surprised by the total absence in fandom of what appears to me the most obvious ship - Murdoch/B.A.. The internet tells me they've been too busy fighting out Hannibal/Face against Murdoch/Face. I don't buy either, not even remotely. Especially as Face is, snigger, "blatantly heterosexual". Having gotten my personal vengeance, however, I now feel a little unwell...
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