What I wish I had time to write

[bop_radar]

So it turns out I *do* still want/need to talk about Battlestar Galactica. I'm actually desperately itching to write a serious meta post on the big-picture problems with the finale. I'm reading a lot of response posts and seeing so many good points being made and I'd really like to collate them together. I've also read a few responses from people that liked it and they are fascinating in a headtilt-y, huh! kind of way. I know my response was very personal: it could be summarised as disgust at the way RDM's Catholicism (lapsed or no, it clearly invades his subconscious) bled all over the series and brought everything back to the most simplistic literalism. That came on top of my already queasy feelings about the gender politics and racism (which the finale did nothing to appease). Then they ADDED colonialism to the list of objectionable politics! Was that necessary?! Really?! What happened to good old-fashioned scifi that respected each culture's right to evolve in its own way? Oh I suppose we're meant to handwave that because they became us. *eyeroll* I also found the ending incredibly reductive. OK, I got an answer about Head!Six but it turned out to be the most uninteresting answer of all... I would have been way happier with a clever ambiguous ending that allowed for different interpretations. :( And not just reductive but implausible. Are we REALLY supposed to believe that they will survive? And what was with the sudden universal technology hate? And does RDM know ANYthing about geology/evolution/history? o.O

And now I'm writing the post I don't have time to write... Sigh.

I also want to write a post to my fellow Kara/Lee shippers and Lee fans. I ran guys. I could see the writing on the wall and I fled to protect my heart. I braced myself emotionally for the finale and I watched the Kara/Lee scenes through fingers covering my eyes, and pressed 'play' on Sarah Connor Chronicles as fast as I could after it to block it out. But it still haunts me. Lee's face! *thud*

And yeah, WHY did they have that horrible cheating on Zak retcon and the WORST most heavy-handed metaphor of all time?

I am reading reaction posts that express so much of what I've felt re. the ship over this whole season. I feel so bad for all of you that walked into the pain of the finale because you kept hope alive for so long.

I've seen several people mentioning it feeling like a break-up. Well I agree. It does feel like that and I think it feels like that for good reason: we gave our hearts to this ship and that's a form of love. It creates the same euphoric feelings and it hurts bad when it all falls apart in our hands. I've always found romantic love a very destructive emotion and I guess I fooled myself into thinking fictional love was less so. Well... maybe it is a bit, but not enough to stop the pain from being real and horrible and enough to make you want to eat icecream, stay in your pjs, drink your pain away... whatever you do after break ups. Even the rage we feel at RDM and the shared anger is part of a similar sort of processing people do after break ups: what went wrong? how could this happen to us? what did we do to deserve it? etc.

And don't let people tell you you're stupid for feeling this way. It's human. Even if it IS 'just TV'. It is and it isn't... what you saw in these characters and this ship (or ANY ship or character you love this much) is something very personal and for a lot of us it/they had personal resonances within our own internal landscape. So to dismiss that pain is a mistake, I think. Though of course it in no way means we should be mean to those who liked the finale or got what they wanted from the show. :) Lucky sods! :p

I'd also like to write:
- my reaction post to TSCC 2.19 (eeeeee!!! So much to say! So much to process...)
- a post of unpopular vidding fandom opinions (which has been percolating for a long time)
- a squee post about Skins (which I recently mainlined and LOVE)
- a post about the problematic Dollhouse (1.6 didn't really do it for me, kids, though I saw how it was meant to)
- a post on how Kings is not really doing it for me either
and any number of other posts...

And that's not to mention the VIDDING I want to be doing.

You know what all this means? It means I have no time for such activities. I have two days or so in which to respond to comments and then I will be away from the 'net for the next couple of weeks. So all my love in the meantime and I kind of hope you will still be interested in some/any of those proposed posts when I get back. :)

See you on the other side! :p

Comments

[bop-radar.livejournal.com]

Mmm, interesting post. I was not a Firefly fan. ;) I do find the idea of mind control interesting but my main issue with 1.6, which turned me off, was the way that the guy who's wife died was given a happy ending as if it was an 'acceptable' form of using the dolls. Ewwww! It was not acceptable! NONE of it is acceptable. And basically everyone on the show is unlikeable except the dolls who are persona-less (and now another of the characters is one!) and I don't really want them to get their identities back because then they'll realise they've been raped and go mad and therefore there is no real investment in the story for me. I think maybe it is playing better to FF fans than BTVS fans? That'd be an interesting study...

[chatchien.livejournal.com]

and I don't really want them to get their identities back because then they'll realise they've been raped and go mad and therefore there is no real investment in the story for me.

Back to the Firefly analogy, but the mad Reivers, who raped, pillaged, and pundered the outer reaches of space were victims of the Alliance/Blue Sun Corp experimentations in mind control. They followed your speculative path of the violated Dollies who realized what happened to them in the Dollhouse.

And I agree, there is no "acceptable" way to use any of the Dolls. This episode was essentially about a gang of rapists who policed and executed a fellow rapist and for all the wrong reasons. It's rather like that movie, M, where a child rapist and murderer is apprehended and tried and punished by the criminal gangs rather than the rightfully constituted law.

I haven't heard from any Firefly fans, so I don't know how your hypothesis is playing out. I think that it would be interesting study too.

[bop-radar.livejournal.com]

the mad Reivers, who raped, pillaged, and pundered the outer reaches of space were victims of the Alliance/Blue Sun Corp experimentations in mind control. They followed your speculative path of the violated Dollies who realized what happened to them in the Dollhouse
Yeah... I see the link... I just don't see any enjoyment for me in watching that process. If that's indeed what Joss has in mind.

I agree, there is no "acceptable" way to use any of the Dolls.
It's interesting that you agree... do you not feel that the show invites us not-so-subtly to condone some usages of them?

[chatchien.livejournal.com]

do you not feel that the show invites us not-so-subtly to condone some usages of them?

No human process or institution is perfect. There are always the Untouchables or the people who are the Runts of the society who are there to be used and abused. And who will be used and abused, because that is human nature.

The one thing that I noticed about Mr. Whedon's Firefly was that he was always perfectly willing to let his characters suffer the consequences not only of their action but the plots of other characters' actions.

It's like Macbeth which is essentially the story of some pretty conniving and unpleasant people who are going to murder and betray their way to glory and power. I'll suspend my moral judgement to see how it plays out. Birnham Woods is going to show up sooner or later and help everything go to hell for the Macbeths. But Birnham Woods has got power hungry blood on its hands (bad analogy---leaves?) too.

Or, maybe that's too pretentious. I understand your objections and squeamishness (but not in a bad way) to the creepy premise that Mr. Whedon has chosen. Let me say that I occasionally watch a show named Medium about a psychic who helps the police solve crimes. But I don't watch the show that often because I find the premise (the prediction of crime) to be fascist. And every time that that predestination and the use of something outside of the rightfully constituted law (like Proof---some kind of objective, provable Proof not unprovable belief) that the show presents starts to bother me, I stop watching because I find that offensive.

Everyone has their own point of acceptability. I have to say that Dollhouse hasn't hit mine, at least not yet. But I can respect your feelings on the matter, too.

[bop-radar.livejournal.com]

Yes, I see what you're saying... and I do think it's a case of the premise just being too uncomfortable for me. My discomfort comes not from being asked to suspend my moral judgment while it plays out, but from being nudged into saying 'hey, but this is kind of understandable/acceptable, isn't it?' along the way. Shakespeare didn't ask me to agree that murder was good! And I do feel that way with Dollhouse. Also, it ain't Shakespeare. ;)

And while I agree that humans as a collective are horrible, I am far more interested personally in stories where at least some of the characters try to rise above that. Because personally I'm not ready to give in and accept an abuse-or-be-abused society. And apart from anything else, I get enough of that in reality--I like my stories to have an iota of inspiration or hope.

Interesting to have the conversation though as it helps me understand where fans of the show are positioned. I haven't spoken out about my squick partly because I know it's personal as well as political and I don't want to sound preachy to those who are enjoying it like yourself.