Feminism and Battlestar Galactica, Part Two

Here's Part One

Morality in the BSG Universe

      This show rarely makes the easy choice when it comes to tackling controversial political and moral issues. The easiest choice would just be to ignore them completely, like most of the other shows do. What is awesome about this show is that it never gives you a short answer and then expects you to understand how they got there. These topics are controversial and grey for a reason. BSG explores the avenues. Complexities and cultural attitudes do not go unaddressed.

So let me break it down:

Rape

How could this be controversial, one may ask? Haven’t we collectively decided that rape is bad? And now only bad people do it? It is becoming clearer to me that we continue to live in a misogynistic rape culture (yes I have an upcoming post about this). BSG examines a basic tenant that Sexual Assault Centres have been trying to tell people for decades: rape is NOT about sex, rape is about power.*

This is a world where a people is at war with another and the stakes are extinction. Rape, in this world, is a weapon of war (just as it is in our world). The attitude that enables rape is not a sexual one but one that dehumanizes women – they are objects. In the case of this show both of the women who are attacked are synthetic (robots). So should it not matter? They aren’t, after all, people, right? They are robots. Furthermore they are part of a robotic race threatening the extinction of humanity! But any attack on these women is considered entirely repellent – even by those who are most bigoted against the Cylons. The attack has a purpose: to dehumanize and break the spirit of the women. And even though they are robots – they are shown to be people. They are simply a different race. As in the case of biracial coupling the show uses a race of synthetic people to make powerful statements about bigotry and hate.

The show examines the way that a mostly male grouping, in a misogynistic society, can create and reinforce the attitudes that make rape a viable option. It is never argued that a group of men together will always create this attitude but it is argued that underlying sexism is reinforced by the fact that these are men in the military; a place where might is used to determine strength. Rape is a weapon of war. Men in these cases are only able to kill the enemy by turning them into objects – the racial epithet in this universe is ‘toaster’. How could one rape a toaster? The dialogue of these men mirror dialogue that men use to justify raping women in our world. In this case the men are fighting an actual war – but the attitudes are prevalent in ‘peaceful societies’ as well. The misogynistic attitudes bleed into all aspects of the world until these gang-raping soldiers begin to view human women the same way. (I would argue that the ease at which they do this probably belies an underlying misogyny at the outset).

The consequences of long term rape trauma are also dealt with. I will try to remain oblique so this can be mostly spoiler-free. A main character is kept captive in a twisted game of house by a Cylon who is obsessed with her. Although it is implied that it is possible he is raping her – it is never made clear. Her ability to recover from this mindfrak (frak is the fuck of the BSG universe) is long and her relationships with men and sex afterward are complex. Having the power of her sexual autonomy forcibly taken from her destroys a fundamental part of her. She must slowly rebuild it. Another woman, the victim of long term gang-rape, is never shown to recover from the trauma of her experiences. That storyline in particular gets very murky because a male character who helped her recover from the initial attack is obsessed with another version of her robot model. He ends up pressuring her into a sexual encounter.  I would argue that this is another rape. (See what I mean about this show being notoriously grey?) This woman then kills herself.

Spinning off of this point, this show does a good job of arguing that not all rape is stranger rape. We as a culture focus too much on the invisible stranger rapist and not on acquaintance rape. Stranger rape accounts for only ten percent of rapes in Canada. Women are forced or pressured into sex with men they know, and often, by men they love. Of course, none of the truly heroic characters that we are supposed to admire commit an act of rape. But this is television after all. We need some heroes. (And of course, this mirrors life. Not every man is a rapist. I meant that that would have been a truly dark place to go.)

Abortion

      In the States this is one of the hottest topics there is. Look at the debate going on right now about health care reform (apparently the only part the Republicans care about is funding to groups that provide abortion and birth control). Most television shows and movies never portray abortion as a viable option for an unplanned pregnancy. (see: Juno, Knocked Up, 16 and Pregnant, the list goes on). So abortion is a no-go topic. This is a show where the human race is on the verge of extinction. This is a show that never pulls any punches. So of course abortion comes up in the very first season.  All the regular parts of the debate come in to play: extreme pressure from the religious right versus a woman seeking political refuge and the right to make her own decisions about her physical autonomy. The debate is magnified by the fact that the human race is down to 50000 people and under constant threat of total annihilation from an overwhelming enemy.

I think to the anti-choicers out there – and those wavering – would think this should be a no-brainer. To survive the human race needs babies! But this show makes it clear: nothing is ever that simple. The female president – and many other key players – are determined that the legal code should remain the same as it was (ie. a woman’s right to physical autonomy is codified in their old Colonial laws). The doctors involved are determined that a woman should retain her right to choose. But the religious right – and the big picture pragmatists – argue that the survival of the human race is larger than one woman’s rights. (Well okay- the religious segment could give a flying frak about the woman. They care about the fetus). Ultimately it is this side that prevails. Abortion is made illegal in the BSG universe. BUT – and this is the important part – after the president agrees to make abortion illegal she goes down in the eyes of the other main characters (and in her own). And the narrative wants the viewer to also be disappointed in her choice – even if it is the pragmatic one. We survive as a human race – but at what point do we cease to resemble human beings? What is the cost of survival? These are the big questions of the BSG universe.  If we are supposed to think less of a president that places the possible SURVIVAL OF THE HUMAN RACE above a woman’s right to her own physical autonomy – how dare we even consider it in an overpopulated world?

The Female Body and the Male Gaze

I am sure that you have noticed the trend in tv that has the camera lovingly lingering on the female body. And I am not just talking about sexualized ads and nudity in sex scenes. I am talking about the shows like CSI and Law and Order that also obsess over the corpse of a dead woman. (Er…anyone else find that super creepy?). I find that we as a culture have become increasingly obsessed with images of the naked, vulnerable female body; one that can do nothing to protect itself while we feast our eyes upon it. And it is an 'it'.

The women in Battlestar Galactica fight back! Again and again there are examples of men ogling women who are in positions of vulnerability. Or performing invasive surgeries upon the female body. One of the most powerful female characters, Starbuck, is captured and drugged while invasive medical tests are performed to assess her ‘reproductive value’. Starbuck fights her way out of a horrifying complex where women are treated as culture sometimes tells us to treat them – walking wombs for men’s sperm. She does not get rescued by a man. She rescues herself. (Of course she has help. But she is not passive in her rescue.) She is an active fighter against this penetrating and domineering scientific and male gaze. I call it a male gaze because it is one that seeks to penetrate and impregnate (which is a male function. I am not saying that’s what every man’s gaze amounts to). One of the most domineering, inflexible characters insists on a number of invasive tests on a woman and a female child to “pull the answers out of their brains”. Again we see a continuation of the view that women are objects and that their bodies can be manipulated to achieve goals. This guy is the villain in this universe. These women – and women and men helping them – fight back with everything they have. They demand the right to their own bodies – and their own lives. Time and time again in this show we see male characters trying to fix a female character in space or into the box he provides for her. Again and again the woman breaks out and runs free. Even the heroes are often baffled and frustrated by the actions taken by the heroines. It is their right to act outside of the expected script.  Not to belabour this point but at one point a female character, who has literally been ‘boxed’, is freed to direct the course of humanity. How’s that for an anvil?

*For those of you reading this and thinking “Well, duh” may I remind you that people still seem surprised when babies and children and elderly women are sexually assaulted and raped? Yes that happens quite frequently. I always think that people are surprised because they do not understand how a rapist could find these two groups sexually attractive. Again, rape is NOT about sex, rape is about power. The sexual nature of the attack is because forced sex is a mighty display of power. It cannot be about sex when we think about the violence done to children or the fact that violent mass rapists often use tools to rape and injure the women (see: any article about the Congo).

Part Three: The Female Characters Who Kick Ass and Take Names, coming soon.