More Battlestar Galactica
Dirk Benedict, the actor who played the original Starbuck, wrote a column for the May 2004 Dreamwatch [supposedly], presented here. He has some thoughts, both on the character of Starbuck in the new series and on the series itself.

There was a time – I know I was there – when men were men, women were women and sometimes a cigar was just a good smoke. But 40 years of feminism have taken their toll. The war against masculinity has been won. Everything has turned into its opposite, so that what was once flirting and smoking is now sexual harassment and criminal. And everyone is more lonely and miserable as a result. 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.

And yeah, maybe there's something of a point there. But, even in the original the basic plot was that the Cylons had killed off most of humanity, and was trying to get the rest. I think under those circumstances most people would be miserable and despairing. Some might get caught up in trying to ignore life by losing themselves in sex or drugs or alcohol or whatever, so I think the original Starbuck could have fit. The other point is this. The most testosterone driven careers I know of are fighter pilots and orthopaedic surgeons. Women in such fields have to be bigger and badder in ways that are respected in the fields, or they get ignored or worse. So a brawling, cigar smoking, I'm in charge in bed female fighter pilot makes sense to me. Not very PC, but who cares. Hat tip: LlamaButcher
- posted by owlish @ 2/01/2005 06:54:00 PM