My Science Fiction Pet Peeves
A follow-up to my post about the wonderful aspects of science fiction. So please read that first before you think that I am trashing the genre or am denying my geekness.
Okay - so we know that in order for space ships to be traveling around, they would probably be run by the military. Great, expected, like a battleship but in space.
But apparently no one who is writing for these show really understands how the military works. When you are at war, you must follow orders. I believe the law says that you can defy an unjust order, but that is confusing and during the midst of an operation it is dangerous for someone to say "you know, I don't think we should be doing that" to a superior officer.
But in so many of these shows, the commanding officer is someone who defies authority. Not really sure how anyone like that could raise in the ranks if he was always someone who doesn't "play by the rules." We need the rules!
And noticed I said he. Apparently on other galaxies and in the future, most commanding officers are men. Actually most commanding officers are white men who don't "play by the rules."
The few women who are in charge are much more likely to follow military protocol. (My theory about why people didn't like Janeway - woman and she followed the rules) And there are exceptions to this trend. But starting with Kirk and going up to Firefly, we get these white man rebels.
I had it explained to me that it is more interesting television when people break the rules. But my theory is more about who writes sci-fi. I think most of them are white guys who see themselves as rebels and so the main character or leader looks like them.
I still love the stories and the study of human nature. But as we imagine what it means to be a human being in relation to others, we apparently are still stuck with our own issues of race, sex and authority.
Okay - so we know that in order for space ships to be traveling around, they would probably be run by the military. Great, expected, like a battleship but in space.
But apparently no one who is writing for these show really understands how the military works. When you are at war, you must follow orders. I believe the law says that you can defy an unjust order, but that is confusing and during the midst of an operation it is dangerous for someone to say "you know, I don't think we should be doing that" to a superior officer.
But in so many of these shows, the commanding officer is someone who defies authority. Not really sure how anyone like that could raise in the ranks if he was always someone who doesn't "play by the rules." We need the rules!
And noticed I said he. Apparently on other galaxies and in the future, most commanding officers are men. Actually most commanding officers are white men who don't "play by the rules."
The few women who are in charge are much more likely to follow military protocol. (My theory about why people didn't like Janeway - woman and she followed the rules) And there are exceptions to this trend. But starting with Kirk and going up to Firefly, we get these white man rebels.
I had it explained to me that it is more interesting television when people break the rules. But my theory is more about who writes sci-fi. I think most of them are white guys who see themselves as rebels and so the main character or leader looks like them.
I still love the stories and the study of human nature. But as we imagine what it means to be a human being in relation to others, we apparently are still stuck with our own issues of race, sex and authority.
posted by Portia | 10/25/2005 03:09:00 PM
2 Comments:
I think the white-male centric nature of the sci-fi is easily explained by several things.
1) TV shows are primarily targeted at white-males, especially science fiction
2) sci-fi is primarily written by white-males
3) white males rule
Ok, so #3 may not be valid, but the first two are.
Most of the sci-fi on TV is just a variant of westerns set in space, there's very little science in the fiction.
And I don't think the best writers in TV are drawn to sci-fi, so you're stuck with mediocre plots that are only
superficially different than those of other action/drama shows.
First off, as I believe I'm the person who offered that explanation to you in the first place, I feel somewhat compelled to defend it. BFW is right when he (I assume only a he would write No. 3) notes that this worshipping of the hero who breaks all the rules is a standard not just of science fiction, but of all fiction, from Westerns to cop shows, all the way to Schindler's List. A willingness to break with tradition or accepted wisdom or just to resist the powers that be is a basic component of drama. Take it out and you have a documentary about life at a paper company. (But not as funny as The Office.) I think people resisted Janeway mainly because she was a stick-in-the-mud goody-two-shoes. It was just unfortunate (and unimaginative) of the writers to impose that personality on their first female captain. It may have been the their bias as (presumably) white males, but it is not necessarily inherent in the genre.
One of the best characters in sci-fi today, of course, is Starbuck on the new Battlestar Galactica, who hews to precisely the same old "to hell with the rules" archetype. That the character was originally envisioned as a man only goes to show how the genre is evolving. BSG is the best sci-fi running right now -- one of the best dramas, period -- because nearly all the characters are breaking the rules in one way or another, man or woman. (Just look at their president!) In their situation, there are no rules, and that's the way Voyager cried out to be written.
By the way, I hope you went to see Serenity. We need to get the numbers up for the sake of the sequel. Strike a blow for all the great shows that got screwed over by an impatient and soulless network! Recapture the spirit that saved the original Star Trek!
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