ups and downs, mostly downs
Hi there, folks! It's been a while. Nice to see you stuck around! Did you stick around? Okay.
So, today in class my pre-1800 English Lit professor talked to us about his mid-life crisis.
Then I came home and worked on my paper about Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress," which is a really spectacular antidote to last week's Spenser and Fatal Attraction blues. The poem, not the paper, though the paper isn't bad either — I have what seems to me like a strong thesis, and I'm actually excited about it, except for the having to write it part. The particularly awesome thing about this paper, though, is the fact that sometime around the third hour of work tonight, I found out that I've now been given two extra (weekend!) days to do that bit. Aaaand of course, in accordance with the laws of my nature, as soon as I found that out, I decided to sport me while I might.
However: I regrettably chose to do so by watching Battlestar Galactica [spoiler!~~~ ha ha, sorry Idler, there is no way to capture that hand motion in print], and I just watched the episode in which the President decides to outlaw abortion, because, hey, the survival of the species depends on allowing parasites to hijack the bodies of the handful of women out of 40-odd-thousand who get pregnant and don't want to be — even the ones whose parents are going to kill them for being pregnant. But it's okay, because guess what flavor of genitalia every single person who is opposed to the President's decision has? Yes! Penis!! And, more importantly, guess what flavor of genitalia every single person who is in favor of the President's decision has? Uh, I'm not allowed to use that kind of language!
Three steps back, one step forward, one step back. Keep going until you're backed against the wall, then get punished for stopping. And that's what it's all about. Hey!
Labels: battlestar galactica, coy mistresses, mid-life crises, poesie, sexist professors, the dance of female empowerment
posted by thedrymock @ 10:00 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
I'm glad you finally watched that one, Piehat. I guess one of the things that's so attractive about "survival of the remnants of humanity" narratives is the forced reproduction. That's why it's so funny when Dr. Strangelove gets giddy about raping women, and why it pisses me off so much that Battlestar Galactica did that.
When I complained to the Idler that this season takes religion in a direction that makes me angry, I'm sure he thought I meant that the narrative explicitly endorses either the human religion or the cylon one. No--it just turns out that the fundamentalists were right that the survival of the species depends on a "culture of life." Even the feminist president who spent her "entire career fighting for a woman's right to choose" thinks so, and only unreasonably stubborn doctors and cynical politicians looking to score cheap points disagree.
Yes, could Battlestar Galactica please have a little more irony? And speaking of rape, I also have a problem with the fact that the robot woman who is constantly working out had to be saved from rape by two dudes. Two dudes who, by the way, had no problem continuing to drink with those other dudes as long as they were just making jokes about rape and not actually raping their robot woman.
It's possible for the show to be going somewhere interesting with the setup where the President outlaws abortion even though she doesn't want to. But I really doubt it, especially since the support broke down so clearly along gender lines. Even if the show eventually makes it clear that it's bad to force women to reproduce against their will &mdash and I think that's possible &mdash it will still be about how the men knew better all along and the women were the ones trying to force childbirth on other women.
I have no idea what you're even talking about anymore.
/wiggles finger red robin
I'm talking about pregnant robots, Shosh. What is confusing?
redrobinredrobinredrobin
UPDATE! I'm sooo fracking over this show. In the last episode of season 2, that stubborn old dude doctor, the one who didn't want anyone telling him he couldn't perform abortions two episodes earlier, utters the sentence: "You gotta love a woman who can complain even with her jaw wired shut." To a woman. Who has her jaw wired shut. And is complaining because he's kicking her out of the hospital. Thirty seconds later, said woman informs the man who has beaten her half to death that she's totally forgiven him because she's in love with him. And of course, the next time we see her, she's pregnant.
This is not the Battlestar Galactica of my youth. Get thee hence, vile nonsense of OC-derivation. Bring back Richard Hatch and Jane Seymour!
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