Razor

Battlestar Galactica: Razor with Stephanie Jacobsen, Jamie Bamber and Katee Sackhoff. A nice little expanded universe piece with a lot of exposition and back story added. Overall nicely done as usual. The Pegasus flashbacks were pretty much everything I wanted answered and it seems the first Cylon War flashbacks were actually miniepisodes they aired on TV. The guy they got to play the young Bill Adama did a really good job of getting all the mannerisms and speech patterns of the regular character. Another positive note on the series in general is their writing of very powerful female characters, which is a rarity I think in many shows. I mean, sure you might have had a couple here and there in different series (and they tend to be annoying and bitchy anyway) but to have so many in one show is pretty unconventional. I'm going to assume no one who hasn't already seen it who reads this blog intends to watch, but SPOILERS:
I thought it was an interesting move to make Admiral Cain a lesbian and I'm not sure what to make of it. In one sense it's good because there's been this lingering question of how homosexuality is viewed in the BSG universe and if one of the characters in the series would come out. I think deliberately addressing that and making a big deal about it would detract from the plot they already have. And trying to guess if someone's secret is that they're gay or a Cylon would be too distracting, so just getting that out of the way in Razor was a good move. On the other hand, I think it's a bit of a cop out that she's a lesbian. It plays back to the female combatants thing where women are seen as more cold blooded in combat than men even when both are committing the same deeds. It's because women are supposed to be sympathetic, kind and nurturing and to find that they are capable of the same atrocities as men is very disturbing. But if Cain is a bull dyke then obviously she's not a real woman and therefore it's no surprise she could do all those terrible (male) deeds. That said, since one of the things that supposedly pushed her over the edge was the realization that her love has been manipulating her and exploiting her trust in order to destroy the ship, it would have been difficult for any of the male Cylons to have made a convincing partner for Cain.
Another thing I wonder is if Cain was really like that the whole time. The writers are good about letting you decide for yourself how a lot of things should be interpreted rather than tell you how it is and make people that don't see it feel dumb. They make it seem like she is a bit austere but basically a nice enough person and her hardness was really just an act. But after watching Dexter (the show about the serial killer who hunts serial killers) I wonder if all of her emotions were just faked. She didn't care about casualties or murdering civilians or other officers, her single focus was hurting the Cylons back. It didn't matter if the tactical value of the target was minimal, she wanted blood. She clearly never thought in the long term, like how the human race would continue with just the dwindling crew of the Pegasus as the gene pool. She could never let her true colors show previously because a sociopathic admiral would be drummed out fairly quickly, but with absolute power she didn't need to answer to anyone. Additionally, she was betrayed by the one person she actually did care for and the only one who might have tempered her monstrous tendencies. As Bill Adama pointed out the only thing that kept him from doing some terrible decisions was the fact that he'd have to look his son in the eye and explain himself.

Anthrapology

It occurred to me the other day, now that I have my finals done (and kicked each of their asses) this was a very depressing semester in terms of classes. I don't know how anthropologists can be so optimistic when what we learn is so disheartening. In fact I'd say the one class that had a positive message was my Honors thesis and I wrote the damn thing. Never mind the fact that my adviser sent it back with the first four pages in red. Aside from the knowledge and understanding one gains from a class, I think there's a message or moral that accompanies each class as well. Like the GenEd psychology class I took last year definitely had the message "Don't believe everything you think" or maybe "Don't blindly go along with the crowd". My Exobiology course made us walk away with the message "There are almost definitely aliens and they probably don't want to kill us". Not as inspirational as one would like but for something we know nothing about it's pretty optimistic. This semester the messages seem to be: "Basic impulses of human nature are genetic and people are genetically predisposed to not like 'others'." "Poor people will live miserable lives and only the rich people (who don't care about the poor anyway) have the power to change that." "If you try to help people in developing countries you'll end up inadvertently helping wife-beaters and warlords and give people you're trying to help a new means of committing suicide." "Utopian experiments always fail because of human nature." "There will always be people to take advantage of the kindness of others."
I mean, fuck, where do you go from there? The only option seems to be to rewire human genetics to get rid of selfish, spiteful tendencies, but I'm not a fan of tinkering with human instincts. I don't agree with this negative assessment and I'm kind of hoping it's just a fluke that I took all downer classes and that the opinion of the anthro department is not so dim. The way I see it, humanity has slowly but surely been improving itself for the past 10,000 years. I mean sure we gave up being egalitarian (we think) nomads to become a hierarchical society with a horrible diet that created disease wherever we went. And yes, we've only relatively recently increased human life expectancy to higher than what it was before we invented agriculture, but look where it's gotten us: we can finally explore the unknown possibilities of existence and search for answers to how and why the Universe is the way it is instead of just saying "God did it." I'd say the amount of cruelty in the world has reduced since the past. The quality of life for many people has increased and the means to help people is greater than it has ever been. The only trick is to raise people in such a way that our advancements actually mean something. Don't be cruel, don't be selfish, don't be stupid. How that's accomplished globally I have no idea. I will say, though, if anthropologists can see all those negative things about the human condition and still be optimistic that they can change the world then they're the best people for the job.

I know it might be wrong, but I'm in love with Grendel's mom

Beowulf with Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins and John Malkovich. I appear to be in the minority, but I actually enjoyed the movie. It's not some wonderful, eternally quotable movie for the ages (not that the original Beowulf is quotable either), but I was entertained. It's enough of a departure from the original that it gets in trouble with the purists, though I think it's better than the original story. There's always a critic, I suppose: people who claim there was no plot or that the acting was poor on one side and the people who wanted it to be more like the original story with one dimensional characters killing monsters over and over. Beowulf was a more likable character in this than the original, where he just seemed like he was nothing but a braggart. I didn't see what the curse they kept referring to was, though. I mean right up until Grendel's mom cancels their little deal, Beowulf had it pretty sweet. He gets to be rich, powerful and remembered for all time (nice little meta-reference there) and all he has to do is have sex with Angelina Jolie. Aside from perhaps some feelings of sleeping with the enemy I didn't see where the catch was. The Old English was fun to hear and the fans of the original were even more excited about it. I was also excited to learn afterwards that some of the characters in Beowulf are buried in Gamla Uppsala in the big funeral mounds. It's been a long time since I've watched a 3D movie, so seeing the movie in 3D was a rare treat, as well.