Mary Frakking McDonnell...
Dreams are funny... I had this dream that I was in a restaurant and Laura Roslin was sitting near the exit. Only she was a teacher of mine, and as I was leaving I was having this crazy indecision of 'does she know who I am should I talk to her' or 'should I run by really fast'... well she looked up from her book, saw me, and called me over... we had stupid boring conversation but yay! Cause Laura Roslin was in my dreams…
More amusing in retrospect because that night I found out Mary McDonnell was going to be within driving distance....
I’ve basically been watching projectjulie’s cyborganize since reading her Voyager piece… well she posted the rough draft of a presentation called Hera Has Six Mommies (A Transmedia Love Story): Orphan Television and Lesbian Spectacles already I’m like ‘cool, presentation’ but I kept reading and it turns out they got Mary McDonnell to come to their school for a panel on BSG. A school within driving distance of me… : ) Now an academic panel on BSG and I’m already there.. and academic panel on BSG with Mary McDonnell and fangirl me gets all ridiculously excited…
So I hint, ‘I don’t suppose you have room for a theory-head fan girl?’ and Julie says, ‘sure come!’ So I ditch my job (my boss is great so no drama) and, after being way happy for the two day interim, drive to Brown… wander around the campus (which has, if I’m not mistaken, Richardson buildings left right and center)… and watch an ohsofun panel…
Yay!!!!
So I actually met projectjulie and some other femslashers or 'the internet' (very funny to be considered part of an abstract entity) so hi! aeonian, furies, & thrace_ ::waves:: Very cool to be felt so welcome.. thanks guys..
(very very odd after last night to wake up this morning and have my mom ask me if I got to 'speak to that woman' and then have her chuckle when I talk about how cool it was to hang out with academics and BSG people... cause neither academia or BSG garners her respect...)
And Mary? this is going to sound boring but Mary was just really cool, funny ("I don't contemplate Cylons, I airlock them" *laughs*) and utterly accommodating... (and gods frakking adorable…which sounds bad but she was..)
There are awesome stories (femslash glasses!!) but I think the others will tell them better than me... (like here)... particularly Julie who must've just died when, (among other things) Mary lay on her shoulder laughing as the title of her paper was read (Hera has Six Mommies)...
So yay! Thank you everyone involved, and bring on the stories!!
Later
Other random reflections and food for thought…
One of the panelists (does Alanna want to mentioned?) in the midst of a great talk I don’t fully remember (if the papers circulate in any way I want them!) said something like:
‘And since Laura Roslin now has Hera’s blood we can consider her half Cylon’ To which Mary emphatically (but jokingly) shakes her head…
The random thought that came from that is that Laura really could become the perfect intermediary between them. Granted she has no Cylon upbringing but Hera could never fill the role of bridge between cultures because she was raised in such an awkward fashion (Humans afraid of Cylons, inept Cylons and then a Cylon traitor mommy and an on edge human daddy..) But the very realization, if she ever has it, that part of her is Cylon could, with her amazing compromise skills, somehow bridge the cultures… Not saying it should or will happen but I can’t see anyone else really filling that role… (even if she didn’t have Cylon dna floating around inside her, it would still be Laura but the Cylon dna might accelerate the process...)
A really good question that went insufficiently answered:
What lies in between ‘They rebelled’ and ‘They evolved’ & why decide to be human??
(this was abridged due to Mary saying she doesn’t contemplate Cylons, she airlocks them.. : ) )
Another thing I found utterly adorable is her story of being at Ron Moore’s house and trying to be convinced to join the commentary… my paraphrase: ‘I just couldn’t imagine watching myself on TV, commenting on my experiences knowing that someone else will be watching the exact same thing and hearing me… it blows my mind’ : )
Mary has no idea where the character is going, it always seems to be a negotiation of bringing her one way and then pulling back and bringing her another way.. and this inconsistency fits well with my previously posted comment about her straddling the dictator/liberal line.. and her confusion is, as Mary said, very real… (someone correct me if I’m mis-remembering the jist of that conversation)
Re: the lack of queer characters on BSG:
Julie - ‘I think there are queer characters on BSG, I just don’t think everyone can see them’ (allusion to slash goggles)
Lynne - I think everyone can see them
Mysterious Audience question person - But the writers aren’t intending it…
[Me - ‘treason requires intent, I did not intend!!’ cause I’m a loser and then I lost the thread of the conversation…]
Something about how BSG other-izes the normal hetero family… (interesting point although I only see it with Sharon/Helo)
Different (?) mysterious audience member: re: Roslin/Adama ‘I’m sorry but no lesbian on the planet believes that…’
MMD- ‘how does that relate?’
Audience member rambles about being unable to be subservient to a man…
Which, while I can’t see Roslin and Adama - cute and flirty and a lovely reason to watch her smile, but not anything that can be taken seriously - sort of kills the belief that heterosexuality can exist where the female is just as strong or stronger than the man… which I find rather problematic…. Particularly because who is whipped? It is not Roslin… gods she’s going to break his heart…… I suppose I should stop writing the future episodes in my head…
That’s all for now… may add more later…
More amusing in retrospect because that night I found out Mary McDonnell was going to be within driving distance....
I’ve basically been watching projectjulie’s cyborganize since reading her Voyager piece… well she posted the rough draft of a presentation called Hera Has Six Mommies (A Transmedia Love Story): Orphan Television and Lesbian Spectacles already I’m like ‘cool, presentation’ but I kept reading and it turns out they got Mary McDonnell to come to their school for a panel on BSG. A school within driving distance of me… : ) Now an academic panel on BSG and I’m already there.. and academic panel on BSG with Mary McDonnell and fangirl me gets all ridiculously excited…
So I hint, ‘I don’t suppose you have room for a theory-head fan girl?’ and Julie says, ‘sure come!’ So I ditch my job (my boss is great so no drama) and, after being way happy for the two day interim, drive to Brown… wander around the campus (which has, if I’m not mistaken, Richardson buildings left right and center)… and watch an ohsofun panel…
Yay!!!!
So I actually met projectjulie and some other femslashers or 'the internet' (very funny to be considered part of an abstract entity) so hi! aeonian, furies, & thrace_ ::waves:: Very cool to be felt so welcome.. thanks guys..
(very very odd after last night to wake up this morning and have my mom ask me if I got to 'speak to that woman' and then have her chuckle when I talk about how cool it was to hang out with academics and BSG people... cause neither academia or BSG garners her respect...)
And Mary? this is going to sound boring but Mary was just really cool, funny ("I don't contemplate Cylons, I airlock them" *laughs*) and utterly accommodating... (and gods frakking adorable…which sounds bad but she was..)
There are awesome stories (femslash glasses!!) but I think the others will tell them better than me... (like here)... particularly Julie who must've just died when, (among other things) Mary lay on her shoulder laughing as the title of her paper was read (Hera has Six Mommies)...
So yay! Thank you everyone involved, and bring on the stories!!
Later
Other random reflections and food for thought…
One of the panelists (does Alanna want to mentioned?) in the midst of a great talk I don’t fully remember (if the papers circulate in any way I want them!) said something like:
‘And since Laura Roslin now has Hera’s blood we can consider her half Cylon’ To which Mary emphatically (but jokingly) shakes her head…
The random thought that came from that is that Laura really could become the perfect intermediary between them. Granted she has no Cylon upbringing but Hera could never fill the role of bridge between cultures because she was raised in such an awkward fashion (Humans afraid of Cylons, inept Cylons and then a Cylon traitor mommy and an on edge human daddy..) But the very realization, if she ever has it, that part of her is Cylon could, with her amazing compromise skills, somehow bridge the cultures… Not saying it should or will happen but I can’t see anyone else really filling that role… (even if she didn’t have Cylon dna floating around inside her, it would still be Laura but the Cylon dna might accelerate the process...)
A really good question that went insufficiently answered:
What lies in between ‘They rebelled’ and ‘They evolved’ & why decide to be human??
(this was abridged due to Mary saying she doesn’t contemplate Cylons, she airlocks them.. : ) )
Another thing I found utterly adorable is her story of being at Ron Moore’s house and trying to be convinced to join the commentary… my paraphrase: ‘I just couldn’t imagine watching myself on TV, commenting on my experiences knowing that someone else will be watching the exact same thing and hearing me… it blows my mind’ : )
Mary has no idea where the character is going, it always seems to be a negotiation of bringing her one way and then pulling back and bringing her another way.. and this inconsistency fits well with my previously posted comment about her straddling the dictator/liberal line.. and her confusion is, as Mary said, very real… (someone correct me if I’m mis-remembering the jist of that conversation)
Re: the lack of queer characters on BSG:
Julie - ‘I think there are queer characters on BSG, I just don’t think everyone can see them’ (allusion to slash goggles)
Lynne - I think everyone can see them
Mysterious Audience question person - But the writers aren’t intending it…
[Me - ‘treason requires intent, I did not intend!!’ cause I’m a loser and then I lost the thread of the conversation…]
Something about how BSG other-izes the normal hetero family… (interesting point although I only see it with Sharon/Helo)
Different (?) mysterious audience member: re: Roslin/Adama ‘I’m sorry but no lesbian on the planet believes that…’
MMD- ‘how does that relate?’
Audience member rambles about being unable to be subservient to a man…
Which, while I can’t see Roslin and Adama - cute and flirty and a lovely reason to watch her smile, but not anything that can be taken seriously - sort of kills the belief that heterosexuality can exist where the female is just as strong or stronger than the man… which I find rather problematic…. Particularly because who is whipped? It is not Roslin… gods she’s going to break his heart…… I suppose I should stop writing the future episodes in my head…
That’s all for now… may add more later…