(no subject)
I was just having a discussion with someone about gender/race/sexuality swapping beloved and nostalgic figures of literature and popculture and how it's something that's really needed simply because the bulk of what is considered literature in the west is by and middle class white men (and most of the small percentage that isn't typically gets dismissed as "just romance") and unless we start either completely ignoring it in retellings or completely shake it up (and not just "about the exact same type and class of person, just in a different time or place!") that's never going to change. That digressed into BSG and all its swapping and so to original-Starbuck-dude making the "women pass out babies and men pass out cigars" bit, which reminded me of a conversation I had about that in which the other party was arguing that Starbuck was an inherently male role and couldn't be female and still be a good role, and how their argument included "you don't make Han Solo a girl, you throw a Princess Leia at him." I started to say (in today's conversation) "Han Solo is a greedy snarky space smuggler with a penchant for taking in strays with hero complexes" and I was going to follow it up with "I don't see what's inherently male about that" when I realized that I was basically describing Vala Mal Doran (save that Vala more gets forcibly recruited by the people with hero complexes.)
I think I may rest my case.