BSG S3 thoughts, c&p'd from tumblr
I've been meaning to write all this out for a while but I finally did so in response to this excellent post which I really recommend
I’m completely with [
nicole_anell ] on the “no villains and that’s what makes the storyline great and let’s not forget Laura is only in this pickle because she insisted on doing the right thing about a trial” perspective. But I’m a lot less positive than...some days I feel like pretty much everyone...on what Lee actually does about it?
I agree personal relationships shouldn’t dictate how THE LAW works. But once we bring “should” into “how the law works,” I think it gets a hell of a lot harder to defend Lee here, because there are a lot of other “shoulds” I have about the People vs Gaius Baltar. I don’t accept that when a female crime victim* is on the stand, we axiomatically SHOULD
My objection to this whole business really isn’t about how he should put loyalty to Laura over his principles? It’s that Lee’s actions here track uncomfortably closely to a real-world phenomenon which I think is distinctly unprincipled. If Lee is indeed choosing principle here (I actually think it’s at least as much about lashing out at his father through Laura), it doesn’t necessarily follow that he is choosing good principles and therefore behaving admirably. I would think this line of cross-examination was out of bounds even if it had nothing to do with Laura, and the fact that it’s not considered out of bounds IRL is a black fucking mark on the criminal justice system.
And I really can’t quite decontextualize that from his behavior in the second half of the episode, when as soon as HE’S asked an awkward question (one which IS unquestionably relevant to the trial) he discovers that THE SYSTEM IS FRAKKED, MAN! I feel like through Lee, the episode is manipulating us to scapegoat Laura, by condoning the way Justice Is Impartial with her interrogation, and then distracting us with a pat on the back about how we see through the scapegoating of Baltar (who really did enable the apocalypse and bears more responsibility than anyone for the murder of everyone on Cloud 9, New Caprica notwithstanding). On a lot of levels I really love how that works, the way even trying to recognize the less-flattering motives for our actions often just means pushing them down another couple of layers, coming up with a slightly more plausible story to stroke our consciences. But I don’t….think that’s good, any more than Lee claims to.
[Edited, since it's pretty relevant: I'm a lot less impressed with The Speech itself than I think I'm supposed to be?:
But did he actually commit any crimes?
I DON'T KNOW LET ME BREAK OUT MY CAPRICAN CRIMINAL CODE AND CHECK?! That's awfully technical. And if he's going to make a technical argument there, then his whole list of ~prior transgressions is pretty far beside the point, because in a lot of cases the show went out of its way to tell us that the people involved were acting perfectly lawfully.
And I don't think it's right to make an argument that you can't treat Gaius specially because he's Just Like Anyone? He's not just like anyone. He was the president. And that means both rights and responsibilities that the rest of the "gang" doesn't have. I think it'd be a bad idea to prosecute politicians for decisions which didn't end up well, but it's perfectly plausible that Colonial law doesn't bend to my will. It's a fantastic closing argument, but it's a bunch of distractions from the questions he's being asked.
And from my perspective of how much I love the guy and sympathize with his Issues and really struggle to think badly of someone for how they act when publicly confronted with a crisis in a relationship as unhealthy as the one he has with his father, I get it. But I don't think IT'S GOOD, either, or that it's coming from a place of altriusm or principle or whatever else, that he throws down with this whole song and dance when he's boxed into the corner of knowing his father is a biased judge and not wanting to come out with it. I'd have a lot more respect for the whole thing if after it he showed some willingness to build a system by telling the truth about what he knew. But instead he just took advantage of and perpetuated the lawlessness by yelling a lot instead of answering the goddamn question, because he didn't want to. THE LAW applies to Laura, because fuck her, but not to him? Christ.]
I mean, from a characterization perspective, I love it and I love Lee a lot for it, the way he is so completely convinced that he’s not entitled to work out his issues for himself that he burrows as far as possible into the most convenient external moral framework that justifies whatever the hell it is he wants to do anyway, and ends up being really kind of awful under the apparent veneer of Uncompromised Morality. (I’m well aware that the way I see Lee says at least as much about me as it does about him, and I’m not real proud of that, but it doesn’t make me wrong.) Which kind of makes Lee the perfect mirror image of Baltar, who is unabashedly self-interested and comes off as craven, but when he’s sufficiently distracted from his own wants and needs has this core of empathy that drives him to kindness and compassion in spite of himself.
And yeah, I completely agree, too, that Laura pulls out all the stops on her manipulative skills when she responds to the whole thing. But in watching it I can only admire her for it? Because from my perspective, she’s doing what Lee thinks he’s doing, in going all-out for what she thinks is right.
This entry was originally posted at http://pocochina.dreamwidth.org/282705.html. Leave a comment here, or there using OpenID.
I’m completely with [
nicole_anell ] on the “no villains and that’s what makes the storyline great and let’s not forget Laura is only in this pickle because she insisted on doing the right thing about a trial” perspective. But I’m a lot less positive than...some days I feel like pretty much everyone...on what Lee actually does about it?
I agree personal relationships shouldn’t dictate how THE LAW works. But once we bring “should” into “how the law works,” I think it gets a hell of a lot harder to defend Lee here, because there are a lot of other “shoulds” I have about the People vs Gaius Baltar. I don’t accept that when a female crime victim* is on the stand, we axiomatically SHOULD
- imply that she’s a liar because she’s sick and had the NERVE not to tell everyone in the world about it
- imply that she’s unable to distinguish fantasy from reality due to treatment of that sickness ("Your honors, if she is on drugs, it goes to her credibility as a witness.")
- insinuate that you just can’t trust a silly woman with a grudge
- suggest that she owes the defendant one so she should just shut up ("Madam President, aren't you alive today because of Gaius Baltar?....did Gaius Baltar save your life when you were dying from cancer?")
- suggest that her non-normative religious affiliation makes her untrustworthy ("And isn't it also true that the visions that you once described as messages from the Gods were actually the result of a pharmacological reaction from taking chamalla?")
My objection to this whole business really isn’t about how he should put loyalty to Laura over his principles? It’s that Lee’s actions here track uncomfortably closely to a real-world phenomenon which I think is distinctly unprincipled. If Lee is indeed choosing principle here (I actually think it’s at least as much about lashing out at his father through Laura), it doesn’t necessarily follow that he is choosing good principles and therefore behaving admirably. I would think this line of cross-examination was out of bounds even if it had nothing to do with Laura, and the fact that it’s not considered out of bounds IRL is a black fucking mark on the criminal justice system.
And I really can’t quite decontextualize that from his behavior in the second half of the episode, when as soon as HE’S asked an awkward question (one which IS unquestionably relevant to the trial) he discovers that THE SYSTEM IS FRAKKED, MAN! I feel like through Lee, the episode is manipulating us to scapegoat Laura, by condoning the way Justice Is Impartial with her interrogation, and then distracting us with a pat on the back about how we see through the scapegoating of Baltar (who really did enable the apocalypse and bears more responsibility than anyone for the murder of everyone on Cloud 9, New Caprica notwithstanding). On a lot of levels I really love how that works, the way even trying to recognize the less-flattering motives for our actions often just means pushing them down another couple of layers, coming up with a slightly more plausible story to stroke our consciences. But I don’t….think that’s good, any more than Lee claims to.
[Edited, since it's pretty relevant: I'm a lot less impressed with The Speech itself than I think I'm supposed to be?:
But did he actually commit any crimes?
I DON'T KNOW LET ME BREAK OUT MY CAPRICAN CRIMINAL CODE AND CHECK?! That's awfully technical. And if he's going to make a technical argument there, then his whole list of ~prior transgressions is pretty far beside the point, because in a lot of cases the show went out of its way to tell us that the people involved were acting perfectly lawfully.
And I don't think it's right to make an argument that you can't treat Gaius specially because he's Just Like Anyone? He's not just like anyone. He was the president. And that means both rights and responsibilities that the rest of the "gang" doesn't have. I think it'd be a bad idea to prosecute politicians for decisions which didn't end up well, but it's perfectly plausible that Colonial law doesn't bend to my will. It's a fantastic closing argument, but it's a bunch of distractions from the questions he's being asked.
And from my perspective of how much I love the guy and sympathize with his Issues and really struggle to think badly of someone for how they act when publicly confronted with a crisis in a relationship as unhealthy as the one he has with his father, I get it. But I don't think IT'S GOOD, either, or that it's coming from a place of altriusm or principle or whatever else, that he throws down with this whole song and dance when he's boxed into the corner of knowing his father is a biased judge and not wanting to come out with it. I'd have a lot more respect for the whole thing if after it he showed some willingness to build a system by telling the truth about what he knew. But instead he just took advantage of and perpetuated the lawlessness by yelling a lot instead of answering the goddamn question, because he didn't want to. THE LAW applies to Laura, because fuck her, but not to him? Christ.]
I mean, from a characterization perspective, I love it and I love Lee a lot for it, the way he is so completely convinced that he’s not entitled to work out his issues for himself that he burrows as far as possible into the most convenient external moral framework that justifies whatever the hell it is he wants to do anyway, and ends up being really kind of awful under the apparent veneer of Uncompromised Morality. (I’m well aware that the way I see Lee says at least as much about me as it does about him, and I’m not real proud of that, but it doesn’t make me wrong.) Which kind of makes Lee the perfect mirror image of Baltar, who is unabashedly self-interested and comes off as craven, but when he’s sufficiently distracted from his own wants and needs has this core of empathy that drives him to kindness and compassion in spite of himself.
And yeah, I completely agree, too, that Laura pulls out all the stops on her manipulative skills when she responds to the whole thing. But in watching it I can only admire her for it? Because from my perspective, she’s doing what Lee thinks he’s doing, in going all-out for what she thinks is right.
This entry was originally posted at http://pocochina.dreamwidth.org/282705.html. Leave a comment here, or there using OpenID.