BSG meta: "Gendering Cylonity: Otherness in Human/Cylon Relatinships."
Battlestar Galactica has been pretty consistent in giving us an equalish point of view on male and female characters so they both occupy the subject position at various points in the arcs, the main ones being Adama, Roslin, Kara, and Lee. Which is why Kara and Anders have started to interest me more than they did before Anders' Cylonity was
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The Boomer/Chief dynamic is made different by his being a Cylon, but we can still read them as a Human/Cylon relationship since at that time, the writers were writing him as human. I wanted to analyze their relationship dynamics, but Boomer/Chief happened before I was fully invested in the show, so my memories of it are vague. I remember some bits from Sharon's POV, but I can't remember if the Chief POV was more prominent?
I hadn't considered Caprica/Tigh, but you're right: That was done from his POV despite both of them being Cylons. Since they're both Cylons, their mutual racial otherness cancels itself, so all we're left with are the typical gender dynamics.
I would disagree about Kara and Leoben. .
Yeah, I kind of disagree with me about the Leoben/Kara, too. ;) In some ways, it's the most interesting relationship of all the Cylon/Human ones we have because it's atypical in several ways. Firstly, it's not actually a romantic relationship, but rather, it's a relationship that has encoded inequality written all over it because she's his prisoner. I agree with you that we see all of this in Kara POV, and we are definitely meant to be approaching it through her eyes and feeling what she's feeling. So arguably, this is the only time in these relationships that we have a man as the Other.
But...gender dynamics are still playing a part in Leoben/Kara in some way, I think. Although this is something I need to think more about after revisiting some of these episodes. I'm particularly interested in the narrative choices of storytelling here. We're in Kara POV, so it's Kara's narrative and Leoben is in it. But, at the same time, Leoben is the one forcing Kara into his narrative by forcing her to be a part of his life and his story, if that makes any sense? We're not seeing his story, but he's still writing Kara into something she's not. I actually enjoy the Kara/Leoben dynamic a lot, but this is part of why I'm having issues with Leoben's, "You have a destiny, and I know it better than you so, so you have to be the way I see you." There's, possibly, an element of the male gaze here (and see, one of the reasons I love Kara to pieces is because I feel that she's one of the very few female characters who's not stuck in the Gaze), which is why I think that while Kara is the POV character/subject in the Kara/Leoben dynamic, she's also being objectified by him in a way.
Though I wonder if in Kara's relationship with Lee, she's the "other" to a lesser extent, in that her Issues cause her to act out in ways that don't make sense on the surface, while you don't have to think too hard to get where Lee's coming from. Hmm.
We didn't see enough of Kara/Lee after Kara's possible-Cylonity was revealed, but I could see how Kara was being Othered early on in their relationship. But that's another relationship that I would probably have to look at more closely because one of the things that really interested me about pre-Sam Kara/Lee (the OTP before the OTP of Sam/Kara took over) was that the gender dynamics of the relationship weren't traditional. But you're right: We understood Lee's motivations a lot more than we did Kara's.
Have their been any male/female relationships that don't share this pattern?
I think Sam/Kara pre-season 4 was definitely primarily in Kara's POV (another reason to love them, which is not to say that I'm not loving the Sam POV these days) where we weren't completely sure of Sam's motivations/thoughts. Which is why it's all the more jarring that we've suddenly been jerked out of the Kara POV now that Sam is a Cylon and Kara may be one.
I really enjoyed reading your thoughts. Would you mind if I linked this at pyramidofdreams?
Thank you, and link away. :)
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