Sifting through the fog
Jan. 27th, 2006 12:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowSo, Rolling Stone weighs in:
Intergalactic Terror,
putting their stamp of approval on Battlestar Gallactica and getting yet another slam in on science fiction.
Because, you know, never in the history of the genre has it ever tackled anything political, or religious, or controversial, or terrifying or realistic. Nope, BSG is the first to go there, baby!
Nope, science fiction is all half naked women, and Beastmaster, and alien babies, and bumpy foreheads and the prime directive. Yup. Fuckers.
It's a good article in a lot of ways, being brutally honest about the show's ties to current events (and drawing some snarktastic and eye rolling parallels between our current political/emotional climate, terrorism and the show), but it also cements my love/hate relationship with Rolling Stone, the hate part which got jump started by Joe Levy's tenure (he just bugs me! I can't help it!!) but had been spiraling since my adolescence when I'd devour everything in the magazine, listen to the albums and discover that the reviewers were absolutely on crack. I forgave the magazine for a lot of its "selling out" after Almost Famous renewed my love momentarily, but dude...
The article suffers from Rolling Stone's ultimate flaw, which is trying to be so hip that the sound outweighs the fury. The snark reigns supreme, and they showcase their politics, slam science fiction and praise the show. But they don't offer any insight into what sets it apart, into what draws people to it, there's no exploration, just a riff on politics and science fiction that leaves me empty and angry and frustrated and reminds me of why I stopped reading the magazine in the first place. Because the music reviews have, for a long time, consisted of the same flippancy, the same need to sound relevant without offering insight. The reviewers no longer sound like people who live and breath music, they sound like purveyors of all that's hip, and I hate that, hate the tone of snide indolence that most of their reviewers take on, even about albums that I love.
However, I also find myself disliking Ron Moore's attempt to couch his creation in terms of being "a political show" instead of being part of the "scifi ghetto" that he'd been inhabiting. And whether that's spin or a straight quote, it sets my teeth on edge (even in the context of understanding how he'd want to explore something new. But shame on you Mr. Moore. You know better).
Intergalactic Terror,
putting their stamp of approval on Battlestar Gallactica and getting yet another slam in on science fiction.
Because, you know, never in the history of the genre has it ever tackled anything political, or religious, or controversial, or terrifying or realistic. Nope, BSG is the first to go there, baby!
Nope, science fiction is all half naked women, and Beastmaster, and alien babies, and bumpy foreheads and the prime directive. Yup. Fuckers.
It's a good article in a lot of ways, being brutally honest about the show's ties to current events (and drawing some snarktastic and eye rolling parallels between our current political/emotional climate, terrorism and the show), but it also cements my love/hate relationship with Rolling Stone, the hate part which got jump started by Joe Levy's tenure (he just bugs me! I can't help it!!) but had been spiraling since my adolescence when I'd devour everything in the magazine, listen to the albums and discover that the reviewers were absolutely on crack. I forgave the magazine for a lot of its "selling out" after Almost Famous renewed my love momentarily, but dude...
The article suffers from Rolling Stone's ultimate flaw, which is trying to be so hip that the sound outweighs the fury. The snark reigns supreme, and they showcase their politics, slam science fiction and praise the show. But they don't offer any insight into what sets it apart, into what draws people to it, there's no exploration, just a riff on politics and science fiction that leaves me empty and angry and frustrated and reminds me of why I stopped reading the magazine in the first place. Because the music reviews have, for a long time, consisted of the same flippancy, the same need to sound relevant without offering insight. The reviewers no longer sound like people who live and breath music, they sound like purveyors of all that's hip, and I hate that, hate the tone of snide indolence that most of their reviewers take on, even about albums that I love.
However, I also find myself disliking Ron Moore's attempt to couch his creation in terms of being "a political show" instead of being part of the "scifi ghetto" that he'd been inhabiting. And whether that's spin or a straight quote, it sets my teeth on edge (even in the context of understanding how he'd want to explore something new. But shame on you Mr. Moore. You know better).
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 09:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 10:03 pm (UTC)Ghetto? *This* is no ghetto! This is a palace!
Date: 2006-01-27 09:35 pm (UTC)Ummm. Not to get in the way of a good rant, but Beastmaster, the Andre Norton novel, was a fine exploration of the after-effects of war on soldiers and of the shortcomings of Revenge as Hero's Quest.
The movie - well, of that we shall not speak.
Because, you know, never in the history of the genre has it ever tackled anything political, or religious, or controversial, or terrifying or realistic. Nope, BSG is the first to go there, baby!
This was SEParson's issue with Bull's essay - that Bull was slamming the show for being a AU modern themes exploration, instead of a space exploration show.
And I agree with that. One of the major faults of the Star Trek franchise (apart from the lack of physical support to the utopia vision it displayed) was a distancing from today's issues, that were not black and white and could not be solved in an hour.
(And thanks for the run-down on the RS article - and drawing some snarktastic and eye rolling parallels between our current political/emotional climate, terrorism and the show tells me all I need to know about the tone and bias of the article.)
- hg
Re: Ghetto? *This* is no ghetto! This is a palace!
Date: 2006-01-27 09:53 pm (UTC)The movie - well, of that we shall not speak. The movie (according to the shaky source otherwise known as my roommate) is the most oft played movie on cable. And yes, it's really and truly terrible. And hee - I wasn't saying that I think any of the above are bad. I have a fondness for much, if not all of those listed things. Well, except for Beastmaster, the movie.
I agree with the criticism of the Star Trek franchise, in terms of not dealing with modern issues in a way that showed them to be something complex and difficult. But it also did draw a lot of modern parallels in it's way. Different approaches certainly, and I like BSG's realism, it's willingness to take on today's issues. What I don't like is the projected premise that other science fiction totally ignored these concepts.
Re: Ghetto? *This* is no ghetto! This is a palace!
Date: 2006-01-27 11:46 pm (UTC)One of the reasons I like BSG so much is that use of themes which resonate in the real world, and the whole moral ambiguity of our heroes and villains. That is the way the world works, and one of the reasons DS9 is my favourite Trek is that it incorporates some of that grayness. I think the writer shows his ignorance of other SciFi shows which have the same willingness to explore the deeper issues, although I'm not sure any of the ones I'm thinking about (Babylon5, Farscape, DS9) do it as well as BSG.
Re: Ghetto? *This* is no ghetto! This is a palace!
Date: 2006-01-28 12:14 am (UTC)I think most shows have different intentions as pieces of visual media than BSG. It's trading an exploration of current moral and ethical issues for world building (IMO), as a choice of it's focus. Because I think all of those shows do a good job of addressing deeper issues in alternate ways, with a different focus and format.
Re: Ghetto? *This* is no ghetto! This is a palace!
Date: 2006-01-28 01:32 am (UTC)Indeed. Which is why I love all of these shows, and good science fiction in general: they address the issues of being part of an imperfect universe, and the consequences of that, in ways that entertain and enlighten.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-28 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-28 03:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-28 07:01 am (UTC)Signed, still peeved 25 years later.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-28 07:03 am (UTC)