A Battlestar Post

I resolved myself not to make my blog a television review location (I prefer to ponder... and let other people ponder too... and in general I don't find Television something to Ponder)...

Battlestar Galactica is an exception to this rule... but only because I got involved in a discussion about it on a board, and now I am pondering it...

For those not in the know, last episode brought us the Battlestar Pegasus. In the original 1970's series, this Battlestar was helmed by the wonderful Lloyd Bridges. In the modern version, Cain is portrayed by the ever-lovely Michelle Forbes. In both series, Cain is a commander who has taken battle-lust to the next level.

In the new version, this level is really harsh. Ron Moore took this and put every dark, foreboding, bad face of war into it. He dove into our fears and showed us that war brings forth our worst enemies in our reflections.

Another side note: The new Battlestar has a series of Cylons (The bad guys) who look and act just like humans... and our gallant heroes have captured one (Played by the beautiful Grace Park).

The Battlestar Pegasus' crew has captured one as well... The one called "Gina" (or Six), played by the incredible Tricia Helfer...

Where this gets dark is when we discover what Pegasus did to their Six...

When we first meet her, she is in a cel, dirty, covered only in a rough blanket, and she is badly, badly beaten... She is obviously mentally damaged, and is completely unresponsive to our main characters....

We discover as the episode goes on, that she has been raped... not once, but dozens, maybe hundreds of times... By many members of the Pegasus' crew.

And, in the terrible climax of the episode, the chief interrogator of the Pegasus goes after Galactica's Cylon, Grace Park...

The scene is horrifying... Terrible and vicious. He is stopped before he can do much, but he does enough to really make you feel awful inside.

Now, to my point:

A poster on a board said that this was a completely unnecessary scene, that it was exploitation of the characters and was just horror for horror's sake.

To which I have to say, I thought about at length... and disagree.

We forget that art has many missions; It is a reflection of That Which We Can See, to which we can behold, enjoy and remember; It is a reflection of That Which We Cannot See, so we can try to understand; and it is a reflection of That Which We Must Never Forget... even though it hurts to do so.

Many women have been raped in war. It is an awful truth, and something that we try very hard to believe that only the "bad people" did. But we don't realize that sometimes the "Good Guys" do it too... In Pegasus I see what normal people, like you and I, are capable of... To them, Six was a Cylon... a robot, not a human... this was a machine to be used... But the show has been slowly indicating over the last season that these Cylons are, in their hearts, no different than you or I... and so we get to see the stark reality that comes from misusing labels... "They are Japs... animals... not human at all" "They are Nazi's, anyone who would kill Jews is not human." Soldiers raped Japanese and German women because of these labels... The "Good Guys" went bad...

One of the most dangerous actions we as humans can make is to Label... Identifying people as an object of hate based on a concept which the person may only be connected to by circumstance. It is a very powerful tool. One that ours and many other militaries have used to their advantage over the last many millennia.

Ironically, Battlestar has been illustrating this very well... But it's subtle... very, very subtle...
And very powerful.

---Me.

Thus, it ends up here... where we can ponder it.