DPP: Their heads are pastede on yay ...

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

OK, now that you've all stopped laughing ... here's the serious part of the post.

Lately, it seems that I have been having a lot of discussions about gender and fandom (not just BSG fandom) and our perceptions of female characters versus male characters' traits. In addition over on Tumblr, it seems that a lot of TV shows are being "gender bent" (i.e. recast with all the male characters now female and the female characters now male.) This made me think about Pilots and how both their relationship and fans' perception of their relationship might have been different if Lt. Thrace was a man and Captain Adama was a woman. (Yes, I know the original Starbuck was a man, but as far as I know, there was nothing in the original canon about Starbuck and Apollo being an item :D)

At the beginning of the series, Kara was given a lot of stereotpyically "masculine" traits (no overt display of emotions other than anger, mouthy cigar chomping badass) and Lee was given some stereotypically "feminine" ones (insecurity about his place in a loved one's life, desire to talk things over in relationships). However, I think I would have personally been much more uncomfortable with some of Kara's actions if she'd been a male character (and I would have found both Kara and Lee a lot more cliched than I did, I think, had they had their genders switched). I generally think making Starbuck a woman was a stroke of genius. But then I wonder whether I am just applying some sort of twisted double standard to their relationship.

What do you guys think? Does the Kara/Lee chemistry transcend all things including gender? How would you feel about their respective behavior within and outside the confines of their relationships if Kara had been male and Lee had been female? Would Kara's willingness to cheat on "Samantha" Anders without actually divorcing her have bothered you? How about a Lee (nice gender neutral name there :P) who married one man while loving another? Would many of us have felt more sympathy for Anton Dualla than we did for Anastasia Dualla? How Or am I, like Lee, overthinking all of this?

Comments

[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

I'll need to come back later to do this post justice, but I do want to quickly say that had their genders been reversed, I would have been aggravated by the stereotypical portrayal of a cigar chomping male soldier and a woman who's insecure about her place in relationships. Yeah, I said it. I have a big double standard issue. I'll try to get back later to discuss it at length (but I'm on a conference call at work right now, and should probably pay attention before I get asked a question). :)

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Kara was given a lot of stereotpyically "masculine" traits (no overt display of emotions other than anger, mouthy cigar chomping badass)

People always say this about the miniseries and I never get it, because to me Kara was always very much a woman, and had that vulnerable side which we get to see in every single scene with Lee, but mostly here:






That being said, I like the nontraditional elements of their relationship very much so and I think if Kara were written like most women in fiction are, I'm not sure if I'd like her so much, sorry to say. For one thing, she wouldn't have gotten half as much to do probably.

It's refreshing that her plotline never really seems to get reduced ever to which man she is involved with. It's even refreshing that she's not the one to want to talk and define and pin their relationship down into a pretty category to some degree. I love (most of the time) that Kara doesn't pine, but compartmentalizes and just goes about her business.

I love that Lee has no problem admitting that Kara is a better pilot than he is, or letting her be the one to secure the ammo or put a plan in action. I like (most of the time) that he is emotional and doesn't want to sex her when she's hurting in Scar or that you can see how much the cheating is apparently tearing him up in EOJ (even if the logic on that one is a little bit fail).

To be honest though it's just really hard for me to imagine it genderswapped and to know what I'd feel. They'd still have the insane chemistry and the tortured backstory, right? So I'd probably still ship it. Divorce/cheating does not really bother me with fictional characters. I don't need them to be shining beacons of morality (in fact I'd prefer them not to be) because then they're just boring usually. (I love Helo, but...you know...)

People would probably have been far more turned off by the violence in the relationship if it were all instigated by a male Karater. Even if female!Lee punched back. But you have to take into account the supposedly gender neutral world it happens in, and I'm not sure we viewers living in a gender un-neutral world could really process it the same way. As it was, it certainly turned off a lot of people who ship Kara/Sam or whatever.

My gut reaction to all this is basically that I can't separate their personalities from who they are (female, male, tall, short, blonde, dark). It's all a package deal:

He's Lee. She's Kara. The rest of it isn't worth a damn, you know?

[entaiaime.livejournal.com]

People would probably have been far more turned off by the violence in the relationship if it were all instigated by a male Karater. Even if female!Lee punched back. But you have to take into account the supposedly gender neutral world it happens in, and I'm not sure we viewers living in a gender un-neutral world could really process it the same way.

This made me think that I don't know if Guy!Kara would punch Girl!Lee because the reason that Kara threw the punch in the first place was because Lee shamed her about sleeping with Baltar. And we all know there's a huge double standard about guys sleeping with easy girls than girls sleeping with easy guys. Eh. That's neither here nor there.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Yes that scene has a lot of "our views" and inherent sexism at play. The writers def. tried to have their cake and eat it too there, stressing how great it was (that the punching was "gender neutral") when what led up to it was very much a sexist reaction in part, or at least, the expression of his jealousy came out as slut-shaming.

[wand3rlust.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm with you on the gender neutral stuff. It is really hard to process how/if that would make a difference especially since we do live in a very gender concentrated world.

I don't need them to be shining beacons of morality (in fact I'd prefer them not to be) because then they're just boring usually. (I love Helo, but...you know...)

hehehe Yes, I know...

My gut reaction to all this is basically that I can't separate their personalities from who they are (female, male, tall, short, blonde, dark). It's all a package deal

Yes! This exactly! hehe

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

It's not a favorite scene of mine because I don't like when they hurt each other just in general. But I'm more OK with the punches than I am with the slut-shaming he tries to do.

[anamarya.livejournal.com]

I really love this comment, especially the part about their unspoken agreement

[shah-of-blah.livejournal.com]

You all know that Kara is pretty much my favorite character of all time -- but if Kara Thrace had been a man? I doubt I would have been even half as in love with her as I am. There are a lot of those badass-but-with-a-hidden-vulnerability-and-traumatic-past characters in the world, but most of them are men. What made her so special was that she was all of that and more and yet there was never any doubt that she was all woman too. Kara Thrace breaks boundaries in science fiction, but a male Starbuck? It's just the same old Han Solo thing.

[nazkey.livejournal.com]

I'm with Shah on this. There. That's my comment for this post. I'm copying Shah :-)

[shah-of-blah.livejournal.com]

I do think "he" would have been an interesting character still, but Kara-as-a-man never would have been more than just "interesting" to me. I might have liked the character, enjoyed his scenes, might have even shipped him with Leigh (see what I did there?) but he never would have been important to me the way Kara was (and is).

[ecstaticdance.livejournal.com]

My gut reaction to this is that if you flipped the genders, it would change so many things that I wouldn't even know where to start. I mean, even assuming that the gender switching didn't impact their childhood, Tara's point about our living in a very much not gender neutral world makes it hard to understand what kind of reactions would have been appropriate for them as adults and to accept those reactions within the framework of my personal understanding.

So basically... Yeah, double standard. The fact that Kara was the roudy one and Lee was the emotional one was part of what made each of the characters so independently compelling to begin with, at least for me. Change those two facts, and you're going to have to change a lot more before I'm going to love it as much.

[entaiaime.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with you and I'm so glad you mentioned this. I don't agree with the idea that Kara was the 'yang' and Lee being the 'yin'. Lee didn't just have stereotypical feminine traits and I don't think that Kara had only stereotypical masculine traits. I think they had both had a fullness to their character that made them compelling to watch.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

**slow claps**

Very eloquently put. You said everything I wanted to say, but failed to express well! ;)

[wand3rlust.livejournal.com]

is not that they reversed gender roles, its's that they didn't align with the gender stereotypes commonly proliferated in film and television.

Yep, I completely agree with this. It was nice seeing a tv show that brought us fully formed people, not the B&W sterotypes. The "bad" people (i.e. Baltar) weren't all evil villainous bastards. The women weren't all weeping, longing cheer squads. And men weren't all macho, fighting, oversexed idiots. The people were just people and very human. The show was morally, emotionally, ethically and idealistically grey. Which is precisely why I ate it up. :)

[wand3rlust.livejournal.com]

What can I say? I'm lazy. copy&paste bb! It's how I roll. ;)

[cosetteferaud.livejournal.com]

I couldn't agree more. I never fell in love with them because of the genderswap or the role reversal or whatever you call it. What made them so compelling (individually and as a couple) was that Lee and Kara were two complex and flawed human beings who had a very complicated, contradictory and overall fascinating relationship :).

[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

I no longer need to post the rest of my thoughts. Well said!

[damao2010.livejournal.com]

WORD. That' it.

[wand3rlust.livejournal.com]

The thing I liked about BSG is man or woman that gender didn't really seem to matter in the sense that we're used to. They each had/have feminine and masculine characteristics but it didn't seem to overtly DEFINE them as people. For instance the term "emotional" is much associated with women in real life, but in BSG we see that emotional is only that - just emotional - it's not a male or female trait.

With Kara I was really drawn to her personality. Mostly because she's not your typical military "yes sir" people pleaser/ass kisser. Which isn't a male/female characteristic in either sense. I also like that she doesn't feel the need to be everyone's friend. She understands that people aren't going to like her and she's not going to like some people and there's nothing wrong with that. So she possibly comes off as dismissive/distant towards most of her fellow pilots, but I think that's until they earn her respect. I'm just glad they chose to show *anyone* who didn't feel the need to share their entire life story with people they barely know. There's way too much of that in real life. However it is nice when we do see her with those she's closest with (Adama, Helo & Lee) that she does let herself be quite, introspective, and caring towards them. To me, she just feel inherently human who is unapologetic for being who she is.

As for Lee, I never characterized him as being feminine in the slightest. I just saw him as young and idealistic with an axe to grind against his father. Instead of being "feminine" I would more associate it with a teenage rebellion storylines. hehe!

Anyway, I'm kind of off topic here... as for if I'd like them gender swapped... meh, maybe, but since I actually live in the real world vs BSG world then I have to say that I'm glad they gave Kara such a strong personality. I know women like her in real life but too often women on TV are shuffled into the overtly "bad ass chick" role or the "mother/caretaker" role, so for me it was nice to see a good balance and a woman who had a strong sense of who she was.

As for their relationship, I'm certain a majority of my liking them is the chemistry between them, so they may have found a way to make it work either way. I can't be sure. I just know I like it the way it was... :)

[entaiaime.livejournal.com]

As for Lee, I never characterized him as being feminine in the slightest. I just saw him as young and idealistic with an axe to grind against his father. Instead of being "feminine" I would more associate it with a teenage rebellion storylines. hehe!

Dude! This. I talked about this in my post below. I get slightly ragey about my Lee.

[anamarya.livejournal.com]

As for Lee, I never characterized him as being feminine in the slightest. I just saw him as young and idealistic with an axe to grind against his father. Instead of being "feminine" I would more associate it with a teenage rebellion storylines. hehe!

yup, that's it. I really don't see the 'feminine' side in him.

[entaiaime.livejournal.com]

I think that Lee wasn't quite as emotional as we like to make him out to be. I think that he bottled a lot in (typically a male trait) and he didn't like to talk about relationships (ex: his and Dee's relationship was ice-cold emotionally).

I think there were multiple examples of Kara being just as emotional (if not more so) as Lee. And there are plenty of examples of Lee being overly unemotional, especially in relationships. Lee never wanted to talk about his relationship with Kara until they frakked for the first (only) time on New Cap. He didn't try to pin her down except when they were cheating and that's only because it fell outside of his realm of what's right and wrong.

That, to me, doesn't make him seem like he's being a needy girl trying to define the relationship. That's very typical and unlike what people would like to believe there are plenty of guys that want to define relationships (especially if they love that person). That doesn't make them feminine to want to 'claim' something or mark their territory. I think that's a fundamental male quality.

Honestly, I think that if the genders were reversed then I would have probably been attracted to Girl!Apollo than Guy!Starbuck because Guy!Starbuck is just typical guy hero stuff. But Girl!Apollo would have made me turn in week after week. Yes, Girl!Apollo wouldn't be as brash and cocky as our Starbuck but I think it would be her quiet strength that would make me love her, just like I love our Apollo now.

The marrying a man while in love with another is Wuthering Heights. And yes, I would've felt bad for Anton Dualla, but that's not where my heart would lie. I think that what I love about this show is that they blurred the lines of gender and produced these beautifully complicated characters.

[wand3rlust.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I think that if the genders were reversed then I would have probably been attracted to Girl!Apollo

heehe! I was so going to add in my post that I think I would've liked it a lot if Apollo was a girl too. But considering my lengthy post already I decided against it.

I think you hit the nail on the head in that for the same reasons I find Kara awesome I think I would've found a female Apollo awesome. The sense of these characters knowing exactly who they are and what they believe in - insecurities and all - is the really refreshing thing to see. :)

[lotus79.livejournal.com]

I think if the genders were swapped I might actually become a Leigh/Dee shipper!

To explain, I was just thinking about the way I relate to narratives I am fannish about and came to the realisation that I always choose a female character and then relate to the rest of it through them (Susan Ivanova, B'Elanna Torres, Rachel Goldstein to name a few previous ones in no particular order.) I pick an avatar first and then pick a mate for her and off I go on my merry shipping way.

If there's no female character I can respect/relate to, I either don't like that narrative a whole lot or I like it in a different way (the original BSG is an example - my modern self thinks all the women on that show were pretty badly done but for some reason I still enjoyed it for the cheese and Starbuck's antics. I'm not sure why this is.)

So anyway, if Lee was a Leigh and Kara was a... (Karl? but we already have a Karl! OK I'm stuck.) I think I would still love the show and Leigh would be my avatar character. And a man who acted like Starbuck... yeah, no. Dee as a man, otoh, I think I could like.

So there you go - the only way I could ship Lee/Dee would be if the roles were reversed!

[ever-neutral.livejournal.com]

The gender-bendyness of L/K is a significant part of what attracts me to them. IDK, I like playing with that. But like others have said, it's the fact that neither of them can be pinned down and sorted into neat "boxes" that really makes them shine.

[anamarya.livejournal.com]

I don't really know what to think about it. As a couple with Guy!Starbuck, Girl!Apollo - probably i would've like them a lot but not so much as i am now because of stuff that were already said so i'll not repeat them.

As characters I would've related to Lee no matter what because I said it a lot of times - i identify a lot of me in him, and those parts are nothing to do with gender and all.

But, and is a big but - I lived/worked in a more or less neutral-environment for so long that i really am not the person to ask. i mean we are an institution with at least 75% males but run by women - and everybody is equal. we work, eat, drink, pretty much do everything in common so for me the gender issue in L/K is not really an issue, not even in the post-Colonial Day fight.

the cheating part is bad in my book no matter the gender also. cheating is cheating - guy or gal.