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?