My BSG Theory: They are all Cylons (This has all Happened Before)

As I count down the hours to the series finale of Battlestar Galactica, I am obessesed with figuring out the finale of this remarkable television achievement. After watching all the previous episodes, I want to pose the theory that there are no humans in the sense that we know it. Both the “human” and “cylon” races originated  on Kobol. The first war on Kobol sent the”humans”  to the twelve colonies, while the cylons fled to Earth. Both the cylon earthlings and the human colonists experienced the devastating effects of a war against the mechanical cylons. One of the main themes repeated by the colonial oracles, the colonial scriptures and Leeoben Conroy is that this has all happened before and will happen again. The Cylons on Earth had given up reproductive technology and were reproducing naturally. Caprica 6 and Athena Agathon were able to conceive. It is clear that Starbuck is some kind of hybrid. I think that the people who inhabit the world of Batllestar Galactica are both of human and cylon in nature destined to bring war upon each other until they can reconcile  the two sides of their nature. Of course I could be dead wrong! I will find out how close I got in a few hours.

Queries and Comments about Battlestar Galactica

I just started watching Battlestar Galactica a week before the start of the forth season so I have nugget questions and sci fi addict observations.

Why are all the really sexual women on Battlestar Galactica, blonde?

Is isn’t it remarkable that this show has gotten away with making the cylons monotheists and the humans pagans?

I am so glad that there is eye candy for women on Battlestar Galactica.

Isn’t great that the first Apollo, Richard Hatch is playing criminal-minded ex-terrorist?

Girlfights are really not my thing but the fights on Battlestar Galactica are the best I have ever seen.

Was Billy as annoying to you as he was to me?

Why have Dee and Geada’s story lines dwindled down to nothing?

How many times has Gias Baltar changed sides?

How can a show be pro-choice and anti-abortion at the same time?

Planet stereotypes: Gemanon – Religious Fundamentalists, Argon- Farmers, Sagittarions – Christian Scientists and any ethnicity you can insert here _____________( I choose African Americans, Muslims Latinios), Caprica- wealth, upper class, center of everything. Are there any more that I have missed?

Will does Starbuck’s love life every be peaceful? Decide who you want Damn It???

Gias Baltar is probably the last cylon, in my book. But I want it to be Admiral Adama. If the last cylon is Admiral Adama, humans would really have to change their mind about cylons.

I think Earth will be populated with human-cylon hybrids.

How many musical genres are in the score? ( I have picked up Japanese drums, military drums and chants, Hindi  chants).

How important is the semi-Buddist rambling of Lee Oben?

I really thought that the version of “All Along the Watchtower” Sucked.

I wish all the people responsible for the Iraq war would watch this show and learn from it.

Street Kings vs Training Day

I am in the process of transferring my VHS collection to DVD. Some I buy some and I “find” some in the Jimmy “Dyn-o-mite” way from broadband. I thought that a movie with Forrest Whitaker and Keanu Reeves would be worth my digital time. I am a cinema snob but I try not to knock an actor (especially actors of color) if they signing onto a big budget film because they have kids in college. Forrest Whitaker won the Best Actor award at Cannes for Bird when he 27 years old and won the Best Actor Oscar for a role that was written as for a supporting actor. I love his roles in one of the quintessential 80’s movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High, along with Good Morning America, Bird, The Panic Room, The Last King of Scotland,The Great Debaters and the ninja, hip hop, mafia, existentialist indie Ghost Dawg.

I am also a fan of Keanu Reeves. I know, he is just eye candy that the camera loves, but when he gets a role that is tailored for him he can pull it off. He has shined in the independent films like The River’s Edge, My Own Private Idaho and A Scanner Darkly. But do not at anytime ask him do Shakespeare. It was easier to believe that Denzel Washington as Italian gentry than believe that Keanu was his vengeful brother in Much Ado About Nothing. Face it, can you you think of anyone else who could have been the clueless savior in The Matrix? So how does Neo and Ghost Dawg kick it in Street Kings? Badly, very badly.

The muddled plot is an an attempt at a narrative about crisis of conscience suffered by police officer, Tom Ludlow. Ludlow (Reeves) routinely crosses the line and slowly realizes that everyone he works with is completely corrupt. The film is based on a book by James Ellroy. A veteran of the hard boiled detective genre that has a few good books under his belt. Ellroy usually relies on cursing and stereotypes as his definition of gritty. Several plot points like the death of Tom Ludlow’s wife, his current relationship with a female doctor or a nurse, and whether or not his murdered former partner was corrupt are never fully explained. Any movie that has a main character explain major plot points while the action lulls, is no fun for me. This film also wastes the talent the twit British extraordinare/ American druggie doctor, Hugh Laurie and in my book that is a sin. The only saving grace of Street Kings is the climax with Forrest letting loose and Keanu holding on for dear life. So, if you want a good corrupt cop drama rent Training Day.

Training Day was the medicine that a shell shocked America needed the weekend after 9/11. Denzel made me believe that he was a badass cop. This century’s answer to Sidney Poitier helped finance his own trip to the dark side because no one else would. Alonzo Harris (Washington) channeled the spirits of Scarface (both Pacino and Cagney), and Keitel’s Bad Lieutenant, Richard Gere’s swaggering cop in Internal Affairs, with a dash of John Shaft (a la Richard Roundtree) on the side. Ethan Hawke ( Hamlet he is not) was able to keep up with Denzel as the naive rookie cop whose ambition and sliding morals almost get him killed. For a movie with such a low budget, the cinematography brings the sweltering streets of LA to life. Although the plot can have some viewers scratching their heads during the movie, the payoff is great. When Mr. Washington won the Best Actor Academy Award for Training Day on the same night that Halle Berry won for the worst (oops) best actress performance for Monsters Ball, many wondered why he had not won for The Hurricane, Malcolm X, or Cry Freedom. Why did it take Denzel’s criminal cop to win him his second statue? I loved his performance, but I must admit I did some of that questioning myself. But, as a media junky, I know the profits from Training Day helped fund Antoine Fisher, the Great Debaters and American Gangster and hopefully one day the possibility of a prequel that solves the riddle of how Alonzo Harris got to bigger than King Kong.

Battlestar Galactica and the Subversiveness of SciFi

I am a nerd. My favorite night of TV as a child in Canada was the Lost in Space and Star Trek double feature. I have been a critical fan of the SciFi channel for years. While I love being able to watch the Twilight Zone nightly, I was not thrilled with the section of the Battlestar Galactica pilot I saw four years ago. Science fiction writers Orson Scott Card and fantasist Neil Gaiman have both turned down Hollywood film contracts because the studio demanded changes in racial identity of their main characters. Although the reach of American television is global, the faces that we see do not reflect audience. SciFi has always been an exception to this rule. Even the Twilight Zone featured stories with black characters when it was unheard of in any other genre unless the character was a maid. I was excited to see the new Battlestar Galactica because I respect Edward James Olmos work on and off the screen. Olmos and his son Bodie are very active in the Latino/Hispanic community and I admire those who give back to their communities.

I watched an half an our of the pilot and it seemed that Col Adama was the only person of color. I thought of the SciFi Channel’s horrific version of The Tales of Earthsea. In addition to completely ruining the narrative, SciFi whitewashed the cast. Ursula K. LeGuin described the people of this fictional world as brown. The only character of color was a 10 minute cameo with Danny Glover. It was absolutely awful. I was especially put off since SciFi produced a spot on version of The Lathe of Heaven with Lucas Hass and Lisa Bonet two years before.

I was flipping through the television three weeks ago and chanced on S. Epathia Merchenson and Jessie Green from Law and Order raving about Battlestar Galactica. I love Law and Order because it is filmed in my beloved New York City unlike CSI:New York. On their recomendation I started watching the show from the beginning. In my media scholar opinion the show is a masterpiece that puts many of the issues that we are facing today right in the viewer’s face. Although I wish there was a stronger back character, this is a television program that challenges the way America has handled our post-9/11 country and since science fiction is in the lower cultural form of Scifi, there are no politicians trying to Murphy Brown the the show for it’s ‘Anti American ‘ bias. I am so glad I found this treasure in the television wasetland.

Why I Love Everybody Hates Chris

I have an advanced degree in media theory, but I have never thought to write film or television reviews. As a famous post-modern philosopher says “Doh.” My sister and I have a standing appointment every other Sunday. She comes to my place and we watch movies or fool around on the internet trying to find artifacts from our English-Canandian-Bronx, NY-Caribbean youth. Some of our finds include the schoolhouse rock video clips, the theme to Wonderama, TV commercials from Carvel (Fudgey the whale and Cookiepus), Crazy Eddie’s doomed audio appliance store chain, Goya food products (go Goya). One hit wonders, low rated black TV comedies and English, Canadian and local New York television gems  are especially treasured finds. A few weeks ago, my sister came over with the first two seasons of Everybody Hates Chris.

I had enjoyed the show the few times I had seen it, but it is ghettoized on the Sunday black comedy block on the CW. Since my sister and grew up in so many cultures, there are very few media products that reflect our lives. The closest we came was a English about a Caribbean-British import called Desmond’s that aired in the early days BET. That has all changed with Everybody Hates Chris. Chris Rock’s show may detail his childhood in Bed-Sty, but it is not too far away for how two sisters grew up in the Boogie Down Bronx. Most commercial media products aimed at black community are inane, banal, trite, stereotypical or in just plain English …….SUCK. Black comedies have been used to attract viewers until so that enough capital can be raised to launch programs that will attract a more lucrative, white audience. NBC’s Cosby Show was the first African American situation comedy since the ghetto fabulous days of Sanford and Son, Good Times and The Jeffersons. The Cosby Show continues to make money today and gone are the criticisms that the Huxtables did not represent the experience of Reagan era African Americans. The Cosby Show is now and American classic.

Fox, UPN and the WB/CW all started with a slate of black comedies and moved way from them when more appealing to the general (read white) audience. The only slate of new black situation comedies is the CW. These show are relegated to Sunday night block of programming. As the black situation comedy became standard for the new broadcast channels, the quality went down. Since torturing prisoners of war is a condoned practice in this country, I think watching Homeboyz from Outta of Space on a loop would make any hardened terrorist confess.

I have been a Chris Rock fan for years, the man is funny as hell. Despite the mild tone of he-man woman-hating-club in some of his stand up he never disappoints. A few years ago Entertainment Weekly named him the funniest man in America. Of course people wrote in and called him racist. How is talking about America from a black perspective racist? I propose that the facets of the African American experience are so contrary to mainstream ideology that labeling a person of color racist has become a magic totem to ward off discussion of the inequities inherent in the country. A few years ago Chris Rock gave Howard University fund to start a humor magazine. I am glad that Chris has acted on the African American cultural value of giving back to his community. His generosity has paid off. The Everybody Hates Chris truly reflects the joys and sorrows of black working class. Chris Rock’s television family is the best representation of black working class life since the first season of Good Times. The fictional Rock family is multifaceted, quirky and lovable, far from characters like The Wayans Brothers or The Parkers whose humor comes from their incompetence. For the first time Terry Crews is not playing a big black brute, but a caring father with a strong work ethic. Who knew that Tichina Arnold was such a talented physical comedian? She takes the stereotype of he angry black woman and showed the frustration, joys and pride of being a working class black wife and mother. Martin Lawrence bipolar ass did not use her talents on his television show, thank you Chris for hiring her after she survived the hell of being on stage with a man who cannot accept his own mental breakdown. It is also delight to watch Tyler James Williams who plays the young Chris Rock grow as an actor.

The is also the joy of seeing actors from when Mr. Rock (and myself) loved as kids and teenagers and Ernest Thomas “Roj” from What’s Happening, Todd Brides from Different Stokes, and 1970’s pimp daddy extraordinare, Antonio”Huggy Bear” Fargas from Starsky and Hutch, 227 and Sister Sister’s Jackie Harry and  Jimmy “Dynomite” Walker from Good Times have all been featured on the show. Television shows that show the diversity of working class black America are rare indeed and Mr. Rock has succeeded in creating a Bed-Sty “Wonder Years”. The best aspect of Everybody Hates Chris is the fact it shows that the African American family has struggles and triumphs just like any other in this country. I hope the CW does not find a mega-hit and cancels all their black shows in the next few years because I want to see little Chris graduate from high school!

Hello world!

I am a media junky who should be leaving the small, rural Midwest hellhole for a small rural could be hell hole in Delaware.  I love media in all it’s forms and I have a useless degree in media theory so I might as well critique it.