Situating Starbuck: Combative Femininity, Figurative Masculinity, and the Snap

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewan Kirkland
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Gender Politics ◽  
Television Series ◽  
Women Warriors ◽  
Battlestar Galactica ◽  
Action Heroine ◽  
Action Heroines ◽  
Action Hero

Ewan Kirkland’s “Situating Starbuck: Combative Femininity, Figurative Masculinity, and the Snap” studies the action heroine in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009) television series. He argues that Starbuck exemplifies a transformation of the 1970s male action hero in post-Alien action adventure science fiction and fantasy, where women warriors increasingly feature as a generic staple. Situating Starbuck in relation to action heroines from film, television, and digital games as well as the academic arguments that circulate them affords an understanding of the gender politics of the character, and the extent to which she challenges dominant representations in popular culture.

‘Lorca, I’m Really Gonna Miss Killing You’

2020 ◽  
pp. 127-144
Author(s):  
Sarah Böhlau
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Emotional Development ◽  
Star Trek ◽  
Television Series ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Narrative Space ◽  
Circular Loop ◽  
Narrative Device ◽  
Time Loop

While time travel as a narrative device has been firmly entrenched in popular culture since the late 19th century, its sub-trope, the time loop, has been largely neglected until the 1990s. Star Trek, never a franchise to shy away from bold narrative tools, first introduced a time loop in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Cause and Effect” (1992). Since then, the trope has become a well-known storytelling device, especially within the realms of science fiction television series. A time loop occurs when the temporal fabric of a narrative world enfolds one or several characters in a recurring circular loop, while for the rest of the story world, time flows in its natural direction. Most crucial in many of these narratives is the question of emotional development and human connection, both equally enabled and denied by the time loop. This is also the case in Discovery’s seventh episode “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” (2017). This chapter looks at the episode, at the special narrative space created by the time loop, the counterfactuals it generates, and the emotional development it affords to the characters trapped inside – and outside.

Battlestar Galactica and Space Opera: Transforming a Subgenre

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-123
Author(s):  
MEGAN FRANCISCO
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Television Series ◽  
Battlestar Galactica ◽  
Space Opera

AbstractRon Moore, creator and producer of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica television series, outlined his proposed show's aesthetic in a manifesto aptly titled “Naturalistic Science Fiction or Taking the Opera out of Space Opera.” The title of this essay took a stand against the science fiction subgenre of space opera, asserting that it was outdated, overdone, and unrealistic. Moore's vision for his series revolutionized iconic elements of classic television space operas. Though Moore resisted the stigma of space opera, his reimagined series holds an inherent “operaticness”—a term first coined by opera scholar Marcia Citron. Battlestar Galactica has many operatic qualities, particularly in its narrative structure, cinematography, characters, and music. After analyzing Galactica's explicit evocations of opera, this article will explore the operatic features of the soundtrack and evaluate the characters intimately tied to the opera by tracing the tropes of gendered opera as outlined by Susan McClary and Catherine Clément. Through a detailed analysis of three episodes, I will demonstrate how Moore successfully constructed a series that relied deeply upon operatic qualities and resonances.

Biblical Prophecy and Popular Fantasy and Science Fiction

2020 ◽  
pp. 182-200
Author(s):  
David G. Garber
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Femme Fatale ◽  
Lord Of The Rings ◽  
American Popular Culture ◽  
Star Wars ◽  
Prophetic Literature ◽  
Battlestar Galactica ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
History Of

Prophets and prophecy pervade American popular culture, particularly in the genres of fantasy and science fiction. The history of reception of prophetic literature through a dominant Western Christian paradigm has described prophets as liminal characters who perform specific functions in the narrative, often as guides to the central protagonist (e.g., The Matrix Trilogy and The Lord of the Rings). Sagas such as A Song of Ice and Fire and Star Wars often treat prophecies as plot devices dependent on patterns of prediction and fulfillment. Sometimes, however, popular culture itself assumes the prophetic task of speaking truth to power and critiques aspects of the biblical tradition. Some episodes of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica series, for example, critique the tendency to ascribe evil to a femme fatale in a manner similar to how feminist biblical critics have approached misogynistic traditions within the biblical prophets.

scholarly journals Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, and Kathryn Janeway: The subversive politics of action heroines in 1980s and 1990s film and television

Image & Text ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janine Engelbrecht
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
Original Action ◽  
Film Series ◽  
Action Heroine ◽  
Female Bodies ◽  
Action Heroines ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Second Wave

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, female characters that are different from the sexualised and passive women of the 1960s started appearing in science fiction film and television. Three prominent women on screen that reflect the increasing awareness of women's sexualisation and lack of representation as main protagonists in film, and that appeared at the height of feminism's second wave, are Ellen Ripley from the Alien franchise (1979-1997), Sarah Connor from the Terminator film series (1984-1991;2019) and Kathryn Janeway from the Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001) television series. These female characters were, in contrast to their predecessors, the main protagonists and heroes at the centre of their respective narratives, they were desexualised, and they were not subservient to their male contemporaries. Most importantly, and as I show in this paper, they are complex, hybrid characters that do not perpetuate the masculine/ feminine dichotomy as their predecessors did. I further argue that it is these characters' hybridity that makes them heroines instead of simply being male heroes in female bodies, which they are often accused of. I term the heroine archetype presented by these characters the "original action heroine", and I argue that these women are likely candidates to be regarded as the first heroine archetype on screen.

scholarly journals Being and technics : humans, hybrids and the ontology of machines

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Alexander Forbes
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Media Theory ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Television Series ◽  
Life World ◽  
Battlestar Galactica ◽  
Friedrich Kittler ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Literature And Film ◽  
Individual Human

This paper discusses the possibilities of mechanical life. A non-dual methodology borrowed from Martin Heidegger combines the materialist media theory of Friedrich Kittler with Bernard Steigler's teleological philosophy of technics. This perspective is employed to analyze the literature and film of science fiction, and in particular, the recent television series, Battlestar Galactica. This analysis permits the elaboration of a communications ontology that at once highlights the individual (human) and systemic (material) aspects of the life world, and ultimately delivers an articulation of Being that is systemic and individual. It attempts to transcend traditional subject object distinctions and to naturalize the theoretical progression from biological to technical life by suggesting that human being is always already hybrid technical being, and that technological being is not only a logical, but also perhaps necessary product of Western cultural progression.

How to Remix the Future

Old Futures ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 214-252
Author(s):  
Alexis Lothian
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Television Series ◽  
Battlestar Galactica ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Scholarly Production

Chapter 6 moves from futures depicted on screen to the audiences who take them up and respond to them by highlighting grassroots cultures of video remix that have flourished since the early years of the digital age. The speculative modes of cultural production and reception among science fiction media’s feminist fans showcase queer possibilities that emerge from efforts to push back against the pressures of dominant media temporalities. Their creative methods are the focus of this chapter, which highlights a practice that has emerged from obscurity to some influence in the last ten years: the subcultural art form of fans making music video, or vidding. The chapter uses the term “critical fandom” to center the affective and political temporalities of creative fan works that reimagine the racialized and gendered economies of digital media production and consumption. It analyzes several fan videos in depth to develop a theory of the form, then turns to queer, feminist, decolonial engagements with the television series Battlestar Galactica (2003–2009). Finally, the author’s own video remix practice is discussed as a way to incorporate the insights of this form into scholarly production.

scholarly journals Being and technics : humans, hybrids and the ontology of machines

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Alexander Forbes
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Media Theory ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Television Series ◽  
Life World ◽  
Battlestar Galactica ◽  
Friedrich Kittler ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Literature And Film ◽  
Individual Human

This paper discusses the possibilities of mechanical life. A non-dual methodology borrowed from Martin Heidegger combines the materialist media theory of Friedrich Kittler with Bernard Steigler's teleological philosophy of technics. This perspective is employed to analyze the literature and film of science fiction, and in particular, the recent television series, Battlestar Galactica. This analysis permits the elaboration of a communications ontology that at once highlights the individual (human) and systemic (material) aspects of the life world, and ultimately delivers an articulation of Being that is systemic and individual. It attempts to transcend traditional subject object distinctions and to naturalize the theoretical progression from biological to technical life by suggesting that human being is always already hybrid technical being, and that technological being is not only a logical, but also perhaps necessary product of Western cultural progression.

scholarly journals American Telefantasy: An Introduction

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Halliday ◽  
Rhys Owain Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Doctor Who ◽  
Fair Share ◽  
Buffy The Vampire Slayer ◽  
Battlestar Galactica ◽  
The Walking Dead ◽  
Park Avenue ◽  
General Capacity ◽  
True Blood ◽  
Horror Story

Television schedules are rife with Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. The re-launched Doctor Who and its prime-time Saturday night stablemate, Merlin spearhead the rise of contemporary British Telefantasy (Being Human, Misfits et al.).  Meanwhile, their American equivalents attract audiences of millions, extensive media attention and, since Peter Dinklage’s Emmy and Golden Globe-winning performance in Game of Thrones, widespread critical acclaim through mainstream industry awards.  Histories of “quality” television are awash with examples of American Telefantasy that have left an indelible impression on popular cultural (and even socio-political) imaginaries; Star Trek, The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lost, and Battlestar Galactica all being enduringly popular examples. As American television networks prepare to launch their all-important “Fall” schedules, ushering in a new year of programming, it is evident that Telefantasy will continue to garner its fair share of TV viewers’ attention – whether due to hotly-anticipated debuts (666 Park Avenue, Arrow, The Neighbors, Revolution), finales (Fringe), provocative content (American Horror Story, True Blood, The Walking Dead, or a general capacity to entertain, bewitch or amuse (Community), Falling Skies, Grimm, Once Upon a Time, Supernatural).

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