Supplements
Have TB that does not like supplements in his feed. Any thoughts on a supplement 'paste' he would like to eat.
Annie Leonard, "The Story of Stuff"
If you watched the free 20 minute online "Story of Stuff" documentary and thought "That's great, but I wish it was drier, and more packed with an overwhelming volume of information," then this book is for you! I hate to sound catty, but it's true. Sadly, this book takes everything that made the documentary great, and does the exact opposite.
Charitably, The Story of Stuff (the book) could be said to be a companion piece to the documentary. A tome for those who watched the movie and wanted to dispute the facts. A dense brick of text, thick with footnotes, heavy on policy wonkery and clunky writing.
The genius of the "Story of Stuff" documentary is that it was told in plain English, without a lot of judgment - just the facts. It was illustrated with an animated style of ink brush figures that are both charming and clean, giving a lot of white space to the screen, which lets you focus on what's being said.
Here the formula is reversed - the little animated characters are scattered occasionally throughout the text, serving as random bullet points. They do nothing to break up the text which marches on, paragraph after paragraph, weighing the reader down with one long boring diatribe about how we're ruining the planet.
Leonard's writing style is distinctly a product of her background with NGOs and policymaking organizations. Here's a sentence I chose by stabbing my finger at random into the book:
"One of my colleagues there, Rob Weissman, a Harvard-trained lawyer and leading critic of the WTO, used to chide me for my obsession with factories and dumps, urging me to join those fighting the WTO instead of, or more accurately in addition to, working on garbage."
This is postdoc-level writing, and there's nothing wrong with that. It just came as a surprise after the documentary's plain-spoken, transparent language. If the documentary is Hemingway, the book is a Congressional memo.
The great thing about the documentary was how simple it made everything. These are complicated issues, and the real value is in boiling them down to the simplest elements. We don't need anyone to make them more complicated.
I found myself wondering what the point of the book was in the first place. It fails as a companion piece to the documentary, because it's harder to follow, less engaging, and roughly 200% more depressing. It doesn't offer anything that you can't find in the documentary except three metric tons of facts.
If it's meant to reach people that the documentary couldn't, it's going to fail at that, too, because people hate to read. (They especially hate to read big boring sad things.) A graphic novel would have worked well; this book will not.
I wasn't sure what to expect from a book called The Story of Stuff and frankly, I'm still not. If you're trying to decide between reading the book or watching the documentary, you should definitely watch the documentary. It's fantastic, and effective, and can literally change your life.
Charitably, The Story of Stuff (the book) could be said to be a companion piece to the documentary. A tome for those who watched the movie and wanted to dispute the facts. A dense brick of text, thick with footnotes, heavy on policy wonkery and clunky writing.
The genius of the "Story of Stuff" documentary is that it was told in plain English, without a lot of judgment - just the facts. It was illustrated with an animated style of ink brush figures that are both charming and clean, giving a lot of white space to the screen, which lets you focus on what's being said.
Here the formula is reversed - the little animated characters are scattered occasionally throughout the text, serving as random bullet points. They do nothing to break up the text which marches on, paragraph after paragraph, weighing the reader down with one long boring diatribe about how we're ruining the planet.
Leonard's writing style is distinctly a product of her background with NGOs and policymaking organizations. Here's a sentence I chose by stabbing my finger at random into the book:
"One of my colleagues there, Rob Weissman, a Harvard-trained lawyer and leading critic of the WTO, used to chide me for my obsession with factories and dumps, urging me to join those fighting the WTO instead of, or more accurately in addition to, working on garbage."
This is postdoc-level writing, and there's nothing wrong with that. It just came as a surprise after the documentary's plain-spoken, transparent language. If the documentary is Hemingway, the book is a Congressional memo.
The great thing about the documentary was how simple it made everything. These are complicated issues, and the real value is in boiling them down to the simplest elements. We don't need anyone to make them more complicated.
I found myself wondering what the point of the book was in the first place. It fails as a companion piece to the documentary, because it's harder to follow, less engaging, and roughly 200% more depressing. It doesn't offer anything that you can't find in the documentary except three metric tons of facts.
If it's meant to reach people that the documentary couldn't, it's going to fail at that, too, because people hate to read. (They especially hate to read big boring sad things.) A graphic novel would have worked well; this book will not.
I wasn't sure what to expect from a book called The Story of Stuff and frankly, I'm still not. If you're trying to decide between reading the book or watching the documentary, you should definitely watch the documentary. It's fantastic, and effective, and can literally change your life.
Jumping Off the Planet, David Gerrold
I feel genuinely bad for disliking this book. Not only did it win a ton of awards, but it's written by David Gerrold who is virtually a science fiction legend. Nevertheless, I didn't like it.
Jumping Off the Planet concerns the Dingillian family, which is dysfunctional in a ridiculously predictable fashion. The narrator is a teenage boy named Charles Dingillian, whose nickname is "Chigger." The word "chigger" which has the misfortune of being one of my least favorite words, thanks to its similarity to a certain other word that starts with N and also has unpleasant connotations.
Charles has an older brother who he has nicknamed Weird, and a younger brother who he has nicknamed Stinky. This brings us to my first problem with the story: the narrator is openly bratty. He is unpleasant and bitter in a sour, undifferentiated sort of way. It's as if the book was written by someone who had only observed teenagers from the outside, and didn't remember what it was like to actually be one.
Their father is cartoonishly doofy, just like the dad in every commercial for a household product since the dawn of television. When the book opens, their dad is taking them on a vacation as part of his custody visit. (Surely a custody dispute as hotly contested as that of the Dingillian parents would include a rider that the children not be allowed to leave the state. But I digress.) It soon becomes apparent that he is in fact kidnapping them. They appear not to have much of an opinion on this, although they find it interesting in an intellectual sort of way, it doesn't seem to upset them much.
The Dingillian foursome travel to Ecuador, and head into outer space up a beanstalk. At this point the plot and action, thin as they are, are burdened with a truly preposterous amount of exposition. Gerrold brings the science from every corner. Every page or so, the entire thing grinds to a halt so that a random stranger can pop his head into the room and digress at length upon the physics of moving a large load up a cable into space.
I completely lost patience about halfway through, when a glimmer of interest is sparked by Charles' new friendship with a fellow passenger. I literally groaned out loud when it turns out that the boy's father is an engineer responsible for maintaining the electrical charge which builds up along the cable. (Cut to several pages of explanation on electricity and its implications for the beanstalk.)
Charles allows himself to be shuttled passively from one situation to another, showing neither creativity nor resourcefulness. His gripes are commonplace; his vexation with the world unremitting. Many authors have managed to take this basic character (the disaffected teenage boy) and make something interesting of him. The characters in Stephen King's Christine come to mind, as do those in Neil Gaiman's Stardust. But as for Chigger, I was more than happy to leave him to his misery.
Jumping Off the Planet concerns the Dingillian family, which is dysfunctional in a ridiculously predictable fashion. The narrator is a teenage boy named Charles Dingillian, whose nickname is "Chigger." The word "chigger" which has the misfortune of being one of my least favorite words, thanks to its similarity to a certain other word that starts with N and also has unpleasant connotations.
Charles has an older brother who he has nicknamed Weird, and a younger brother who he has nicknamed Stinky. This brings us to my first problem with the story: the narrator is openly bratty. He is unpleasant and bitter in a sour, undifferentiated sort of way. It's as if the book was written by someone who had only observed teenagers from the outside, and didn't remember what it was like to actually be one.
Their father is cartoonishly doofy, just like the dad in every commercial for a household product since the dawn of television. When the book opens, their dad is taking them on a vacation as part of his custody visit. (Surely a custody dispute as hotly contested as that of the Dingillian parents would include a rider that the children not be allowed to leave the state. But I digress.) It soon becomes apparent that he is in fact kidnapping them. They appear not to have much of an opinion on this, although they find it interesting in an intellectual sort of way, it doesn't seem to upset them much.
The Dingillian foursome travel to Ecuador, and head into outer space up a beanstalk. At this point the plot and action, thin as they are, are burdened with a truly preposterous amount of exposition. Gerrold brings the science from every corner. Every page or so, the entire thing grinds to a halt so that a random stranger can pop his head into the room and digress at length upon the physics of moving a large load up a cable into space.
I completely lost patience about halfway through, when a glimmer of interest is sparked by Charles' new friendship with a fellow passenger. I literally groaned out loud when it turns out that the boy's father is an engineer responsible for maintaining the electrical charge which builds up along the cable. (Cut to several pages of explanation on electricity and its implications for the beanstalk.)
Charles allows himself to be shuttled passively from one situation to another, showing neither creativity nor resourcefulness. His gripes are commonplace; his vexation with the world unremitting. Many authors have managed to take this basic character (the disaffected teenage boy) and make something interesting of him. The characters in Stephen King's Christine come to mind, as do those in Neil Gaiman's Stardust. But as for Chigger, I was more than happy to leave him to his misery.
Catching Up: Firefly- Shindig
How do you work a sword fight into a futuristic sci-fi show? Well, you can do what George Lucas did and turn the weapon of honor into a sword made of lasers, or you can do what Joss Whedon and Jane Espenson did in Episode 4 of Firefly and just accept that a space show can be whatever you want it to be. Because there's no such thing as human society in space or on other planets, stories that take place in those settings can take any form the writer wishes. Given sufficient technology and enough room for every possible iteration of human civilization, there's no reason why there couldn't be an entire planet dedicated to whatever aesthetic one would want. In "Shindig" we get a closer look at planet Persephone, the first world we ever visited (not counting flashbacks) on Firefly. It's a world dedicated to the finery of an era that's bygone for us 21st century viewers, let alone the 26th century people of the show's universe. Persephone has its own isolated high society of hoop skirts, lavish balls and a code of honor enforced by duels with cold steel. Naturally, it's a great place for the swaggering brigands who live on Serenity to stand out like sore thumbs... thumbs that want to punch people.
"Shindig" is also the closest viewers ever get to Inara Serra. We get to see how she selects her clients, how she behaves while on the clock and we even get a glimpse into why she chooses to fly around with a bunch of criminals instead of living in luxury alongside the kinds of people who use her services. When Mal and the crew return to Persephone to resupply and look for new work, Inara takes the opportunity to spend a few days with a client named Atherton Wing. He's a familiar TV archetype, the heartless rich guy who believes he can buy and sell people as he pleases. It's no mistake that the episode opens with a seemingly unrelated bar fight started by Mal after he discovers the man he's playing pool with is a slaver. It's especially important to show Mal taking a firm stance against slavery considering the obvious parallel between the Browncoat resistance and the Confederacy in the American Civil War. It also puts a fine point on exactly why he disapproves of Inara's profession. Aside from outright jealousy, Mal hates the idea of people being owned by other people, no matter how it's dressed up.
Really, this entire episode exists outside of the sci-fi premise of Firefly. Aside from things like floating chandeliers and high-tech lock picks, "Shindig" is every bit a Victorian society tale. Like a funnier, better written, better acted Star Trek, Firefly is a show based around a pulpy, infinitely flexible premise that affords a buffet of disparate stories. It manages to be a Western one week, a high sci-fi adventure the next, then dive into Jane Austen territory without a second thought. So, when it seems appropriate to ask "why is Summer Glau monologing in a cockney accent?" it's just as fitting to ask "why not?"
Of course, if Firefly was nothing but a series of costume changes and random sets it wouldn't be nearly as interesting as it is. No matter what their weekly adventures are, the character are all consistent throughout the series. As a show driven by its strong characters, the worlds around them change to reflect something about them. In an episode about Inara there's nothing wrong with everything taking place in an anachronistic ideal of high society. It's her world, or rather a world that mimics her. At the same time, the wealthy layer of Persephone is also everything Inara is running from. It's cruel, pretentious and hollow, no matter how pretty or polite it is on the surface. It's just a shame we never got the chance to learn more about what specifically drove Inara to the fringes.
Best Moment: The classicist in me adores the dance scene, if only because it's very Pride and Prejudice. Still, Summer Glau's inexplicable cockney routine is just odd enough to be alluring.
Notes: If any of you readers are watching V, how is Morena Baccarin doing in her role on that show?
Episode Rating: 4.5/5- Though the scenes on Serenity in "Shindig" are all interesting in their own way, they still seem like filler. I wish something more important had happened in those moments. Otherwise, it's cool that a sci-fi show managed to do Victorian storytelling without seeming out of place.
Sam Adama, No Not THAT Gay Mafia!
The new Battlestar Galactica has dabbled cautiously with homosexual characters in the past. This kind of rubbed me the wrong way, to tell you the truth. It was so "test the waters" and wishy-washy, and for a show that was otherwise so bold, stark, and unflinchingly human condition-y.
(Let's not pretend that Battlestar Galactica just didn't have time to mention its characters' sexuality. They had time for an entire episode about boxing, for pity's sake!)
Battlestar Galactica had two gay characters (Felix Gaeta and Helena Cain), but their homosexuality only existed in a series of webisodes. Although it was certainly a matter of canon, it's safe to say that a large percentage of Battlestar Galactica viewers never watched either Razor or Faces of the Enemy. More to the point, by shifting the characters' homosexuality into the webisodes, it removed any chance that gay characters might air on the Syfy Channel.
Therefore, it LOOKS as though, having performed a feasibility study and learned that their fan base is accepting of gay characters, Caprica decided to include an "out" character in the main storyline. Yay?
Regardless of their underlying motives, or of any perceived cowardice on the part of network or show executives, Sam Adama is both gay and married (to a man), but that's just a fact about him. It's part of who he is as a person - just like, you know, real life!
Is this the first openly gay character on the Syfy Network? I'm racking my brains and I haven't thought of any others. But I'm sure you'll correct me if I have forgotten someone!
At any rate, Sam Adama (uncle of, and Very Bad Influence on, young Bill Adama) is a progressive character for any genre, network or cable channel. He has even been voted "Gay of the Week" by the folks over at AfterElton.com. (Who by the way recently named perennial Strange Somethings favorite Captain Jack Harkness #1 on their list of the "Top 50 Gay Characters of All Time!")
I think the most interesting thing about all this is that gay marriage is not just legal on Caprica, but apparently also commonplace. As we know, Battlestar Galactica is heavily influenced by the Mormon faith. And as we also know, it was the Mormon church that was in large part responsible for California's Proposition 8 gay marriage take-back debacle. I'm not really sure what to make of that three-step orobourus, but it is somehow fascinating.
Unfortunately, as awesome as all this is, and as awesome as Sam Adama is in the episodes I've watched, I'm just not digging this show. It just goes to show you that interesting and introspective characterization isn't everything, because Caprica is far too ponderous and "getting all the pieces in the right places" long-term chess game-y to keep my attention.
I have tried to watch it, I really have, but my attention slides right off it. I think the DVD release will serve Caprica well, since I often find that problems with glacial plots are often less noticeable when you watch an entire season over a weekend.
(Let's not pretend that Battlestar Galactica just didn't have time to mention its characters' sexuality. They had time for an entire episode about boxing, for pity's sake!)
Battlestar Galactica had two gay characters (Felix Gaeta and Helena Cain), but their homosexuality only existed in a series of webisodes. Although it was certainly a matter of canon, it's safe to say that a large percentage of Battlestar Galactica viewers never watched either Razor or Faces of the Enemy. More to the point, by shifting the characters' homosexuality into the webisodes, it removed any chance that gay characters might air on the Syfy Channel.
Therefore, it LOOKS as though, having performed a feasibility study and learned that their fan base is accepting of gay characters, Caprica decided to include an "out" character in the main storyline. Yay?
Regardless of their underlying motives, or of any perceived cowardice on the part of network or show executives, Sam Adama is both gay and married (to a man), but that's just a fact about him. It's part of who he is as a person - just like, you know, real life!
Is this the first openly gay character on the Syfy Network? I'm racking my brains and I haven't thought of any others. But I'm sure you'll correct me if I have forgotten someone!
At any rate, Sam Adama (uncle of, and Very Bad Influence on, young Bill Adama) is a progressive character for any genre, network or cable channel. He has even been voted "Gay of the Week" by the folks over at AfterElton.com. (Who by the way recently named perennial Strange Somethings favorite Captain Jack Harkness #1 on their list of the "Top 50 Gay Characters of All Time!")
I think the most interesting thing about all this is that gay marriage is not just legal on Caprica, but apparently also commonplace. As we know, Battlestar Galactica is heavily influenced by the Mormon faith. And as we also know, it was the Mormon church that was in large part responsible for California's Proposition 8 gay marriage take-back debacle. I'm not really sure what to make of that three-step orobourus, but it is somehow fascinating.
Unfortunately, as awesome as all this is, and as awesome as Sam Adama is in the episodes I've watched, I'm just not digging this show. It just goes to show you that interesting and introspective characterization isn't everything, because Caprica is far too ponderous and "getting all the pieces in the right places" long-term chess game-y to keep my attention.
I have tried to watch it, I really have, but my attention slides right off it. I think the DVD release will serve Caprica well, since I often find that problems with glacial plots are often less noticeable when you watch an entire season over a weekend.
RIP, Corey Haim
In some ways, the entire world can be divided into two camps: those for whom "The Lost Boys" was (and is) a beloved and seminal film, and those who say "Corey who?"
I am in the first camp, in case you hadn't guessed, and I am saddened at the news of Corey Haim's death by apparent overdose. Haim was exactly the same age as I am, and I had always hoped that he - like me - would have a huge comeback some day. It could have happened! Look at Alec Baldwin, or Neil Patrick Harris! Or, closer to home, Keifer Sutherland.
All this talk of Corey Haim has me mulling over the unanswered (and perhaps unanswerable) question about "The Lost Boys." Is it a movie about the gay experience? Was Sam meant to be a gay teenager only starting to come to grips with his homosexuality?
Ample evidence exists on both sides. If you ask some people, "The Lost Boys" is officially a queer text. Others are shocked at the very insinuation, or startled into silently replaying the movies in their heads in super fast-forward before they respond.
"The Lost Boys" is a battlefield between those two colossi of academic debate: "It's all there in the text if you care to see it," and "you're just reading too much into it."
Here is what we know for sure: The movie was directed by Joel Schumacher, who is openly gay, although he wasn't out at the time he made "The Lost Boys." There is an undeniable chemistry between Kiefer Sutherland and Jason Patric. Homosexual chemistry, or "the regular kind"? (And what is the difference, where does that line get drawn?) The most obvious "clue" is that Corey Haim's character Sam has a poster of Rob Lowe on his bedroom wall, posing in an fashion that one could call "unusually seductive for a straight boy's room."
Although it's tempting to put Sam's wardrobe on the "gay" pile, one has to account for the fashions of the time. Which were, shall we say, considerably more colorful than today's fashionable youths. The same goes for the scene where Sam, taking a bubble bath, sings along to the radio in a falsetto. This can be chalked up to a bit of childish silliness.
The intensity of the relationship between Jason Patric and Kiefer Sutherland is mirrored by that of Corey Haim and Corey Feldman. Recall the early scene where Feldman stalks Haim through the aisles of the comic book store. Certainly Feldman's character is often intense, but doesn't it seem that there's something more going on there?
The smoldering gazes exchanged by the vampire and his intended prey/next immortal pal are part and parcel of the vampire genre. Following territory which had been amply blazed by Anne Rice's vampires by that time, "The Lost Boys" would have seemed odd if it hadn't included homosexual vampire subtext. (Or just plain "text.")
But surely the subtext between the vampire HUNTERS was unusual. In fact, I more often see the opposite - the super-straight vampire hunters defeating the gay vampire threat.
I am in the first camp, in case you hadn't guessed, and I am saddened at the news of Corey Haim's death by apparent overdose. Haim was exactly the same age as I am, and I had always hoped that he - like me - would have a huge comeback some day. It could have happened! Look at Alec Baldwin, or Neil Patrick Harris! Or, closer to home, Keifer Sutherland.
All this talk of Corey Haim has me mulling over the unanswered (and perhaps unanswerable) question about "The Lost Boys." Is it a movie about the gay experience? Was Sam meant to be a gay teenager only starting to come to grips with his homosexuality?
Ample evidence exists on both sides. If you ask some people, "The Lost Boys" is officially a queer text. Others are shocked at the very insinuation, or startled into silently replaying the movies in their heads in super fast-forward before they respond.
"The Lost Boys" is a battlefield between those two colossi of academic debate: "It's all there in the text if you care to see it," and "you're just reading too much into it."
Here is what we know for sure: The movie was directed by Joel Schumacher, who is openly gay, although he wasn't out at the time he made "The Lost Boys." There is an undeniable chemistry between Kiefer Sutherland and Jason Patric. Homosexual chemistry, or "the regular kind"? (And what is the difference, where does that line get drawn?) The most obvious "clue" is that Corey Haim's character Sam has a poster of Rob Lowe on his bedroom wall, posing in an fashion that one could call "unusually seductive for a straight boy's room."
Although it's tempting to put Sam's wardrobe on the "gay" pile, one has to account for the fashions of the time. Which were, shall we say, considerably more colorful than today's fashionable youths. The same goes for the scene where Sam, taking a bubble bath, sings along to the radio in a falsetto. This can be chalked up to a bit of childish silliness.
The intensity of the relationship between Jason Patric and Kiefer Sutherland is mirrored by that of Corey Haim and Corey Feldman. Recall the early scene where Feldman stalks Haim through the aisles of the comic book store. Certainly Feldman's character is often intense, but doesn't it seem that there's something more going on there?
The smoldering gazes exchanged by the vampire and his intended prey/next immortal pal are part and parcel of the vampire genre. Following territory which had been amply blazed by Anne Rice's vampires by that time, "The Lost Boys" would have seemed odd if it hadn't included homosexual vampire subtext. (Or just plain "text.")
But surely the subtext between the vampire HUNTERS was unusual. In fact, I more often see the opposite - the super-straight vampire hunters defeating the gay vampire threat.
Gender in Star Wars
Now that we have identified the only gay Star Wars character, I think it's time to move on to a broader discussion of gender in Star Wars. According to the Wookiepedia, sentient life developed on approximately 20 million planets. Let's be stingy, and say that each planet developed only one sentient biological life form. (Earth, after all, has humans, chimpanzees, and dolphins.) This means that the Star Wars universe consists of 20 million sentient species of biological life form.
Naturally, only a small fraction of these have been explored in the Star Wars universe to date. Many more will be explored and catalogued, as the reading public's appetite for endless spin-off trilogy novels shows no sign of being slaked.
Let's take a tiny fraction of those, and say that 50,000 sentient biological life forms have been mentioned, even second- or third-hand, in every single corner of the canonical Star Wars universe. This includes not only the movies and the books, and the aforementioned spin-off trilogies, but also the many video game universes and role playing games.
50,000 sentient biological life forms sounds like a lot, but it's only 1/400th of the species available to us.
Doesn't it seem a bit odd that out of those 50,000 intelligent biological life forms, all but ten hew to the standard binary male/female pattern of sexual dimorphism? The Wookipedia goes so far as to broadly define the gender terms as "impregnator and gestator," but this is just a semantic game.
It begins to look less like a conspiracy by the heterosexual hegemony and more like a failure of imagination when the Wookiepedia points out that most females have breasts and are smaller, and most males are larger with broad shoulders and deep voices. For all intents and purposes, aliens in the Star Wars universe are just people with funny costumes. Which is understandable in the movies, where special effects cost money. Less understandable in video games and fiction, where words and pixels are cheap.
The non-heterosexual species are:
Naturally, only a small fraction of these have been explored in the Star Wars universe to date. Many more will be explored and catalogued, as the reading public's appetite for endless spin-off trilogy novels shows no sign of being slaked.
Let's take a tiny fraction of those, and say that 50,000 sentient biological life forms have been mentioned, even second- or third-hand, in every single corner of the canonical Star Wars universe. This includes not only the movies and the books, and the aforementioned spin-off trilogies, but also the many video game universes and role playing games.
50,000 sentient biological life forms sounds like a lot, but it's only 1/400th of the species available to us.
Doesn't it seem a bit odd that out of those 50,000 intelligent biological life forms, all but ten hew to the standard binary male/female pattern of sexual dimorphism? The Wookipedia goes so far as to broadly define the gender terms as "impregnator and gestator," but this is just a semantic game.
It begins to look less like a conspiracy by the heterosexual hegemony and more like a failure of imagination when the Wookiepedia points out that most females have breasts and are smaller, and most males are larger with broad shoulders and deep voices. For all intents and purposes, aliens in the Star Wars universe are just people with funny costumes. Which is understandable in the movies, where special effects cost money. Less understandable in video games and fiction, where words and pixels are cheap.
The non-heterosexual species are:
- Hutts (hermaphroditic)
- Pui-ui (hermaphroditic)
- Verpine (hermaphroditic)
- Strills (hermaphroditic)
- Vratix (a gender-changing species with two genders; each individual spends half their life as one gender, and half their life as the other)
- X'Ting (ditto)
- Xi'Dec (an insectoid species with over 180 million different genders)
- Filordi (asexual)
- Fnessian (three genders)
- Rakririans (three genders)
And now we come to the oddest and most interesting part of this discussion: the reason why I have been specifying "biological life forms." Surely no one will question the sentience of C3PO! The Wookipedia entry on gender thoughtfully includes a passage on droids.
I had never thought about droid gender, but clearly some droids have been programmed with distinctly male or distinctly female characteristics. C3PO seems clearly to be male, although R2D2's gender is still up for debate. However, "an official source indicates that the droid has masculine programming."
There are several examples of overtly female droids in the Star Wars universe, as well. I had forgotten about the female droids which attended to Bail Organa, but the official Star Wars databank includes an entry which fairly pants with excitement at the BD-3000 Luxury Droid's "chromed finish, smooth surfaces and eye-pleasing shape."
(Um... ew?)
Juhani: The Only Gay Star Wars Character
You may have missed the dust-up last year when a Bioware forum mod announced (from an official position) that with regards to the words gay and lesbian, "These are terms that do not exist in Star WarsThis happened with regards to Bioware's upcoming release of Star Wars: The Old Republic, an MMORPG now due to be released in spring 2011.
Bioware's forum mod eventually apologized, unlocked the thread, and defused internet outrage. (No doubt after a swift kicking from management.) But even though the original controversy was quickly forgotten, the underlying question remains. Where are the GLBT characters in Star Wars? In a literal universe, which encompasses countless (thousands?) of novels and spin-off properties, surely it defies statistics that every character is straight.
It's no surprise that this is a topic that Star Wars fans have been debating for years. And I suppose it's no surprise that the debate often goes badly, quickly. For all that, there are several characters which are suspected of being gay or bisexual, but whose orientation I was unable to officially confirm.
For example, Moff Sarn Shild said that he had no interest in human females, but what does that really mean? His sexual tastes were simply referred to as being "publicly unacceptable for an Imperial Moff" which could mean anything. He was eventually done in by a female member of the Rebel Alliance, who took a job as his beard, pretending to be his mistress in public.
Moff Sarn Shild may not have been interested in human girls, but he was also certainly not an "out" homosexual character. For all we know, he preferred female aliens. Or amorphous blob races. It's impossible to say.
(I am trying very hard not to make a pun out of "Imperial Moff." You're welcome.)
I also found a rumor that Leonia Tavira (a.k.a. Moff Tavira) was bisexual, but I was unable to find any more information on this. (Not having read any of the X Wing: Rogue Squadron comics.) Several people have mentioned Tavira's bisexuality, but without any quotes or context, this can be considered neither confirmed nor denied.
This is of course all separate from the idea of gender, which is slightly more fluid. The Hutts, for example, are hermaphroditic. Other species have the ability to change genders, or have no gender at all. Topic for another article.
At any rate, there is one character in all of the Star Wars universe who is officially confirmed as being gay. And she happens to be a character in a Bioware game, one which was released a full six years before the Old Republic MMORPG debacle.
Juhani is a playable character in the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, originally released for XBOX and later for PC. Juhani, a Jedi who turns to the dark side, is officially a lesbian, and her romantic sub-plot can only be unlocked by another female character.
And so, Juhani, the only gay Star Wars character, we salute you!
And Bioware, we have to wonder how long it's going to take before you allow a gay male character the same respect.
Bioware's forum mod eventually apologized, unlocked the thread, and defused internet outrage. (No doubt after a swift kicking from management.) But even though the original controversy was quickly forgotten, the underlying question remains. Where are the GLBT characters in Star Wars? In a literal universe, which encompasses countless (thousands?) of novels and spin-off properties, surely it defies statistics that every character is straight.
It's no surprise that this is a topic that Star Wars fans have been debating for years. And I suppose it's no surprise that the debate often goes badly, quickly. For all that, there are several characters which are suspected of being gay or bisexual, but whose orientation I was unable to officially confirm.
For example, Moff Sarn Shild said that he had no interest in human females, but what does that really mean? His sexual tastes were simply referred to as being "publicly unacceptable for an Imperial Moff" which could mean anything. He was eventually done in by a female member of the Rebel Alliance, who took a job as his beard, pretending to be his mistress in public.
Moff Sarn Shild may not have been interested in human girls, but he was also certainly not an "out" homosexual character. For all we know, he preferred female aliens. Or amorphous blob races. It's impossible to say.
(I am trying very hard not to make a pun out of "Imperial Moff." You're welcome.)
I also found a rumor that Leonia Tavira (a.k.a. Moff Tavira) was bisexual, but I was unable to find any more information on this. (Not having read any of the X Wing: Rogue Squadron comics.) Several people have mentioned Tavira's bisexuality, but without any quotes or context, this can be considered neither confirmed nor denied.
This is of course all separate from the idea of gender, which is slightly more fluid. The Hutts, for example, are hermaphroditic. Other species have the ability to change genders, or have no gender at all. Topic for another article.
At any rate, there is one character in all of the Star Wars universe who is officially confirmed as being gay. And she happens to be a character in a Bioware game, one which was released a full six years before the Old Republic MMORPG debacle.
Juhani is a playable character in the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, originally released for XBOX and later for PC. Juhani, a Jedi who turns to the dark side, is officially a lesbian, and her romantic sub-plot can only be unlocked by another female character.
And so, Juhani, the only gay Star Wars character, we salute you!
And Bioware, we have to wonder how long it's going to take before you allow a gay male character the same respect.
Mass Effect 2: Lesbians OK, Gay Men Not OK
Much has been made of the fact that you can customize the gender of your character Commander Shepard in the new game Mass Effect 2. And if your Commander Shepard is female, then you have two choices: you can have a relationship with a male character, or a relationship with a female character. However, male Commander Shepards can ONLY have relationships with female characters.
Why would Bioware allow players to customize everything about their character except allowing for male homosexual relationships? In a recent IGN review, creator Ray Muzyka explained that "it's not a wide-open choice matrix. It's more choice on a tactical level with a pre-defined character. So they're different types of narratives, and that's intentional."
In other words, "because we said so, and we know best, that's why."
The real answer is clear: because lesbians are hot and sexy, and gay male sex is gross. That is, if you're a gamer. According to Bioware. Who clearly intended Mass Effect 2 to allow titillation for male players, but apparently did not consider the thought that some of their players might be female. Or maybe even gay men.
Well of course not! Gay men and women playing video games - don't be ridiculous!
The original Mass Effect created a minor controversy by seeming to allow a bisexual relationship for female characters, but still only allowing heterosexual relationships for male characters. At the time, they explained this away by patiently pointing out that your female character wasn't really sleeping with another female - that other "female" was actually alien, dummies! Okay so it's small and gracile and has breasts and a defined waist and talks with a higher-pitched voice. But that doesn't make it female! It's just… coincidence! That the Asari have breasts!
Dang those aliens, looking so much like human females.
The Mass Effect 2 choices only make sense if you presume a straight male player. Straight males are famously intrigued by the idea of lesbian sex. And they seem plenty willing to play female characters in games, as the stats of any given MMORPG make clear.
However, Bioware stepped in it by not realizing that not all gamers are straight males. What? No, really! And in fact, Mass Effect 2 has become very popular among gamers who are non-white and non-male, because of the ability to customize Commander Shepard's gender and physical appearance. Gamer blog Border House has a long running series called My Commander Shepard which is all about this.
Unfortunately, science fiction continues to lag behind the rest of the world on this kind of subject. Which is saddening, because it has so much potential for doing exactly the opposite. There is quite a lot of gay-positive science fiction out there, but Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 isn't part of that tradition.
How hard would it have been for Bioware to allow male Shepards to form a relationship with another man? Would it have cost them extra, to add that fourth option? What if it was just another alien who happened to have traits which resembled those of male humans, but was still totally an alien, just in case anyone was wondering? Nope, sorry. No can do.
Why would Bioware allow players to customize everything about their character except allowing for male homosexual relationships? In a recent IGN review, creator Ray Muzyka explained that "it's not a wide-open choice matrix. It's more choice on a tactical level with a pre-defined character. So they're different types of narratives, and that's intentional."
In other words, "because we said so, and we know best, that's why."
The real answer is clear: because lesbians are hot and sexy, and gay male sex is gross. That is, if you're a gamer. According to Bioware. Who clearly intended Mass Effect 2 to allow titillation for male players, but apparently did not consider the thought that some of their players might be female. Or maybe even gay men.
Well of course not! Gay men and women playing video games - don't be ridiculous!
The original Mass Effect created a minor controversy by seeming to allow a bisexual relationship for female characters, but still only allowing heterosexual relationships for male characters. At the time, they explained this away by patiently pointing out that your female character wasn't really sleeping with another female - that other "female" was actually alien, dummies! Okay so it's small and gracile and has breasts and a defined waist and talks with a higher-pitched voice. But that doesn't make it female! It's just… coincidence! That the Asari have breasts!
Dang those aliens, looking so much like human females.
The Mass Effect 2 choices only make sense if you presume a straight male player. Straight males are famously intrigued by the idea of lesbian sex. And they seem plenty willing to play female characters in games, as the stats of any given MMORPG make clear.
However, Bioware stepped in it by not realizing that not all gamers are straight males. What? No, really! And in fact, Mass Effect 2 has become very popular among gamers who are non-white and non-male, because of the ability to customize Commander Shepard's gender and physical appearance. Gamer blog Border House has a long running series called My Commander Shepard which is all about this.
Unfortunately, science fiction continues to lag behind the rest of the world on this kind of subject. Which is saddening, because it has so much potential for doing exactly the opposite. There is quite a lot of gay-positive science fiction out there, but Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 isn't part of that tradition.
How hard would it have been for Bioware to allow male Shepards to form a relationship with another man? Would it have cost them extra, to add that fourth option? What if it was just another alien who happened to have traits which resembled those of male humans, but was still totally an alien, just in case anyone was wondering? Nope, sorry. No can do.
SG:U's Ming-Na Makes History
As you may have heard, Asian-American actress Ming-Na (I guess she dropped the Wen at some point) is playing an openly out gay character on Syfy's latest attempt at a flagship science fiction show, Stargate Universe (better known as SG:U). This is great news! And I only wish it was happening on a less problematic show.
You can slice it down to the minutia, but suffice it to say that Ming-Na's Dr. Camille Wray is one of the most prominent lesbian characters in science fiction. (Ming-Na is a sci fi fan herself, and I had to laugh when I saw her correcting her interviewer regarding the sexual orientation of the Kara Thrace Stabuck, who is in fact straight.)
There was a lot of controversy early in the show's short history, when some information slipped that Dr. Wray's body would be possessed by a straight woman, who would use it to have sex with men. This was rightly seen as a violation, and furthermore tread all too near the old saw that any given lesbian just "hasn't been with the right guy yet."
Producers rushed to assure the public that it wasn't like that, and that it had to be seen in context. This thing with the possession of another person's body, it's become quite the discussion point within the show. And in that context, arguably the episode's cross-gender hanky panky is justified.
In a later episode, perhaps to balance out the earlier controversy, Dr. Wray goes home herself (the stranded characters can travel back to Earth briefly with the help of magic stones). Once there, she spends a perfectly respectable evening with her Earth-bound partner (played by 24's Reiko Aylesworth).
Unfortunately, one of science fiction's most prominent lesbian characters is currently entombed on a show which is crushingly dull. SG:U has a fantastic set-up, which is basically "Lost on a space ship instead of an island." It has an amazing cast, which includes Lou Diamond Philips and Robert Carlyle. Its episodes contain plot elements and twists which ought to be breathtaking, but overall the chemistry just isn't there.
One problem is that the characters are so poorly defined. A show with as claustrophobic a set as a single spaceship has to be resolutely character-driven, but SG:U's characters are much of a sameness. In fact, I just tried to watch the episode in which Dr. Wray visits Earth, but I gave up about a third of the way through.
The comparison between SG:U and Lost is an interesting one. Both shows essentially have the same set up (with flashbacks being Lost's version of SG:U's magic traveling stones). And yet, Lost worked hard to build and distinguish its characters from the very beginning. We keep watching Lost not because we find the show to be interesting (often it isn't) but because we want to find out what happens to the characters. You could easily distinguish a random line of dialogue of Jack from that of Hurley after the first episode. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for SG:U.
Maybe it's best that the biggest science fiction lesbian turns out to be boring, just like everyone else. I mean, it could be worse, right?