Comments on: Caprica and the ‘Queerness’ of Sam Adama

By: Dreamchain

Dreamchain — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 01:16:02 +0000

Speaking as a queer male, I still can’t help but feel this is an improvement. Queers were pretty much invisible in BSG–you had to download the low-budget webisodes to find out that Gaeta and Hoshi had a relationship, pretty much just so the creators could take the moral high road of claiming to have gay/bi characters without actually having to portray those characters on TV where they might offend someone! I’m a little bit bitter about the fact it’s so much more acceptable to show lesbians on TV, but even those lesbians 1) were in a TV movie, not the regular run of the show, 2) pretty much completely unidentifiable characters, morally. I rolled my eyes the first time I found out Cain was really a lesbian–it didn’t contribute anything to the character and in fact took away from her as a woman, as if, being a woman, she had to have some personal emotional reason to react the way she did to Inviere.

So I understand where you’re coming from. Really, I do. But the fact remains that male and female representations of queerness on television are not in the same place. Lesbian women are on television because they are titillating, but they’re there. Bisexual women on TV are by and large whores, but bisexual men do not exist. You have to begin somewhere on the road to liberation, and simply having queer people THERE–just having them onscreen tells the world that we EXIST, even if the portrayals of us are horrible, 2-dimensional, and utterly contrived.

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 31 May 2010 12:03:46 +0000

LOL, or I could just read the links provided in your story.

Oops.

Thanks again for replying Anita.

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 30 May 2010 11:10:01 +0000

Hi Anita, thanks for replying.
I reckon I have a slightly naive approach to these issues because I tend toward ignoring race, gender or sexual orientation when engaging with people in reality or fiction.
I actually find it frustrating when positive stereotypes are blatantly used for the purpose of ‘balance’.
That’d be a feminist mother and 4 years of Art School making an impact…
I think there are several grades of ‘inclusion’ happening in the media. There’s pure non inclusive, there’s tokenism, there’s ‘socially aware issue of the week’, and there’s the slot I imagine Caprica would use based on their (BSG)track record, which is inclusion and awareness but let’s mess with this character as a person(if Caprica’s anything like BSG, they simply don’t do ‘unflawed’).
If we want equality then the expectation needs to be that the character is true to the dramatic context of the show, rather than to fulfill an external tally book of balance.
Could you give me some examples of villainised fictional homosexuals? It’s a stereotype I’ve missed somehow.

By: Anita

Anita — Sun, 30 May 2010 05:00:16 +0000

Yes, I agree it is the desired outcome to represent various race and sexuality backgrounds as full whole people but until there are an abundance of those characters in mainstream media the few representations we do get tend to lean towards stereotypical and/or villainized. It wouldn’t at all be a problem if Sam Adama was a hitman on television and just happened to also be queer if we had many, many other queer characters on tv who were also pilots, mothers, scientists, cops, artists etc.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 29 May 2010 11:37:02 +0000

Hi,
I’ve been enjoying listening to your Youtube entries and found this one interesting from the idea of ‘balance’.
To preface, I haven’t seen Caprica.
What I found interesting about this discussion is the idea that there is a portrayal of a gay character who’s sexual orientation is incidental in the context of the show, yet seen as negative because that character is capable of(horrific) violence.
The ‘violent gay male’ stereotype isn’t one I’m familiar with. Most gay portrayals I’ve experienced in the media tending toward over the top and physically inept.
So I’m a bit surprised to see an expectation of ‘balance’. Isn’t it the desired outcome that we can portray people of any sexual orientation or ethnicity as an individual beyond those definitions?
I guess the question really should be, is the character’s homosexuality portrayed as a contributor to his negative behaviour?(and depending on the context that could still be regarded as a valid aspect of exploring the character if the violence stems from internal/societal conflict and repression etc. it would be completely depend on how it was handled) Are there other gay characters who are also portrayed negatively?
Asking for a ‘balance’ within the context of a single show seems to work against creating a sophisticated audience to whom the orientation or background of a character might contribute, but doesn’t define the character.

By: JessicaO

JessicaO — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 03:18:21 +0000

My husband & I are waiting for you to do a recap/commentary on how his character has evolved… and hear what you think of the pros/cons.

By: Anita

Anita — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:28:32 +0000

That’s a really good question and I think in the case of Sam Adama, the villianizing of a queer character is not bad in and of itself, it only becomes problematic when there is no counter balance. For example if we had queer characters littered all over our television screens in many different roles: heroic, paternal/maternal, sadistic etc. it wouldn’t matter because it wouldn’t be perpetuating a particular stereotype, marginalized characters would be characters like any other.

In terms of Buffy and Race though, I think that it was just egregious racism most of the time and although marginalized groups have worked damn hard to be represented in the media it’s still highly problematic. Instead of saying is it better or worse to have bad representation then none at all, I’d rather just demand that we improve the quality of the characters and roles for oppressed groups. Tropes and archetypes are recycled through our tv shows and movies because that’s what advertisers think the audience wants. For the billions of dollars they put into psychoanalyzing us they might want to realize that we are getting pretty bored of the same old white heroes and the same old evil marginalized folks.

Obviously the writers of Caprica have thought about the representations of queer people within the series, and they probably think they are being progressive, but unless Sam Adama’s character breaks out of the Evil Queer trope, they are just perpetuating decades of heteronormative representation.

Did I go off on a tangent? Oops.

By: julia

julia — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:31:02 +0000

What also bothers me about this recurring trope is that it as well as other displays of ‘liberal’ attitudes (i.e.: women’s empowerment, complex race relations, happy social-ist endings, etc.) is used as an excuse to paint Hollywood/entertainment as ‘progressive’. As in…Oh look–they put in a character who isn’t straight, damn hippies!

But of course this is easily deconstructed in so many ways, perhaps the first being that Sam Adama, as you’ve shown him in your vlog, still performs within overtly masculine categories. Is this a ploy to make queerness a more acceptable character trait? Are there other queer male characters on the show who display different forms of gendered activity?

As you know, I’m generally with you–I don’t like being too critical of shows that have good writing, complex characters, confront social issues, etc. However, I don’t think simply putting complex characters into a script can excuse heteronormativity or gender normativity.

Out of curiosity, do you think that displaying female/queer/non-white/disabled/poor/etc. characters as morally objectionable is better, worse, or the same as ignoring these structures completely (i.e.: Buffy and race)?