That said, the "face" of SGA is still one military guy, one science guy, and two indigenous people who happen to be non-white. That does a lot better than Friends, doesn't it? Because hey, there are no Black people in New York City.
Nope, all the Black people in Friends live in Brooklyn ;)
And I think it's really the writing more than the casting that's telling. Stargate, and *particularly* Atlantis, is about applying American doctrines to *other galaxies*. If it seems racist/condescending/practical, then one might want to look at the last 125 years of American foreign policy.
This is a point I'd love to see explored further because unlike print sci-fi, sci-fi on TV is way more like current stuff you see in the news. Or at least if feels like that to me.
I guess for me the casting remains important because I want to see this range of experiences and lives (warts and all) and not be given the same old same old over and over again.
It makes people uncomfortable to watch things like "Michael" when hi, Tuskegee Airmen experiments. Or trading arms for resources, when hi, every single proxy war in the Cold War era. Or the four-man teams traipsing in on their high horses, armed to the teeth, when hi, American imperialism in Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and shall I keep going across the Pacific rim?
Yeah, the dodginess of what they're doing in the Pegasus Galaxy never ceases to amaze me. I don't know if I'd see it as subversive as I would see it as practical. In a way, having Atlantis so far away from Earth means you can't ignore this stuff in the way that we often do in RL because the impact is direct and comes back to bite you in the tuchus much faster.
It is desperately important to put that out there -- to put real consequences in front of art-imitating-life policy -- because Americans as a whole just don't get what their effect on the world is. They are never -there- for first contact. For a vast segment of the population, leaving their home state might as well be stepping through a Stargate.
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Nope, all the Black people in Friends live in Brooklyn ;)
And I think it's really the writing more than the casting that's telling. Stargate, and *particularly* Atlantis, is about applying American doctrines to *other galaxies*. If it seems racist/condescending/practical, then one might want to look at the last 125 years of American foreign policy.
This is a point I'd love to see explored further because unlike print sci-fi, sci-fi on TV is way more like current stuff you see in the news. Or at least if feels like that to me.
I guess for me the casting remains important because I want to see this range of experiences and lives (warts and all) and not be given the same old same old over and over again.
It makes people uncomfortable to watch things like "Michael" when hi, Tuskegee Airmen experiments. Or trading arms for resources, when hi, every single proxy war in the Cold War era. Or the four-man teams traipsing in on their high horses, armed to the teeth, when hi, American imperialism in Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and shall I keep going across the Pacific rim?
Yeah, the dodginess of what they're doing in the Pegasus Galaxy never ceases to amaze me. I don't know if I'd see it as subversive as I would see it as practical. In a way, having Atlantis so far away from Earth means you can't ignore this stuff in the way that we often do in RL because the impact is direct and comes back to bite you in the tuchus much faster.
It is desperately important to put that out there -- to put real consequences in front of art-imitating-life policy -- because Americans as a whole just don't get what their effect on the world is. They are never -there- for first contact. For a vast segment of the population, leaving their home state might as well be stepping through a Stargate.
So very, very true.