racial/american bias in Stargate Atlantis?

[tielan]

It's recently come to my notice that the manner in which 'native races' are portrayed on Stargate is, if not racist, then certainly strongly jingoistic.

This is going to focus on the broader perception of races and how they get portrayed in the show - mostly Atlantis, although SG-1 will be in there, too.

Basically, it seems that the native races of Pegasus are either technologically inept (primitive) or 'the bad guys'.

We have societies like the Athosians, who are still in the 'hunter-gatherer' stage of civilisation, who are on the side of the Atlantis expedition but primitive; and at the other end of the scale, we have societies like the Gennii, who are close to the 'information revolution' stage of civilisation, but are at best wary allies, and at worst, frank enemies.

Then there are the Satedans, who must have had a pretty technologically advanced civilisation before the Wraith took them out - Ronon's weaponry speaks to that - but who don't even get a mention on the 'we could pick over their bones and see if they developed something we haven't' scale. Hell, I don't think anyone's mentioned even asking Ronon if they can take apart his weapons to see how they tick.

Granted, Ronon's likely to look at them and say flatly, 'No,' but the man came from a world that nearly fought back against the Wraith! Just because he doesn't speak much doesn't mean he's a savage. He's probably no more of a savage than any man who comes home from his work, sits down in his lounge chair and can't be prevailed on for more than a grunt or a dozen before dinner, let alone bed.

The episode that's supposed to deal with Ronon's background will be interesting: if only because it took them about 30 episodes to even revisit Teyla's background with the Athosians, and they were relegated to a side plot, a funeral, and some very lovely singing by Rachel Luttrell that had almost no relevance to the plot.

The race issue is another thing that's slowly been coming upon me.

SG1 - Teal'c is the 'native guide' - black, primitive people.
SGA - Teyla is the 'native guide' - mixed race, primitive people.
SGA - Aiden is the 'yes, man' - black
SGA - Ronon is the 'grunt and muscle' - with a polynesian background (? I think - but even if not, the point with Teal'c, Teyla and Aiden still stands)

You know, I'm waiting for the episode where they come across an Asiatic civilisation that's either run like the Japanese samurai or full of Asian crime gangs.

It's a bit worrying, not that there are characters who are relegated to the background and they're non-white(other characters are background, too: Janet, Carson, Zelenka, etc), but that the non-white characters seem to be inevitably relegated to the background in the Stargate universe.

To some degree, I'm sure it's symptomatic of TV shows: white people want to watch white people. Still, I find it disturbing that the nominated 'leaders' of the primitive peoples - and therefore their representatives - are almost always non-white. (Plus, the leaders of the 'white people with civilisation' are evil if their cultures aren't.)

Finally, I'm curious about the fact that the 'jumper driver seat is on the left. Not all civilisations drive on the right-hand side of the road. It's like the assumption that people in the Northern Hemisphere have that birds fly south for the winter, and that things get warmer the further south you go.

Atlantis does not necessarily have to be in the northern hemisphere of its planet. I mean, it very well may be - I haven't studied the shots of the planet all that well. But, coming from the other half of the planet (where Christmas is in summer and we build our houses facing north for the best sun) I think it would be cool to have all the people from up north completely turned around by the fact that the sun's path lies northwards and not south, while the people from the southern hemisphere are all "what are you guys going on about?" While secretly snickering behind their hands.

The idea of a culture that influenced Earth (instead of American-Earth influencing it) is intriguing: but it would have been nice to see some of the standards turned upside down - perceptions changed and rearranged - to make people think.

And if you can sandwich some perception adjustment in between entertainment, I don't think that's entirely a bad thing.

Comments

[saeva.livejournal.com]

Sorry about that, I went to bed! (In fact, I'm only up to check a download.)

I never meant to imply that it does take the issues away, but I did mean to imply that on an oversight level, where I think many of these problems exist, it leads a semi-distinctly U.S. and even more than that Southern Californian bias into these actions. Racism isn't the same everywhere -- there's regional, national, and ethnic variations, which, *laughs*, I'm certain you know -- and so racism (or any bias) cropping up in the executive decisions of a grouping form X country is going to be slightly different from a grouping from Y country. The more people you have from Y country as well as X country, the more likely things are likely to balance out because the biases aren't the same -- they come from different cultural scripts. Does that make sense?

That's why I think a lot of these patterns would be less likely to be actual indicators given that the production is so Canadian-dominated. Not because Canadians can't be or aren't racist but because X's racism -- MGM's -- if it exists is going to be different from Y's racism -- the production team's -- if it exists and the more variation there is the more likely it is, in a fluid group effort like a television show, to "cancel" each other out.

Having said that, I still think there's far too much of a pattern for racism, of whatever stripe, not to be a central issue here. Not the only contributing factor (so few things have one contributing factor), but a major contributing factor. Whether that's the racism of the people involved, the racism of tropes in the genre and shorthand, or the racism inherent in advertisers, executives, and decision makers believing that you can't sell a black John Sheppard to a "white" America, just for example.

(The same way you "can't" sell a black science fiction hero on the cover of a book or you "Can't" sell a female protagonist to a male audience, especially in a fantasy novel. Which is bollocks, but then maybe you really can't because no one bothers to try. Go Capitalism!)

- Andrea.

[lemonbella.livejournal.com]

I too went to bed (I was supposed to go several hours before I did!) *yawn*

I've said in another thread here, that I think there's definitely a self fulfilling phrophecy in a lot of these assumptions and stereotypes. marketing execs assume you can't sell a black sci-fi hero, so they don;t try, so nobody sees it, so there's no audience the next time they ask the question. Having said that, unfortunately their usually is some basis in their assumptions. But a year ago no one would have thought you could market a gay cowboy movie - it takes some more effort, but you can do it.

I don't doubt that racism is there somewhere, I suppose I would question whether it is the dominant paradigm (and we're probably never going to agree on that!). For instance take the McKay issue I mentioned in my original post. Execs were demanding a very different character, pushing for an African American actor (I'm unsure whether that term is an acceptable one or not - it's not one used in UK - so I apologise if it's not) but the producers kept pushing for DH to play the role (and eventually forced their hands by having no one else ready to shoot).

You could say that there was an inverse racism there - a desire to push a black actor regardless of the perception of the role (or their talent) - which to me seems more patronising. I'm not saying black actors are not able to stretch that far, or aren't believable in that role, but that DH is *perfect* for the role. There are very few actors who can pull off that type of thing, so it's not neccessarily caused by a limitation on race, rather a limitation on talent. Why isn't a woman in that role? Because DH is better at it. Why isn't a black person in that role? because DH is better at it. So is it not more plausible to think that they went with the best actor for the role, the actor they knew and trusted, rather than being influenced by racism (deliberate or indirect), at least in that case.

I think there might also be another issue here. Given the type of stories they've told in Atlantis, it might well have created much more of a kerfuffle if they had cast black actors in the roles of McKay(or his equivilent), Sheppard, and Elizabeth - because all three of them have done some morally dubious and non heroic things. I think people would have been up in arms if (black)Sheppard had shot a prisoner, and may have highlighted the race issue as part of their concerns("the black character is cast as less morally centered than the white character"). Of course that indicates that race is something people have to consider in casting, but not always in the way we think.

Okay, I really must do something else but have this debate today!

[saeva.livejournal.com]

Re: the whole casting of blacks (African Americans is the term that most U.S. Americans use but, uh, it's really not accurate. They're not all of African descent and not all A-A are, you know, black.)

Honestly, the only people I've ever personally seen object to black persons having such roles? Were white. POC tend to perceive it as more dynamic and a good sign about what's available *for* POC. A black Sheppard would have been great because it would have been an indication that you could cast a POC in that role, which is a complex role with both moral highs and lows.

Re: DH. I'm not going to argue DH is a fantastic actor. I've been a fan of him since pre-Stargate (appearances on either Stargate). But it comes back to the fact that a) things do not exist in a vacuum and b) patterns exist.

I'm not arguing that individually there might have been reasonable justifications for every single one of these decisions. Individually. There might be justification for making the POC into the more primitive and/or warrior populations; there might be justification for the fact that consistently the more advanced a population is on Stargate the more likely they are to be white (SG-1 actually made point of themselves on this in a S4 episode. Also, a woman with curly hair? Is probably evil); there might be justification that Christopher Judge seemed better for Teal'c and David Hewlett seemed better for McKay (or, rather, that McKay seemed "better" for the show than the Dr. Ingram we know v. little about); there might be justification for... The list goes on.

And in that list going on, you develop a pattern which makes it more than a list of individual traits which could have justification. I think my problem is that you keep pointing to individual reasonings but what's the reasoning for it as a whole? What's the reasoning for the pattern? (You tried to answer this but, honestly, you pointed to "above comments" and all I saw when I looked at those was individual justifications.) I'm a big fan of Occam's Razor for a reason. The simpliest explanation, with the least corrolaries, probably makes the most sense.

- Andrea.

[lemonbella.livejournal.com]

If nothing else this debate teaches how counter-productive collective nouns can be. I desperately want to avoid using POC because to me it just feels wrong, (as did African American) Everyone, with the exception of albinoes, have colour. Anyway, that's beside the point.

I think we really are going to have to agree to disagree. The simpliest explanation, with the least corrolaries, probably makes the most sense. That is the diametric opposite to my way of thinking.

To me there are any number of rationales, stereotypes, personal biases, quirks of circumstance which feed into a single decision and it is the combination of those which has an effect, not just one of those dominating and controlling for all the other variables. When you see that overall situations are a combination of those individual decisions, then the pattern of interaction is even more complex. Yes, that means race can be a contributing factor, but it is by no means the only or the most dominant one in operation. Just because there appears to be a pattern a) doesn't mean it is a significant pattern and b) most importantly, it doesn't automatically mean the pattern is caused by the most obvious variable.