Session 8: Future Humans in Contemporary Film and TV Production I.

5th Global Conference

Sunday 11th July 2010 – Tuesday 13th July 2010
Mansfield College, Oxford

“Enemy Metaphors” and the Countdown for Mankind in the American TV Series “Space: Above and Beyond” (1995-1996) and “Battlestar Galactica” (2003-2009)
Petra Rehling
English Department, Dayeh University, Dacun, Changhua, Taiwan

Nearly ten years lie between these two American television series, “Space: Above and Beyond” (S:AAB), a show which was cancelled after one season, and the highly acclaimed “Battlestar Galactica” (BG), an extremely political drama and product of the Bush administration period. This paper analyses how both shows are connected to reality and how they are dealing with visions of humanity and the intensity of human emotions in times of war and inner crisis in a highly militarized and technological environment. While the humans in S:AAB are facing a totally alien and hostile life form, the enemy in BG was created by mankind itself. These sentient AIs turn out to be the mirror-image of humanity at its worst; they have chosen to remodel themselves in the image of their makers in what looks like an attempt to infiltrate and destroy the rest of humankind. In the stand-off between humans and enemy fractions, the alien “other” in S:AAB or the Cylons (“toasters”) in BG, both sides are reaching to justify their own survival and for reasons to commit genocide. In S:AAB, the treatment of In Vitros (“tanks”), genetically engineered humans, symbolizes a first level in the alienation of humankind from other life forms and, as it were, from its own humanity, which then culminates in the wars against the Silicates (AIs) and the “chigs.” While first peace talks with the adversary in S:AAB end in disaster, the conflict in BG is eventually resolved and humankind – “lesson learned” – discards its technological heritage to return to a life in nature, only to begin a new cycle of slow “de-humanization.” BG is about mankind’s journey to (re-)discover its humanity and the struggle with itself after a catastrophe, but it is also about the Cylons’ quest to self-definition; two journeys which, as it turns out, have the same destination. In both shows the fight is as much with the enemy outside as it is with the enemy inside, the loss or the gain of what it means to be human.

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‘“The Cylons Didn’t Ask What You Want”: Battlestar Galactica and the Anxiety of (Human) Obsolescence’
Kim Middleton and Kelly Meyer
The College of Saint Rose, Albany, New York, USA

To date, critical response to Ron Moore and David Eick’s Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009) has fallen predominantly into one of two camps: that of traditional critique, in which content is interrogated for aesthetic and/or ideological implications, and that of “convergence culture analysis”, in which the effects of contemporary technologies (especially with regards to content delivery and audience participation) are investigated and assessed. Emblematic of the former are essays on identity, post-humanism, and religious belief in the two book-length collections devoted to the series (Potter 2007, Eberl 2008), and characteristic of the latter are recent studies of transmedia narrative, piracy, and fan production (e.g., Tom Abba, Mark Pesce, Suzanne Scott).

In this paper, we seek to unite the two tendencies sketched out above. Drawing on arguments made by Kathleen Fitzpatrick (The Anxiety of Obsolescence, 2006), we begin by noting an historical trend in literary narratives—one in which novelists attempt to justify their claim to cultural dominance by positioning themselves as “defenders of humanism” vis-à-vis techno-culture and/or “the machine”. We contend that this dynamic often reappears within the contemporary “New Golden Age of TV”, and that SyFy’s Battlestar Galactica functions as its veritable sine qua non: Galactica’s deep sense of ambivalence regarding the interpenetration of human and machine provides a compelling vision of humanity’s own anxiety of obsolescence.

In order to make our case, we discuss the ways in which the Cylons represent the inherent threat of human-created technological systems. Their newest manifestation consists of an organic body with a networked, infinitely downloadable set of identities capable of engineering a war with humanity. Their “surprise attack” on the Colonies annihilates the majority of the human race, and, as many have noted, the few who survive are indebted to the Luddite nature of Commander Adama (who refuses to allow shipboard computers to be “linked into a network”). In the pilot episode, then, human-created technological complexity returns, as it were, “with a vengeance”, and, in so doing, compels a rag-tag fugitive fleet to search for the mythical planet Earth—the fantasy of a new Eden/promised land of human origin.

Though the series begins with a clear dichotomy between heroic humans and genocidal machines, however, it soon moves to complicate this distinction. The romantic/Adamic impulse is to flee, yet Moore and Eick consistently show how humanity is hounded by the technology it has created. More, images of human/Cylon miscegenation and uneasy political alliances continually undercut the desired “turn away from technology”; in the end, humanity must accept this “alienated” aspect of itself in order to survive. Indeed, as the series draws to a close, it becomes clear that the human/Cylon hybrid will be the genetic foremother of the entire race.

The strength of the series, we conclude, lies in the sophistication with which it depicts, theorizes, and at least attempts to reconcile these two conflicting (and perennial) tendencies of American culture. Its weakness, however, is made manifest in the final episodes, where Battlestar Galactica suddenly retrenches to atavistic fears of human obsolescence: though everything about the five-year narrative suggests rapprochement between humanity and technology, mankind ultimately elects to abandon its technical sophistication in favor of a vitiated and unconvincing pastoralism. This hollow finale–which disappointed both fans and critics–is significant, for it reflects both the tenacity of “human obsolescence anxiety” (with writers/producers), and the growing impatience with such anxieties (among viewers/consumers).

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The Quest for Closure: Re-visioning Humanity in Battlestar Galactica
Dagmara Zając
Jagiellonian University, Poland

According to Russell Reising, no social text can resolve in its imaginative work the various crises and tensions that characterize the world of its genesis. The paper examines the numerous narrative slips and loose ends that one may encounter while watching one of the most original and provocative sci-fi series of our time, which is Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica. The series is frequently described as controversial in that it upends some of science-fiction’s most recognizable clichés: the supposedly evil Cylon androids are principled and deeply religious, whereas most humans – including the figures of authority – emerge as fallible and often dishonest. Throughout the four airing seasons, the story abounds in unresolved mysteries, inconclusive episode endings and loose ends. Some developments in the storyline might be described as downright illogical; what is more, the ending lacks closure which would satisfy the disturbed viewer. I want to argue that this particular inability to close results from the series trying to confront the problem of the very survival of the human race in the post-industrial, or even post-humanistic era. I believe that there is a profound sense of anxiety inspiring this disruptive story, and for that reason alone it simply cannot close. It seems impossible to merely assume that Galactica’s quest is the quest for redemption: if the humans are being punished for going too far in the field of science and technology, why do the Cylon androids seem so very human? When our own creations turn against us and there is no place to go, there is a need to revise the most basic assumptions for our existence as a species. The paper presents how Battlestar Galactica attempts to place humanity in this entirely new and unprecedented context.