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God, I just, it hit me all over again while watching eps just how much I love this show and how much it feels like every episode was written for me, because it resonates with my mind in a way that very few shows do. It usually frustrates me that I can't enjoy the usual shows other people around me enjoy, sorta in the way that I'm frustrated that I can't think linearly very easily; which is to say that I figured out another way to go about it.
Hence fandom. Though even then, I kinda just drifted fandoms, mostly lurking and not sending feedback.
Until PotC. Until OUaTiM. Until Saiyuki.
(HP doesn't really count because I've never read any of the books.
Yes, I wrote fic based on the fanon alone. ::braces self for skewering::)
And it makes my head tilt because these fandoms not really similar and they span different genres and mediums. Or rather, maybe it's not because I have a Genre that I truly love. I love, really, the sort of a meta-genre, if it could be called a genre at all, of pastiche. It's a type of story within a genre that's both a tribute and a loving parody of the genre itself. (examples would be American Psycho for horror, PotC for pirate movies, Sin City for Film Noir, OUaTiM for spaghetti westerns, and Saiyuki for adventure sagas) I love love love homages that makes fun of itself, that has a sense of humor about itself, that undermines its own genre while at the same time celebrates it.
Pastiche is perhaps, in essence, the crack!fic of the genre. But let me pause here to define crack!fic as I think of it. Because crack!fic doesn't mean bad!fic to me; instead I think of it as good!fic with astonishing qualities. It's "I can't believe that just happened" and "I can't believe that worked". It's subversive and strange, strange because it shouldn't happen and subversive because it uses its own medium to comment on itself. My favorite type of crack!fic is consequently usually simultaneously meta!fic (which, come to think of it, explains RPAS), done with joy and love and insuppressable glee.
So perhaps it's not so surprising that I love SGA.
It is so much so true to its genre that it has, for lack of a better term, wiggle room. It's sorta like my liking slash because it's an exploration of relationships without the difficulties of power dynamics tied to gender, it's sorta like Republicans being able to critique Bush and being more easily believed because they're Republicans, it's sorta like in an experiment controlling the constants while swiveling only one variable.
I adore so much how SGA is a critique on sci-fi genre itself (sci-fi genre itself frequently being a critique on culture and society), while showing it so much love and empathy and fondness. It's a show that knows both it's roots and loves it and comments on it, from the Ancients in Aurora (who we are shown in that ep. is like Star Trek) to the variations of the Prime Directive (Sanctuary, End of Childhood) to the characters themselves. For instance Halling is like a physical comment on his character archetype (Wise Black/American-Indian Shaman), and Sheppard and Teyla are self-contained gender-fucks (see previous meta), and how they sometimes have a character play the part of Sceptical Audience when they do the especially cliched plotlines (like McKay in Sanctuary).
Granted, I think the cliched plot-lines are part of the point. To be able to allow such play in character and themes, to be able to mess with and to critique the genre so much, a show needs some stable structure (some "draw") to allow it to connect with the audience. In SGA's case, it's the sci-fi codes and conventions that they're utterly playing with, and succeeding at playing with, and doing so with such love in a way that utterly facinates me and nevermind the cliched storylines that aren't really the point for me anyways.
Then again, it returns to how SGA so very much feels like it's made for my brain 'cause I personally don't think there's any new story under the sun. Solely-narrative-based plotlines lose me whereas SGA approaches its narrative like a monumental McGuffin and basically said, "Lets mix up characters and themes and turn every cliche inside out, and do it with some salt for the wounds and lime for McKay and DON'T FORGET THE UMBRELLA!"
God, I love my show. ::blissed out::
Hence fandom. Though even then, I kinda just drifted fandoms, mostly lurking and not sending feedback.
Until PotC. Until OUaTiM. Until Saiyuki.
(HP doesn't really count because I've never read any of the books.
Yes, I wrote fic based on the fanon alone. ::braces self for skewering::)
And it makes my head tilt because these fandoms not really similar and they span different genres and mediums. Or rather, maybe it's not because I have a Genre that I truly love. I love, really, the sort of a meta-genre, if it could be called a genre at all, of pastiche. It's a type of story within a genre that's both a tribute and a loving parody of the genre itself. (examples would be American Psycho for horror, PotC for pirate movies, Sin City for Film Noir, OUaTiM for spaghetti westerns, and Saiyuki for adventure sagas) I love love love homages that makes fun of itself, that has a sense of humor about itself, that undermines its own genre while at the same time celebrates it.
Pastiche is perhaps, in essence, the crack!fic of the genre. But let me pause here to define crack!fic as I think of it. Because crack!fic doesn't mean bad!fic to me; instead I think of it as good!fic with astonishing qualities. It's "I can't believe that just happened" and "I can't believe that worked". It's subversive and strange, strange because it shouldn't happen and subversive because it uses its own medium to comment on itself. My favorite type of crack!fic is consequently usually simultaneously meta!fic (which, come to think of it, explains RPAS), done with joy and love and insuppressable glee.
So perhaps it's not so surprising that I love SGA.
It is so much so true to its genre that it has, for lack of a better term, wiggle room. It's sorta like my liking slash because it's an exploration of relationships without the difficulties of power dynamics tied to gender, it's sorta like Republicans being able to critique Bush and being more easily believed because they're Republicans, it's sorta like in an experiment controlling the constants while swiveling only one variable.
I adore so much how SGA is a critique on sci-fi genre itself (sci-fi genre itself frequently being a critique on culture and society), while showing it so much love and empathy and fondness. It's a show that knows both it's roots and loves it and comments on it, from the Ancients in Aurora (who we are shown in that ep. is like Star Trek) to the variations of the Prime Directive (Sanctuary, End of Childhood) to the characters themselves. For instance Halling is like a physical comment on his character archetype (Wise Black/American-Indian Shaman), and Sheppard and Teyla are self-contained gender-fucks (see previous meta), and how they sometimes have a character play the part of Sceptical Audience when they do the especially cliched plotlines (like McKay in Sanctuary).
Granted, I think the cliched plot-lines are part of the point. To be able to allow such play in character and themes, to be able to mess with and to critique the genre so much, a show needs some stable structure (some "draw") to allow it to connect with the audience. In SGA's case, it's the sci-fi codes and conventions that they're utterly playing with, and succeeding at playing with, and doing so with such love in a way that utterly facinates me and nevermind the cliched storylines that aren't really the point for me anyways.
Then again, it returns to how SGA so very much feels like it's made for my brain 'cause I personally don't think there's any new story under the sun. Solely-narrative-based plotlines lose me whereas SGA approaches its narrative like a monumental McGuffin and basically said, "Lets mix up characters and themes and turn every cliche inside out, and do it with some salt for the wounds and lime for McKay and DON'T FORGET THE UMBRELLA!"
God, I love my show. ::blissed out::
Tags:
no subject
You just said everything I would say if I could sit enough to figure out why I like something (and brave enough to adventure into the scary places in my brain).
I love SGA because unlike SG-1, which takes itself seriously, SGA doesn't even when it does without being camp. It's that great mix of self-loathing at the fact that it's a crazy space opera and EVERYONE KNOWS IT and MYGODMYGODWE'REALLGONNADIE!
I mean, Rodney McKay seems to be the favorite character (only by a smidgen, but still, I think he's more popular than John by a hair). I MEAN RODNEY.
Rodney is not Daniel. He's is not OMFGHOTTERTHANHADES, he is not modest, he is not getting it on with alien chicks, he is not dying every season, he's not even being nice half the time!
But he's freak'n awesome and we love him
and want to tie him up in our closets.And hello! Lemme list the fannish wonders:
What more could a girl possibly want from life?
no subject
::nods:: it could so so easily be camp, but it just barely skirts that line, which I think it's all due to the awesomeness of the actors.
Rodney is not Daniel. He's is not OMFGHOTTERTHANHADES, he is not modest, he is not getting it on with alien chicks, he is not dying every season, he's not even being nice half the time!
::nodnodnod:: I really love this conditional competence thing they have going on with SGA. 'cause like, not only do they have character flaws, but these flaws are actually a detriment to their getting the job done at times. Like Sheppard frequently makes things a whole hella lot worse before it gets better or how Weir is really a mediocre leader, part of the problem being that she's trying to lead non-traditionally. And yet they're all brilliant at their jobs in different ways, they just fuck up just as often.
What more could a girl possibly want from life?
SGA, the crack that just keeps on comin' =D
no subject
I love both shows, but I think both deal with heavy, heavy themes and deadly serious situations. Waking the Wraith, and having to deal with them? The Genii? Ford? Death, death, and more death? Not exactly light entertainment. And with practically every new SGA ep, I think anew, "Oh my god, they are really, really fucked, and so is Earth!" Honestly, SGA is far darker on that score.
SG-1 has a *lot* of humor. It's probably less accessible, though, because they're forever referencing stuff from earlier eps and making fun.
no subject
Heavy themes doesn't prevent something from being humorous, and vice versa. I find my own humor tending towards the very very morbid; what I delight in with SGA is that they are fully At One with this morbid humor, they realize The Ridiculous at the same time that they know the heft of The DOOM.
Actually, come to thing of it, yes! ::uses icon:: That, the puppy in this icon! That's my favorite sort of expression, bleakness and comedy, all wrapped up at once. On one level it's perfectly rediculous and quite cute, on another level that's a puppy stuck in a can, probably frightened out of it's mind and leave it there long enough it'll die. That doesn't prevent it from being absolutely hilarious tho.