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lierdumoa ::glomps::
Been rewatching SGA eps for vids.
God. God I say, because I love my show.
And I can't even believe I'm saying that, because I didn't ever think there would be a show or a fandom that fit me so *well* but...dude.
It's the morbid and the horrific and the absurd and the ridiculous, all wrapped up together. And I've said it before how much the show feels like it was made to utterly suit my brain alone, except it suits other people so well too and it's like a call saying, hey, you're not alone.
I'm frankly a little shocked that SGA even exists because it's not only a show about misfits, but it's a misfit show. It's a tv show acting like it's a movie. It's a sci-fi series made along the tempermental lines of NYPDblue. It's on the surface a genre show that, if you look closer, is really all about the characters. It's making fun of sci-fi and critiquing it, while at the same time paying it homage. It's in a genre that's all about "saying something" and "social critique" and instead refusing to say anything at all, only reflecting back a world that is very familiar and almost too close.
It is...space. If that makes any sense. It gives you *space* for your mind.
If it helps to explain, I think SGA is a very post-modern series. Where modernist art is densely filled and opaque to the audience, to force the audience to look closer and to force them to divine the author's meaning, post-modernist art tends to push notice away from the author's intent and the author's subjectivity. It is a space for the *audience's* sake and the audience's subjectivity, and not a place for the author to provide meaning; it is a space for the audience to meditate.
In that regard SGA is not only a "space" but an entire universe for the audience to fill.
I really think that SGA might've only been possible with the Sci-Fi channel; that without BSG and SG1, SGA would not have been made, because the show is not only self-reflexive, but reflecting every which way, on the genre (ie. "Sanctuary"), on the structure of a show (ie. "38 min"), on the structure of playacting (ie. "The Tower"), and perhaps even, if you wish to look at it , on the current political and social and cultural structures that we are all living in (ie. "Suspicion", "The Gift", "Siege II", "Trinity", "Critical Mass"). And it doesn't judge, only reflect. How awesome is that? And how rare?
'cause like, it doesn't present choices like, say, saving 2,000 people versus saving 200 people. It's sort of like that choice, but not quite.
With SGA, instead you get two black boxes. In one box you might save ~200 people (and you don't know how many), in the other box you might also save ~200 people (and you don't know how few), but they are different people. You don't get to know who is in which box. You sometimes get to know if choosing one box might condemn the other. Half of the time, you don't even know if you're choosing a particular box for a positive or negative effect.
THAT, folks, is SGA.
And I don't think I've seen it ever done so consistently and so well in a tv show (instead of a movie) that's popular and that's run for so long, 'cause maintaining that sort of tone is insane if you want an audience. People funding a project back away hella quickly if a show isn't escapist, and I think SGA's saving grace is that it's funny. And really, comedy is needed to cut the morbid, and what's more? Morbid things, are as a whole, often funny and ridiculous and absurd. The best of the horrific is intensely facinating and often comedic, and I'm so glad that SGA's providing essentially a place, also, to laugh.
It's post-modernist in a "Butterfly Effect", the theatrical release, kinda way, where the guy wins and loses simultaneously; instead of the Director's Cut, which is more modernist in intent. It's post-modernist in an "Eternal Sunshine" kinda way, it's we're so fucked, but we'll still give it our all and we're still gonna smile, it's you kinda suck, but I love you anyways, it's forgiveness. It's characters who are trying hard and fucking up immensely and trying again, it's a show deeply aware of it's own flaws and playing off them, it's ...a home made on conflict.
And I resonate to that. Or SGA resonates to me. Or something.
[edit]
::headsmack:: so I realized that I should probably define post-modernism as I understand it and am using it in this entry, 'cause it has a bit of a twisty definition and is always wrapped up with and juxaposed against the concept of modernism. Both of these refer to elements of style and elements of intent; in this entry I'm referring more to intent than to style.
Anyhoo, to understand post-modernism, one sorta have to see it against modernism.
modernist: universal truths, fear/sadness/mourning in the midst of dissolution, subjectivity of the author, order out of chaos, search for the fundamental/stable, knowledge for knowledge's sake
post-modernist: diversity/contradiction of truths, celebration in the midst of dissolution, subjectivity of the audience, chaos out of chaos, acceptance of the provisional/temporary, the application of knowledge
Here is it's wiki entry for post-modernism, the part I'm referring to for SGA is this:
lierdumoa ::glomps::Been rewatching SGA eps for vids.
God. God I say, because I love my show.
And I can't even believe I'm saying that, because I didn't ever think there would be a show or a fandom that fit me so *well* but...dude.
It's the morbid and the horrific and the absurd and the ridiculous, all wrapped up together. And I've said it before how much the show feels like it was made to utterly suit my brain alone, except it suits other people so well too and it's like a call saying, hey, you're not alone.
I'm frankly a little shocked that SGA even exists because it's not only a show about misfits, but it's a misfit show. It's a tv show acting like it's a movie. It's a sci-fi series made along the tempermental lines of NYPDblue. It's on the surface a genre show that, if you look closer, is really all about the characters. It's making fun of sci-fi and critiquing it, while at the same time paying it homage. It's in a genre that's all about "saying something" and "social critique" and instead refusing to say anything at all, only reflecting back a world that is very familiar and almost too close.
It is...space. If that makes any sense. It gives you *space* for your mind.
If it helps to explain, I think SGA is a very post-modern series. Where modernist art is densely filled and opaque to the audience, to force the audience to look closer and to force them to divine the author's meaning, post-modernist art tends to push notice away from the author's intent and the author's subjectivity. It is a space for the *audience's* sake and the audience's subjectivity, and not a place for the author to provide meaning; it is a space for the audience to meditate.
In that regard SGA is not only a "space" but an entire universe for the audience to fill.
I really think that SGA might've only been possible with the Sci-Fi channel; that without BSG and SG1, SGA would not have been made, because the show is not only self-reflexive, but reflecting every which way, on the genre (ie. "Sanctuary"), on the structure of a show (ie. "38 min"), on the structure of playacting (ie. "The Tower"), and perhaps even, if you wish to look at it , on the current political and social and cultural structures that we are all living in (ie. "Suspicion", "The Gift", "Siege II", "Trinity", "Critical Mass"). And it doesn't judge, only reflect. How awesome is that? And how rare?
'cause like, it doesn't present choices like, say, saving 2,000 people versus saving 200 people. It's sort of like that choice, but not quite.
With SGA, instead you get two black boxes. In one box you might save ~200 people (and you don't know how many), in the other box you might also save ~200 people (and you don't know how few), but they are different people. You don't get to know who is in which box. You sometimes get to know if choosing one box might condemn the other. Half of the time, you don't even know if you're choosing a particular box for a positive or negative effect.
THAT, folks, is SGA.
And I don't think I've seen it ever done so consistently and so well in a tv show (instead of a movie) that's popular and that's run for so long, 'cause maintaining that sort of tone is insane if you want an audience. People funding a project back away hella quickly if a show isn't escapist, and I think SGA's saving grace is that it's funny. And really, comedy is needed to cut the morbid, and what's more? Morbid things, are as a whole, often funny and ridiculous and absurd. The best of the horrific is intensely facinating and often comedic, and I'm so glad that SGA's providing essentially a place, also, to laugh.
It's post-modernist in a "Butterfly Effect", the theatrical release, kinda way, where the guy wins and loses simultaneously; instead of the Director's Cut, which is more modernist in intent. It's post-modernist in an "Eternal Sunshine" kinda way, it's we're so fucked, but we'll still give it our all and we're still gonna smile, it's you kinda suck, but I love you anyways, it's forgiveness. It's characters who are trying hard and fucking up immensely and trying again, it's a show deeply aware of it's own flaws and playing off them, it's ...a home made on conflict.
And I resonate to that. Or SGA resonates to me. Or something.
[edit]
::headsmack:: so I realized that I should probably define post-modernism as I understand it and am using it in this entry, 'cause it has a bit of a twisty definition and is always wrapped up with and juxaposed against the concept of modernism. Both of these refer to elements of style and elements of intent; in this entry I'm referring more to intent than to style.
Anyhoo, to understand post-modernism, one sorta have to see it against modernism.
modernist: universal truths, fear/sadness/mourning in the midst of dissolution, subjectivity of the author, order out of chaos, search for the fundamental/stable, knowledge for knowledge's sake
post-modernist: diversity/contradiction of truths, celebration in the midst of dissolution, subjectivity of the audience, chaos out of chaos, acceptance of the provisional/temporary, the application of knowledge
Here is it's wiki entry for post-modernism, the part I'm referring to for SGA is this:
"incredulity toward metanarratives", meaning that in the era of postmodern culture, people have rejected the grand, supposedly universal stories and paradigms such as religion, conventional philosophy, capitalism and gender that have defined culture and behavior in the past, and have instead begun to organize their cultural life around a variety of more local and subcultural ideologies, myths and stories.
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