ok. i'm going to post what i wrote in two parts. i took some paragraphs out for this posting, so my actual papers was much, much longer than what you'll see in the next two posts
Part One:
Amanda Tapping plays Lieutenant Colonel Samantha “Sam” Carter on Stargate SG-1. Not an original character from the movie Stargate, the writers of the show had to give Carter more of an introduction than Jack O’Neill or Daniel Jackson. Her introduction, as Captain Samantha Carter to the man who would become her commanding officer managed to address many stereotypes. The showed premiered in 1997, and currently in 2006 they are working on their 10th season of the show.
O’Neill assumed when General Hammond called her ‘Sam’ that she would be a male. That belief was dispelled quickly when she walked into the room. The visual of this scene speaks more than words sometimes. You can see that at a long table full of people, Carter is the only woman present at the briefing. She’s called out on preferring to be called ‘Sam’ versus ‘Samantha’, the kind of dolls she played with as a kid, and by O’Neill, the fact she is a scientist. Major Kawalsky is surprised to hear that she’s pulled out of simulated bombing runs in an F-16 at 8-plus G’s. She reminds the table of men that while her reproductive organs are in the inside instead of the outside, she can still handle whatever they can handle. And what is a favorite line for a lot of the Stargate fans I know, she even challenges O’Neill to arm wrestle after telling him she flew a hundred hours in enemy airspace during the Gulf War. She was clearly a woman set on making it in the male-dominated world of the Air Force. Her no-nonsense talk endeared her to many, and she has gained quite a loyal fan base over the past 10 years.
Tapping enjoys commenting on the evolution of her character. She’s glad that Sam isn’t on her “feminist soapbox” anymore, and that she is, quite often, saving the day. As the new commander of Stargate Command commented during the episode that saw the return of Carter, “I've read enough of your SG-1 mission reports to know that there were times when no one else but Samantha Carter could have pulled your ass out of the fire.” Before the premiere of season nine, Tapping commented in the Sci-Fi Inside special that she’s going to be getting back to her character’s roots and doing what she does best: being great soldier and a fantastic scientist.
What makes the character of Sam Carter different from the other sci-fi women that came before her is what we get to see of her ‘outside the office’. She strains to have a normal life, much like the rest of us do. She struggles with the issues of family, love and her life outside of her career. She was estranged from her father for the first two years of the series, seeing him for a short period of time when he told her that he had cancer. Her mother died when she was thirteen, a fact that she initially blamed her father for. An Air Force General himself, she followed his footsteps into the Air Force. On the same day he told her that he had cancer, he also told her that he had cleared a spot for her in the NASA training program. Not being able to tell him about the Stargate, she had to decline. The eventual death of her father shook her very much. She and her brother Mark also don’t talk often, but for a time she dated his friend Pete Shanahan.
Another area of ‘Sam outside the office’ that we’ve gotten to see is in the area of her relationships. Now, with Stargate being a show that takes place in an entire galaxy, many of the men that have fallen for her haven’t been from Earth, and most of them also don’t survive long after meeting her. Sam Carter has been deemed a ‘Black Widow’ because of this fact.
Two men have evaded the ‘Black Widow’ curse. The first was her former fiancée, police Detective Pete Shanahan. He was a friend of her brothers, and the two of them became serious. His urge to know about what she was doing led him to follow her one day, and she was forced to tell him what she does. She was in love with him when she said yes to his marriage proposal, but as time went on she became wary of settling down and having a normal life. She broke off the engagement the same day that her father passed away, and presumably never saw him again. Tapping has said on several occasions that she’s not proud of the fact that Sam strung Pete along for as long as she did, but she is proud of the fact that she stopped stringing him along. The second man to survive the curse is Commanding Officer, Jack O’Neill. Their pairing has been the subject of many discussions online, and the relationship has also surfaced on many shows of the nine seasons of Stargate. While regulations kept them apart for the first eight seasons of the show, with Jack O’Neill now in Washington and Carter still in Colorado Springs that problem seems to have resolved itself. The current state of their relationship is unknown.
While she doesn’t have children of her own, on one of SG-1’s first missions, the team encountered a little girl named Cassandra. She was on a planet where everyone else had died, and she went back to Stargate Command with Sam. The two of them bonded, and it devastated Sam when they discovered that Cassie was a human bomb, designed to take out the Stargate, killing many including Cassandra in the process. Sam stayed with her, disobeying orders, even when they thought she was going to die. Since that point, a friend of Sam’s adopted her, and when she died, Sam took over caring for Cassie.
Sam Carter broke the mold for a modern woman in the science fiction genre. She proved that a woman’s role is no longer one of “sidekick” or “damsel in distress.” She has stood up for what she believes in and played with the boys and won, without backing down, without using sex in some way, or not lying, cheating, or sleeping her way to get ahead.
Part One:
Amanda Tapping plays Lieutenant Colonel Samantha “Sam” Carter on Stargate SG-1. Not an original character from the movie Stargate, the writers of the show had to give Carter more of an introduction than Jack O’Neill or Daniel Jackson. Her introduction, as Captain Samantha Carter to the man who would become her commanding officer managed to address many stereotypes. The showed premiered in 1997, and currently in 2006 they are working on their 10th season of the show.
O’Neill assumed when General Hammond called her ‘Sam’ that she would be a male. That belief was dispelled quickly when she walked into the room. The visual of this scene speaks more than words sometimes. You can see that at a long table full of people, Carter is the only woman present at the briefing. She’s called out on preferring to be called ‘Sam’ versus ‘Samantha’, the kind of dolls she played with as a kid, and by O’Neill, the fact she is a scientist. Major Kawalsky is surprised to hear that she’s pulled out of simulated bombing runs in an F-16 at 8-plus G’s. She reminds the table of men that while her reproductive organs are in the inside instead of the outside, she can still handle whatever they can handle. And what is a favorite line for a lot of the Stargate fans I know, she even challenges O’Neill to arm wrestle after telling him she flew a hundred hours in enemy airspace during the Gulf War. She was clearly a woman set on making it in the male-dominated world of the Air Force. Her no-nonsense talk endeared her to many, and she has gained quite a loyal fan base over the past 10 years.
Tapping enjoys commenting on the evolution of her character. She’s glad that Sam isn’t on her “feminist soapbox” anymore, and that she is, quite often, saving the day. As the new commander of Stargate Command commented during the episode that saw the return of Carter, “I've read enough of your SG-1 mission reports to know that there were times when no one else but Samantha Carter could have pulled your ass out of the fire.” Before the premiere of season nine, Tapping commented in the Sci-Fi Inside special that she’s going to be getting back to her character’s roots and doing what she does best: being great soldier and a fantastic scientist.
What makes the character of Sam Carter different from the other sci-fi women that came before her is what we get to see of her ‘outside the office’. She strains to have a normal life, much like the rest of us do. She struggles with the issues of family, love and her life outside of her career. She was estranged from her father for the first two years of the series, seeing him for a short period of time when he told her that he had cancer. Her mother died when she was thirteen, a fact that she initially blamed her father for. An Air Force General himself, she followed his footsteps into the Air Force. On the same day he told her that he had cancer, he also told her that he had cleared a spot for her in the NASA training program. Not being able to tell him about the Stargate, she had to decline. The eventual death of her father shook her very much. She and her brother Mark also don’t talk often, but for a time she dated his friend Pete Shanahan.
Another area of ‘Sam outside the office’ that we’ve gotten to see is in the area of her relationships. Now, with Stargate being a show that takes place in an entire galaxy, many of the men that have fallen for her haven’t been from Earth, and most of them also don’t survive long after meeting her. Sam Carter has been deemed a ‘Black Widow’ because of this fact.
Two men have evaded the ‘Black Widow’ curse. The first was her former fiancée, police Detective Pete Shanahan. He was a friend of her brothers, and the two of them became serious. His urge to know about what she was doing led him to follow her one day, and she was forced to tell him what she does. She was in love with him when she said yes to his marriage proposal, but as time went on she became wary of settling down and having a normal life. She broke off the engagement the same day that her father passed away, and presumably never saw him again. Tapping has said on several occasions that she’s not proud of the fact that Sam strung Pete along for as long as she did, but she is proud of the fact that she stopped stringing him along. The second man to survive the curse is Commanding Officer, Jack O’Neill. Their pairing has been the subject of many discussions online, and the relationship has also surfaced on many shows of the nine seasons of Stargate. While regulations kept them apart for the first eight seasons of the show, with Jack O’Neill now in Washington and Carter still in Colorado Springs that problem seems to have resolved itself. The current state of their relationship is unknown.
While she doesn’t have children of her own, on one of SG-1’s first missions, the team encountered a little girl named Cassandra. She was on a planet where everyone else had died, and she went back to Stargate Command with Sam. The two of them bonded, and it devastated Sam when they discovered that Cassie was a human bomb, designed to take out the Stargate, killing many including Cassandra in the process. Sam stayed with her, disobeying orders, even when they thought she was going to die. Since that point, a friend of Sam’s adopted her, and when she died, Sam took over caring for Cassie.
Sam Carter broke the mold for a modern woman in the science fiction genre. She proved that a woman’s role is no longer one of “sidekick” or “damsel in distress.” She has stood up for what she believes in and played with the boys and won, without backing down, without using sex in some way, or not lying, cheating, or sleeping her way to get ahead.
It's meant to be!
).
Uh oh...thunder, I better log off. Later, I hope! 
Comment