S10: Critique & Contemplation

[Jackie]

what is so sad is that sexism is so prevasive that people don't even see it. I've said before, had Lt COlonel Samuel CArter, an african american male, been transfered away then back and demoted to serve equal to or under the less qualified white male, there would have been an outcry. society is sensitive to racial bias but are still blind to gender bias

has been for a very long time....a little known fact is there was a women's air force program that was the equivalent to the Tuskegee Airmen. It was called WASP.

Unlike the men, these women had to pay their own way, made 35% less then the males and were not considered real veterans till Jimmy Carter signed a bill acknowledging their war efforts in ww2.

The women's WASP and WAFS programs were considered to be an experiment to see if women could fly airplanes as well as men. Obviously we can...unlike the Tuskegee Airmen, these girls were not just considered not as smart as white males but also weaker. The program, set forth with AAF standards proved all those misconceptions wrong.

One of the last things the girls of WASP did before being disbanded was PROVE to the male pilots that a B-29 super fortress was SAFE to fly. The men refused to fly it when it came off the assembly line becuase it was...too big. They feared the plane would fall apart due to it's weight.

4 women took the plane up, preformed outmaneuvers to prove to our male pilots the plane was safe to fly. The very plane model we dropped the A-bomb from.

The program was about to expand to allow a women's air force when the male pilots returning from the war began to fear they would lose their jobs to the women. They lobbied congress to disband the program in 1945. Eventually women were allowed in the all male air force and given support roles.

To this very day...we don't have any woman combat fighters in the air force. The women in the armed forces are still reduced to support roles even today.

Someone like colonel carter was a huge step for representing women in combat. And the very first thing this male run dominated show did was reduce her to a support role.

[Nolamom]

society is sensitive to racial bias but are still blind to gender bias

that is so painfully true. Women had to fight for the right to vote, fight for a *semblance* of equal pay, and they are still disregarded and disrespected in insidious ways. Leadership roles are one of the ways women are routinely cut off at the knees. Particularly on television.

From Joe's blog: this should get some people talking...

There are a lot of very untalented people who continue to work because they are either very lucky or well-connected

[mapsc]

When RCC became showrunner in S7, he inherited 2 strong female characters. Sam and Janet.

S7: Janet is killed off. Sam gets a new arc(Pete).
S8: Sam becomes SG1 leader by default. RCC almost totally ignores it.
S9: Sam is written out as SG1 leader and wallpapered. Vala added as heavily featured recurring character.
S10: Vala added full-time. Plan to reduce Sam to recurring Ship Commander is foiled. Wallpaper!Sam continues.

Mike

[Skydiver]

friends of friends

it's a way of life

I work in a state agency and it ain't what you know but who. beyond a certain level that is. If you don't have the 'right' friends, you'll never get very high in the ranks unless you're really, really good. and then your rise is usually so that you can cover for a friend of a friend who's been promoted beyond his level of incompetance.

coop and the boys have a very sexist view and that's what's been pushed into the show. sexpot vala, sam is 'useless' unless they have a guy to attach her to. women are to be properly in thier place, silent and submissive and there only to enable and aid the true male star of the show.

oh, and a female just CAN'T be the STAR!!!!!!!!!! who would watcha show with a woman in the lead??? can't have that. must be a male.

even on atlantis, weir and teyla are just there to faciliate the male/male buddy hour and, for a good chunk of season four, sam was just there too.

they have thier own vala now in the form of larrin, sexy allien to play to shep

woman in thy place must be a motto posted on the wall at bridge studios and 'equal treatment' seems to have walked out the door with gekko

[Jackie]

When RCC became showrunner in S7, he inherited 2 strong female characters. Sam and Janet.

S7: Janet is killed off. Sam gets a new arc(Pete).
S8: Sam becomes SG1 leader by default. RCC almost totally ignores it.
S9: Sam is written out as SG1 leader and wallpapered. Vala added as heavily featured recurring character.
S10: Vala added full-time. Plan to reduce Sam to recurring Ship Commander is foiled. Wallpaper!Sam continues.

Mike

Sam was eventually replaced with Vala.

Vala is not a strong female lead character. She is the 'fun' and easy to write for character that is an immature flirt.

That would have been okay of Vala actually grew up in the series but by Unending the character was still a childish flirt. I'm sure CB had a great time playing Vala...but then again...anyone could play Vala.

The character's development from non trustworthy thief to outstanding citizen over night was just a slap in the face and then taking the spotlight even more away from Sam, who was the strong female lead was just adding salt to the wound.

So Vala became the embodiment of everything the women's rights movement stood against. Vala is the tramp, flirt, childish, untrustworhty, whorette,...who merely enforces every bad clich'e about women upon the target demographic and the the young and impressionable girls who are fans of the show.

I have never read a post stating: Sam is so cool...she looks great in the pigtails or Sam is cool looking in those hip huggers. Or how about Sam just cracks me up, she is sooo funny and sooo smart and I wish I could be like that.

Vala is fun but far from a role model.

Sam was a wonderful role model but I guess she just isn't as flirty and fun and Vala.

[ReganX]

oh, and a female just CAN'T be the STAR!!!!!!!!!! who would watcha show with a woman in the lead??? can't have that. must be a male.

Wouldn't shows like "Buffy", "Xena", "Charmed" and "Voyager" have kicked Stargate's butt as far as ratings were concerned? Even in its last season, "Charmed" was averaging about 3.5 million viewers, well above anything Seasons Nine and Ten of Stargate have managed.

Having female leads - in some cases, multiple female leads, don't seem to have slowed these shows down too much.

[LaCroix]

Wouldn't shows like "Buffy", "Xena", "Charmed" and "Voyager" have kicked Stargate's butt as far as ratings were concerned? Even in its last season, "Charmed" was averaging about 3.5 million viewers, well above anything Seasons Nine and Ten of Stargate have managed.

Having female leads - in some cases, multiple female leads, don't seem to have slowed these shows down too much.

I also agree. And although not sci-fi related there's a show that I started to watch last year called Army Wives where the leads are women. Also if you look at The Closer and Saving Grace where the ratings have been extremely
good.

[jckfan55]

I can't remember any other TV series that pissed me off as much as Stargate SG-1 did when they wrote Carter out of command and gave it to a new incoming Male Lead.

I'm still offended and pissed off about it.

I am too. as are others--explaining why this thread still lives.

That Stargate's PTB did such a horrendous job with the rest of the show throught Seasons 9 & 10 only served to verify the horror.-----------

I also can't get over how they took a team of 4, the original SG-1, a group that I envisioned would have grown to deeply care about each other, with bonds forged through the amazing trials and struggles that they'd worked lived through over the years... they took this wonderful team of 4, and somehow carelessly ripped it apart at the beginning of Season 9.
At the end of Season 8, they are all at Jack's cabin. Fishing and spending down-time relaxing. Jack, Daniel, Sam and Teal'c.

At the beginning of Season 9, this close group of 4 has separated completely. None of them are together in any fashion. As if the last 8 years - eh! Who cares? Off they go to their separate lives. I didn't expect that the 4 of them would move in together and spend the rest of their lives in each others' back-pockets, but there's no way I envisioned that they'd simply walk away from each other so effectively. The way that was written and played out made the original 4 appear that they didn't truly care for each other as much as I had thought.

Just taking a piece of your excellent post astrogeo.
Casually ripping them apart says it so well. That was so clearly shown when Sam came back with barely an acknowledgment. And that lame excuse for why she was away was terrible. Area 51? Cassie "going through a rough time" whatever that was. They couldn't even be troubled to write a reasonable explanation for the absence they *knew* would be coming way ahead of time.
They go from being SG1--a special bond of 8 years--to *completely* going their separate ways in a matter of months? A regular military team maybe, but SG1 was extraordinary. Then when they do get together, Daniel's had a personality transplant & basically doesn't care about his team mates.
Grrr.

[Skydiver]

you will notice....none of those shows were on scifi

skiffy is 'advising' and the shows on skiffy are very much 'woman in thy place'

must have the white male action hewo to save the day after all

[RealmOfX]

what is so sad is that sexism is so prevasive that people don't even see it. I've said before, had Lt COlonel Samuel CArter, an african american male, been transfered away then back and demoted to serve equal to or under the less qualified white male, there would have been an outcry. society is sensitive to racial bias but are still blind to gender bias

And another aspect of the sexism is that anyone who dares to comment on it is instantly labelled as a person who has issues or are a raving, nazi feminist or some other derogatory term. Instead of addressing the concerns they attack the person raising them.

<snipping some really good information for space>

To this very day...we don't have any woman combat fighters in the air force. The women in the armed forces are still reduced to support roles even today.

Not quite true, there are female fighter pilots now. I think there have been since the Combat Exclusion Law was repealed in 1993 (I think). I vaguely recall the figure of something like 46 females out of about 2,000 pilots but I'm not sure how current those figures are. It is changing but very, very slowly

Someone like colonel carter was a huge step for representing women in combat. And the very first thing this male run dominated show did was reduce her to a support role.

Yep, strange how the decline of the strong female characters coincides with the ascent to power of RCC

[Skydiver]

that's a common tactic.

for example, amongst SOME, say 'i don't like slash fic' and all of a sudden you're a homophobe. But, if the same people that are calling you names decry that het ship is icky, don't you DARE to call them a heterophobe...cause they can't take it when the shoe is on the other foot.

it's them to call you names but you can't do the same.

I don't like how the show portrays female characters, and haven't since gekko left. IMHO, the only reason sam has retained as much strength as she has is because she was just too entrenched for coop to totally destroy.

but he did give it a mighty effort

[astrogeologist]

that's a common tactic.

for example, amongst SOME, say 'i don't like slash fic' and all of a sudden you're a homophobe. But, if the same people that are calling you names decry that het ship is icky, don't you DARE to call them a heterophobe...cause they can't take it when the shoe is on the other foot.

it's them to call you names but you can't do the same.

I don't like how the show portrays female characters, and haven't since gekko left. IMHO, the only reason sam has retained as much strength as she has is because she was just too entrenched for coop to totally destroy.

but he did give it a mighty effort

Personally, I think all 4 of the original characters were so altered by the end of Season 10, that it was galling... then add in horrible new characters shoved down the viewers' throats... and I think someone had character assassination as their actual main objective.

And the gender bias and stereotyping in the last few seasons was hideous. They somehow managed to *not* get so involved in it in the early years. When they had Carter initially written as spending her down-time pottering in the garden (like a good little woman), someone had the good sense to change that to Carter working on her motorcycle (of course, I think they still made sure that Siler, a male, was there to help... because a good little female wouldn't no nuthin' 'bout no manly motorcycles... even if she can rewire the Stargate). They weren't great or perfect in the early years, but they were hideous and horrible in the last few seasons when it came to female stereotypes.

[pittsburghgirl]

kind of like one of the dictates from Animal Farm-

"All animals are created equal, except that some are more equal than others."

[ReganX]

And another aspect of the sexism is that anyone who dares to comment on it is instantly labelled as a person who has issues or are a raving, nazi feminist or some other derogatory term. Instead of addressing the concerns they attack the person raising them.

Because they don't want to address the concerns, or to acknowledge that the other person has a point.

[BPC]

that's a common tactic.

snip I don't like how the show portrays female characters, and haven't since gekko left. IMHO, the only reason sam has retained as much strength as she has is because she was just too entrenched for coop to totally destroy.

but he did give it a mighty effort

I agree totally. Mr. Cooper did try very hard to wreck Sam's character and he came close (too close) to succeeding. I only hope beyond hope that Brad Wrights's movie Continuum fixes some of this (at least I hear Sam gets to

Spoiler:

fly one of the F-16s as opposed to just being backseated to puff-boy

and for gosh sakes I hope she is in charge and not Mitchell I hear good things about Brad and think he gets it and will try to set things right (no pun intended - ha) again and not throw it in our face like the command of the Odyssey crapola-fest I hear is in Ark (won't spend a dime on that double-episode of Ori crap). Mitchell is such a putz and loser and certainly wasn't handled right at all by the writers, producers and especially the show runner.