Manpain: I can haz it?

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Someone on my personal flist this morning linked to a really good essay about manpain by thingswithwings. She broke down manpain as being denoted by certain qualities:

1) Imma gonna let you all finish, but my pain is he WORST PAIN OF ALL TIME, yo.
2) The Jesus Complex -- The weight of saving the world rests on my shoulders alone!
3) Woman in the Fridge alert!--She has been sacrificed to nobly give me a storyline

That's a super brief and flippant encapsulation--the entire article is well worth reading (and Dee's death is well covered in it, though surprisingly no mention of Ellen Tigh's fridging)--but it got me to thinking...

Does Starbuck have manpain?

 

I'd argue that, at first, no. But later... hmm. Well, let's take it point by point:

 

1) She has pain from her past absolutely, but she does not really dwell in it so directly as, say, Adama rolling in white paint. (LOL, Someone should vid that to Adele's Rolling in the Deep. I would be so amused.)  She acts out, but the show doesn't make a huge point of letting her brood all that much about it. 

2) Destiny blows, man. We don't really discover Kara's the one who has to save the world until after she's gone (the Razor prophecy?) so she's certainly not dwelling on it much BEFORE her death. But one could argue that Maelstrom is one big expression of the Jesus Complex coming home to roost. She commits suicide because she believes she has to do it for the greater good or to fullfill this mysterious destiny that she doesn't even know what it is!  But again, it doesn't feel indulgent to me. It's not Kara weeping or moaning about her burdens. Er, until we get to Season 4? When we have to suffer through her confusion and pain and fear because no one has a clue what she is/what she's doing? And we just keep hearing WE'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!!!

 

3) Zak...Well, Zak was fridged, right? To give Kara (and Lee) their epic pain that they cannot triumph over? I mean technically he's backstory and doesnt' really figure in the show except for the AOC/YCGHA arc but... not too different from the Dead Little Sister trope. Actually Dead Fiance is a pretty common trope anyway. (Hell, not only does Kara have one, but Lee kind of does too if you count Gianne). So I think this one is sort of a yes!

 

It's an interesting question for exploration. In her essay, TWW says "Generally speaking, though, most women don't fit the trope very well – which is to say, when a female character loses a family member, the camera and the show usually don't dwell on her pain in the same way." She uses Buffy and Sarah Connor as examples, and I think Kara is more frequently identified as/associated with masculinity (although that's a gendered argument in itself) than either of those characters are, but it is still true that the show doesn't exactly dwell on Kara's pain the same way. But it's hard to ignore that the later seasons of BSG took the opportunity to dump so much pain/misery onto Kara at every turn that it practically became an exercise in seeing how well Katee could cry in each episode. 

What are your thoughts? Could you argue for or against Kara having manpain? 

 

And here's a somewhat-related question: Could you argue that Kara was fridged? On leeadama_daily today, there's a post about Kara and Lee's relationship, and the idea is raised there that Kara's story is told from Lee's perspective. And I can easily see how that is true in a lot of episodes, most notably of course the finale. But also, what was The Son Also Rises but a tribute to Lee's (and Adama's and Sam's) manpain over Kara's death? I never really could articulate before exactly why I hate that episode, but now...yeah I think this is pretty much it. Kara's death didn't really belong to her somehow. Bill's squabble with Lee over who loved her more...is that not almost exactly the same as him coming into the morgue after Dee's death and making such an elaborate thunder-stealing show of grief? That episode was not about Kara's life, there was barely any Kara in it to be honest. 

 

Hmm... I could go on and on on this topic I have a feeling, but I curb my thoughts here and ask for yours instead! 
 

 

 

Also--this was a bit teal deer, I know. Not even any pretty pictures. So here's one last (slightly NSFW!) one of Katee on the Sexy Evil Genius set with Michelle Trachtenberg...right before their big makeout scene. Lol: 

 

Comments

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Right, well that's the question. If she's the hero of the story (which I think she is), then does she have heroic manpain? I think she does to some extent but it is not necessarily exhibited the way some of the actual male characters exhibit it. I don't think there's anything bad/good about it. (That's not my argument anyway; TWW's definitely arguing against manpain though.) I was just wondering if her story was being told the same way a male hero's story would be told.

Would you argue that Zak was fridged? Hee. I don't know if that counts because he wasn't technically anything more than backstory. So we didn't have an attachment to him, plus he fueled other people's pain as well, arguably, just as much.

I don't think anyone is arguing that Lee is more developed than Kara. It's actually the opposite. He is less developed, thus a framing device for Kara's storyline in many ways. Sort of like the narrator in the Great Gatsby is for Daisy. I think there are several episodes and smaller scenes where canon did try to sort of situate us in Lee's POV w/r/t Kara's narrative: YCGHA, Kobol's Last Gleaming (the punching scene), Scar (the end mostly), The Captain's Hand (especially!), and most definitely He That Believeth, the wall scene in Islanded, and Daybreak with its flashbacks and Lee's "You will not be forgotten." Lee is the one left standing to carry on Kara's story. Some days I like that, some days I don't.

I think after Kara's death, she kind of stopped telling her own story because they didn't know what her story was. Honestly she didn't have much agency. Even her "finding Earth" was sort of down to her remembering a random childhood song then weirdly deciding to turn it into coordinates. And actually the first time she found Earth it wasn't because of anything Kara did, but because of the shiny vehicle she happened to come back in. (Gah, I am reminded that the execution was really so awful, the more I try to discuss it.)

So I don't think Kara was fridged to serve Lee's story like the way Dualla was...but in a way she was fridged to serve the whole fleet's story? She stopped being a person who could affect change really through anything except coincidence. I guess it's that angel-ghost-pigeon conundrum. Sigh.

[frolicndetour.livejournal.com]

Would you argue that Zak was fridged? Hee.

Yeah, like you I'm not sure whether to count characters who were dead at the start of the series. But I guess in a way it's the ultimate fridging since literally the only purpose of his character is to give other characters angst. But it's not something I would ever be outraged about. I'm still sorting out my thoughts on "manpain" and fridging, because I do think it's actually valid storytelling choice to explore the effect of bereavement on the survivors. So I don't think it's inherently offensive to give a character a dead fiance (or dead parents, etc), and have them come to terms with that as part of their story. Though I do have a huge issue with the kind of storytelling tropes thingswithwings hilighted in her vid. Or at least, the omnipresence of them. So I'm confused.

I haven't read The Great Gatsby since high school, and I know my English teacher hated Daisy and thought the only point of her was how Not Worth It she was, so I'm probably not the best person to have an opinion on this. ;) But I don't know, in all the scenes you mention except Daybreak, I was completely invested in Kara's perspective and seeing things from her point of view. There is the fact that Lee was left to tell her story, which is nice.

I don't know, I think Kara had agency after her resurrection. I just think that after her death, she'd done all that she could do in terms of physical acts of badassary, and fulfilling her destiny was now more of an emotional journey about learning to trust herself and believe in her own ability to be a force for good in the world, and not a cancer. So while she did get a few BAMF moments (like in The Oath), they were more incidental to her larger arc. But because Kara had plently of physical courage and strength from the beginning, I'm more or less okay with that. Which is not to say that the writers couldn't have done a better job tying it all together in a sensical fashion... I just never got the sense that they stopped caring about Kara as a person (so to speak). Like it was never "we have to find Earth, so who can we kill?" It was "something epic has to happen with Kara, how can we make the plot conform to that?"

I think this song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlmcLPACAMk) would be Kara's season four ballad. XD

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Honestly I'm kind of neutral with the manpain thing. I tend to agree it's more of a "heropain" whether the hero is a man or a woman, they just happen to be men more I guess? Eh I dunno. The only time it gets ridiculous is when...it gets ridiculous (see again: Adama, white paint) ;)

Well regardless of whether you like Daisy or not, I'm just talking about the format. Often a scene would start or end with Lee contemplating/observing Kara, which is why it sometimes seem to be framed in his POV to me. Not always, but...often and more so as we got later in the show.

I don't think she necessarily had to do physical feats of bravery, but it was sad to me that her big destiny hinged on circumstance and coincidence really. Even when it was ostensibly about/fueled by her (only Kara knew the song) it wasn't really connected and fleshed out in a satisfying way (why the hell did Kara/Kara's NON-CYLON dad know a cylon song by a musical artist from 2 bazillion years in the future, etc. etc.) I mean really couldn't anyone have remembered the song if we weren't going to actually tie the song to cylonosity in any logical way?
I wish they would have done a better, tighter job with figuring out what Kara's epicness should have entailed.

[winegums.livejournal.com]

I agree with almost everything frolicndetour said, but frankly I never understood the necessity to kill her off in the first place, even though Maelstrom itself is an episode I like. It's like, she can't have epicness without being dead first?

As for S4, I'd be more surprised if she hadn't been freaked out after knowing she's dead. But like you, I just wish they'd found a better way to frame her story instead of going "oh, she had to die after fixing her mommy issues, and then after she's dead fix her daddy issues before she remembered the Bob Dylan song that takes them all to Earth.". I mean, I love Daybreak, Part 2 while I'm watching it because as an emotional experience and an ending to BSG it's nearly perfect for me, but after I turn it off and spend a few days thinking about it, there is major RAGE at the rest of the season for being so lame with Kara.

As for the pov of Kara being seen through Lee's eyes, I wonder if maybe we feel that way because Lee isn't often presented through Kara's eyes in Lee-centric episodes? I mean, there are scenes like the Daybreak Part 2 flashback where she's prepping to meet him for the first time (and also when Zak smashed that glass) , Unfinished Business (esp. the beginning), Sacrifice (esp. the end) etc that IMO have Lee seen through Kara's eyes, so maybe it's the imbalance that makes you notice the Lee's-PoV thing?

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Right, there was no need to kill her because nothing she did when she came back hinged upon her being dead. And they never bothered to explain where she went for those two months/six hours. All she needed was a new viper and a memory of a song apparently.

For me, Execution was just shoddy all thru S4/4.5. Bad storytelling choices all the way through. No forward momentum, info dumps when they finally had to get things rolling, inexplicable happenings (like why her dad would know a cylon song), I could go on and on.

Hmm, I don't think the Daybreak 2 flashbacks really seem like Lee seen through Kara's eyes so much, not in the same way anyway? Or maybe it is just that they were so infrequent/inconsistent that I can't see any pattern there. I do think that by literally placing Kara's story in Lee's hands at the end, for him to be the one that says out loud "you will not be forgotten" they give him some ownership in a way of Kara's story. It certainly sort of sets him up as a narrator of her story going forward even if it wasn't there previously. (Also I thought it was really the lamest of the lame. The biggest most obvious understatement. OF COURSE, Lee won't forget Kara. How could he possibly? She was the love of his life. So it was kind of like "Uh, thanks for that concession, show. Yeah, now I feel better knowing he won't forget her, because I was really worried that would happen." Meh. Not enough for me.

[winegums.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that what would happen is that a scene started out with Kara's POV and then shift and ended with what seemed like Lee's - that's how it ends in Daybreak 2. I mean, look at their final scene, which starts out very clearly in Kara's head with her saying goodbye to Adama/Roslin and holding back tears - it stays with her all through what she's telling Lee (I got the sense that when he turned to talk, she was watching him) until the final moment when the camera shifts away from her for good and then he turns around and sees she's gone. But chances are we'd register it as Lee-POV since the ending is the last thing and all....I'm just guessing here.

As for the "you won't be forgotten" bit, I always thought that was a direct callback to their very first meeting and not actually what it might seem if we didn't have the flashback just before that. It's true, OBVIOUSLY he's never going to forget her, but with those two so much goes unsaid that I don't mind the obvious actually being stated once in a while.

And as for him owning her story and being the one to carry it forward in his memory, honestly I can't see a way past that with a dead protagonist. It's like the Buffy S6 opener, which wasn't about Buffy herself but about how the people she left behind were dealing with her death. Same goes for Bill and Laura, too.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

The pigeon scene and the implication that Kara was a metaphor for the bird or freedom or whatever also was framing her from Lee's POV and that plus the final words really is what lends the idea he is telling her story, I think.

[winegums.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone made sense of the pigeon. Seriously, WTF was that about, since not even Ron Moore's wife seemed to know? I really hate some of these random shits and giggles ideas the writers got.

I'm going with the interpretation that it was the last thing he remembered about the first time he met her and that's all the relevance it ever had, but seriously, WTF was up with that scene? I refuse to believe Kara's a bird that's too stupid to get out when a broom is chasing it!

[winegums.livejournal.com]

I should add - S4 is lame with Kara all through its first half. I had no issues with the foundmycorpse! and mutiny storylines, or even with the acceptance of her own death that she was moving towards in Islanded With A Stream Of Stars onwards, but early S4, with confused and angry Kara, did in some ways feel like a rehash of how she was immediately after New Caprica - cranked up a lot worse.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

There just was no direction, not enough choices being made behind the scenes, you could tell. In some scenes Kara was almost serene, in others she was a raving nutcase, in yet others she was hazy and confused. There was no real thruline for her story. Same with rest of show. In a lot of ways 4.0 was just a huge exercise in time killing/wasting.

[winegums.livejournal.com]

On one hand, I get why she was that way - being mindfrakked with by a Cylon who's taken away even your table knives and is waiting for Stockholm Syndrome to set in, and realizing that you've been dead for two months, are things that would confuse and shock anyone. It makes sense that she would be angry and confused and occasionally lash out.

But, like you said, it did feel like they didn't know quite what to do with her. Which could have been avoided if Ron Moore et al had thought a bit before killing her off. (which is just, again, RAGE-inducing to think about)