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
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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!
( Bonus slightly NSFW pic of Katee! )
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