Slate's Bizbox
culturebox: Arts, entertainment, and more.

Battlestar: IraqticaDoes the hit television show support the Iraqi insurgency?

By Spencer Ackerman
Posted Friday, Oct. 13, 2006, at 1:10 PM ET

Warning: This article contains many, many spoilers for the third season of Battlestar: Galactica.

Promotional still. Click to view enlarged image.

It starts with a suicide bombing at the first graduation ceremony for the new security forces. As the occupation official passes through the rows of recruits, pinning their new rank bars onto their uniforms, a nervous policeman bides his time, and then, as she draws closer to him, he whispers to his dead wife—murdered by the occupiers—that he'll see her soon. His thumb presses the detonator, and the ceremony is ripped apart, along with a sense of security and optimism for the occupying power.

If this sounds like Iraq, it should. But it's the season premiere of Battlestar: Galactica, the Sci Fi Channel's acclaimed remake of the kitschy Star Trek also-ran. In its previous two seasons, Battlestar has hinted at war-on-terrorism overtones. The evil Cylon robots have all but eradicated humanity in a nuclear war and chased its remnants to the far reaches of the universe. Humanity's task was to reconstitute civilization under the direst of threats: the all-powerful Cylons, which are capable of mimicking human form and live among the humans—even among the crew of the Battlestar Galactica, the one remaining dreadnought of the human interstellar navy. When the humans discover that one of their lieutenants is a Cylon, she is brutally tortured, thereby evoking the darker side of the war on terror. Like many science-fiction shows before it, BSG concerns itself with the porous membrane between humanity and barbarism. Unlike most of its predecessors, however, it has the benefit of an open-ended, real-life war as its backdrop, making its lessons about barbarism unavoidably resonant.

This year, BSG is going many steps further. Season 2 ended with the Cylon invasion of the new, dusty, human homeworld, New Caprica, and the self-serving capitulation of President Gaius Baltar. The invasion forced the Galactica into space—meaning humanity is without its defenses and possibly without hope. Season 3 finds that hope can be reconstituted through resistance: that is, through insurgency. The American public may be anti-war, but now BSG is going way beyond public sentiment. In unmistakable terms, Battlestar: Galactica is telling viewers that insurgency (like, say, the one in Iraq) might have some moral flaws, such as the whole suicide bombing thing, but is ultimately virtuous and worthy of support. Wow.

There is little end to BSG's Iraq parallels. In the first episode, after the insurgency begins, the Cylon council debates how to respond. One Cylon, disgusted with his colleagues' sentimental fears about losing hearts and minds, bellows, "How did you think the humans would greet us? With—oh, never mind." We know, from Dick Cheney, how to fill in the blank: "With sweets and flowers." The cameras record Cylon occupation raids on unsuspecting human civilians with the night-vision green familiar to any CNN viewer. And the reasoning of the Cylons is horrifically familiar: They would prefer not to be brutal, but they won't accept the failure of a glorious mission.

The show would be intolerably ham-fisted if the Cylons were mere ravenous engines of destruction. But on New Caprica, we see the Cylons justifying their occupation as an attempt to bring a peaceful end to the horrific wars of the past. They seek to enlighten a warlike human race, introducing them to the Cylon monotheistic faith—based on love—that they believe will provide ultimate salvation. In Episode 2, which airs tonight, Cylon Number Three, one of the robotic leaders, has an extended discourse with a human doctor operating on a wounded Cylon. When she suspects him of letting the Cylon suffer, Number Three smears her finger on the doctor's artificial-bloody smock and delivers a brief treatise on racial harmony: "It's a very funny thing. This stuff all looks the same." Can't the humans just see that they have a better option than the destruction of the past? Why can't they accept it? Well, now you know how Iraqis feel about you.

The big question that arises from the first few episodes of this season of BSG is whether the resistance is worth it. For all the show's admirable treatment of the moral complexities and the uncertainties of insurgency, its answer is an unequivocal yes. The Cylons believe themselves to be righteous, but they are monsters. They are infinitely more powerful than the humans, yet live in fear that humanity will "nurse a dream of vengeance down through the years so that one day they could just go out into the stars and hunt the Cylon once more." The Cylons occupy New Caprica, impose their will in place of any elected human leadership, round up and torture those who resist, and then do not understand why the humans refuse to accept their promises of benevolence. It often seems as if the whole motive of the creative talent behind BSG is to make you feel uncomfortable about being an American during the occupation of Iraq.

Whether that's the right point to make about insurgents in Iraq is suspect. There's a reason why even the most strident anti-war voices have stopped far short of defending the Iraqi insurgency. New Capricans debate whether it's acceptable to kill collaborators; Sunni and Shiite insurgents prefer to take power drills to the skulls of their political rivals. However one feels about the occupation, it's no accident that the weaker Iraqi faction typically asks the Americans to stay.

While the moral parallels between Iraq and New Caprica may be strong, is the American public receptive to the lesson? According to a year's worth of polls, the public has turned against the war, largely due to its futility. But there's little evidence to indicate that the public considers the war inherently immoral—and, even if it did, it's still a long jump from there to sympathizing with the insurgents. BSG has many good points to make about barbarism, imperialism, and resistance, and the show's bravery is praiseworthy. But this season, it's charting a course far out into space, and its viewers may not be able to follow.

Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
Spencer Ackerman is an associate editor at The New Republic.
Photograph of Battlestar Galactica by Carole Segal/SCI FI Channel Photo.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES

Remarks from the Fray:

I wholeheartedly disagree that the writers of BSG endorse the Iraqi insurgency. The show's brilliance lies in its refusal to be pinned down to one moral perspective. It may for the moment appear that the show has taken an editorial viewpoint on Iraq, but a plot wrinkle is surely coming that will once again throw the whole thing in question.

Fans will recall that, during the second season, there was another insurgency, led by the terrorist Tom Zarek against President Laura Roslin. The shows writers never passed judgment on him, but it is safe to say that he came across as a villain to most viewers, on the basis of his actions, as viewed in context. During that period, Ronald Moore was being accused of authoritarianism for portraying torture and the killing of civilians as sympathetic, comprehensible acts.

As a defender of this show, it is funny to have to switch gears again. Last year I was defending it from my liberal anti-war friends, now I am defending it from the editors of the New Republic. My advice to Mr. Ackerman is to keep watching the show. Two episodes is not a representative sample.

--Jachita

(To reply, click here.)

Certainly the makers of BSG are drawing on the current world situation. But the ideas being fleshed out are certainly not new. The idea of backing (or even being) the oppressed resistor is not new to the U.S. cinema let alone culture in general.

From "Red Dawn" to "The Patriot", Americans have been taking on the role of terrorist/freedom fighter. In this latest season, BSG seems to harken a bit back to the days of the TV mini-series 'V'. Under an alien occupation that slyly exploits humanitys own weaknesses, the rebels must battle just as much about their own ethics as with the enemy.

I doubt Americans will be too put-off by the show. Most don't seem to particularly care much one way or the other about the Iraq conflict (beyond responding to the occasional poll) and besides, this is what our culture does.

--fozzy

(To reply, click here.)

This has all happened before and it will all happen again. This is the central theme of BSG, that humanity will both doom itself to tragedy and find a way to redeem itself, over and over. Leaders have always done terrible things and justified them, whether ordering committing atrocities or just trying to will those atrocities out of existence. "There has been no torture." Was that Bush or Baltar? Our mistakes, our failings, will come back to haunt us, whether it's creating a slave race of robots or overthrowing inconvenient leaders (remember Mossadegh?). But there's hope, you see. We will muddle through and survive, even if it's just to make the same mistakes all over again.

Iraq is simply the most readily accessible example of this struggle to be good and make things right that most of us have to draw on. Trouble is, our definitions of "good" differ so often.

--HACLA

(To reply, click here.)

I have not seen here or in other essays an explanation of why this portrayal is so far off-base. The episode was largely meant to start a debate by asking hard questions and ruffling some feathers. Blindly condemning suicide bombing and resistance / insurgency movements is an easy task... one can even do it in the comfort of one's home while watching CNN.

But we should, as a society, be able to explain *why* these things are wrong. If we cannot answer with a knee-jerk answer beyond "it is wrong because it is wrong", or "there are things in war you just don't do", then maybe we do need a crash course in morality and critical thinking.

In the premiere, the leader of the resistance justifies that sending out someone with explosives strapped to his chest is no different than sending him out on a suicide mission as a pilot. How do you refute this idea? Would it be justified if it wouldn't injure civilians? What about if someone was planting a bomb, and had to detonate it prematurely to avoid capture? Where is this line in our society?

And how would *you* tell Tigh that he is wrong?

--bma

(To reply, click here.)

Yes, of course, opening season 3 with our heroes under the occupational thumb of the toasters must have some relation to real-world current events. And of course, so does the suicide bombing. But it also seems that the author gives a too-brief reading of the material and draws a too-certain conclusion about the show's political commentary. […]

As a character-centered series, the "who" is as important as the "what." Enter Colonel Tigh, gruff, hot-headed, alcoholic, with a floozy wife who's taken to fraking the enemy to protect him, still recovering from a round of torture wherein he lost an eye. Not the most inspiring heroic figure. Problem is, he's the highest ranking military officer on the planet, and without an working government in place, he's pretty much in charge. Last time he was in charge, he instituted martial law in the fleet (still in space, before landing on New Caprica) and oversaw a supply salvage mission during which marines opened fire on unarmed civilians.

In all, the producers of BG have managed to pull off a pretty impressive stunt: draw on current events for material without engaging in a paint-by-numbers kind of allegorical criticism. There is no President Bush, no Zarqawi, no Allawi, no Chalabi, no Arafat, no Sharon, no Bin Laden. Instead, there is Tigh, Adama, Tyrol, Roslin, Baltar, number 6, number 3, Brother Cavil, etc, none of whom provide a good stand-in for real-life actors on the world political stage. Ackerman might read the "sweets and flowers" allusion as establishing parity, but in formal critical terms, the cylon's refusal to finish the line indicates a rejection of simple analogy. Basically, the writers are saying, we see that path but we're doing our own thing here

--vanya

(To reply, click here.)

(10/15)

Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
Topic A: Obama's Speech
| Pundits and diplomats respond.
Robinson: Sunshine in BerlinToles: Obama the UniterTelnaes: Meanwhile, McCain
PLUS » Stumped: Bring Back Bill Clinton