Battlestar Galactica and the war on terror

We've been catching up on the surprisingly good Battlestar Galactica tv series, and wanted to note this point very quickly: it seems like the most interesting and effective American cultural work about the war on terror so far.

Like most sf and fantasy, it speaks to its time.  And war stories are often consumed for their ability to cross boundaries of particular war or nation.  But this show offers a nearly Law and Order-like "ripped from the headlines" approach, via a thin layer of future war.  It begins with the theme of a sudden, surprise attack on civilians, with undercurrents of 9/11.  This is immediately followed by showing the pressure on civilian society when hurled into militarization, and reconstruction of recent history to understand the traumatic present, along with the launch of expeditions abroad. 

We see the specter of torture, starting with the first season.  Torture appears many times, in fact, during both seasons, playing off the dual nature of Cylon agents (as human, as machine). As with most war stories, dehumanization of the other has a leading role, as does the mirror image of soldiers' close relationship to devices. 

More topically still, for most Americans is the attack by a strange and threatening religion.  The Cylons' belief isn't Islam, but some other monotheism, reflecting not the content of Islam but the disorientiation and fear experienced by many.  At the same time non-alien belief is a constant concern of the show, appearing as comfort, and as problems of the role of religion in public policy and personal ethics, or churches as political players. 

By the second season political factions based on the Cylon war appear, familiar to Americans reflecting on a long war stretching into the future.  A peace movement manifests, along with a hardline "the war isn't being fought hard enough" faction: left and right.

There are also allied issues, tied to the political coalitions involved in fighting the war, like abortion.  Several times the right to die has come up, very quietly, threatening a Terry Schiavo discussion.  The biological and sexual politics of the human body are persistently linked to other policy issues, without a familiar agenda being hammered home (unlike, say, The West Wing).

Through all of this, various factors keep the show looking and feeling like the present day: the low-tech networks, bullets instead of lasers, ship interiors right out of today's airlines and naval vessels, planets like the Earth upon which the scenes are filmed.

Time magazine noted this a few months ago, in praising it:

Galactica (returning in January) is a ripping sci-fi allegory of the war on terror, complete with religious fundamentalists (here, genocidal robots called Cylons), sleeper cells, civil-liberties crackdowns and even a prisoner-torture scandal.

(thanks to Andrew Connell for getting me to see the show)

Comments

[Alana Kumbier]

Hi Bryan -

I've been watching Battlestar Galactica this summer (I was also tipped off by a friend who convinced me to try it out). After seeing your presentation at the Space, Haunting, Discourse conference, I'm seeing many connections between BSG & the networked gothic (or the gothic, generally). So this morning, when I typed "battlestar galactica gothic" into my search engine, I was happy to see you'd written this post!

Are you aware of other critical work in this vein? I'll be on the lookout for more, myself.

[Bryan Alexander]

I haven't seen anything, Alana, but am keeping one eye out.
(Greetings!)