Hey all, I promise this will be my last longform essay for a bit. I've been aching to write about Battlestar Galactica since the first time I watched it. Below are some musings on the role of Edward James Olmos as actor and director on the show.
Battlestar Galactica as a Human
Rights Narrative
In 2003, Ronald D. Moore rebooted the 1970s
television series Battlestar Galactica
with Edward James Olmos in the star role. Unlike the campy Star Wars-inspired original, post-9/11 politics directly motivated
the reboot as Moore and the cast, particularly Olmos, sought to explore human
rights through a violent division between human and nonhuman (Woerner). While
one could criticize the show for being post-racial, the discussion is shifted
to human rights as humanity and the human-looking robots called Cylons attempt
genocide against each other. Space might seem borderless, but a key image from
season one remains the border between human and Cylon planets, and destruction
of that border sparks war. By delineating human and Clyon spaces with a border,
the line also decides who is human, thus uniting popular culture studies and
human rights through the explorative lens of science fiction. While the entire
series is beyond the scope of this paper, I apply James Dawes’ human rights
subgenre theory to a close analysis of Olmos’ directorial debut on the show,
“Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down” (2004). The popular culture nature of the show might
seem dichotomous to human rights theory, but the 2009 presentation by the
showrunners and actors, including Olmos, at the UN to discuss human rights
suggest the cultural importance of Battlestar
Galactica (Woerner).
When the reboot first aired with a
miniseries in 2003, Edward James Olmos had a storied career ranging from his
Oscar-nominated performance in Stand and
Deliver (1988) to a starring role in Miami
Vice (1984-1990) to the cult classics Blade
Runner (1982) and Selena (1997)
(“Edward James Olmos”). While only a sliver of his long career, these
performances seem dichotomous from the role he often discusses: Commander Adama.
A seemingly unusual turn in Olmos’ career, the show represents one of the only
shows from that era with a person of color in the leading role, let alone a
Chicano actor. While shows like Lost,
Desperate Housewives, House, ER, Grey’s Anatomy, and the standard CSI and Law & Order
dominated the small screen, only Ugly
Betty (2006-2010) overlaps with Battlestar
Galactica. Unlike Ugly Betty, the
show did not focus on the Latino/a/x experience but demonstrated a post-racial
attitude. That being said, Battlestar
Galactica strived for diversity before diversity became mandated by
millennial audiences and had near gender parity, attempts at queer
representation, disability representation (though not by disabled actors), and
an ensemble cast featuring enough diversity that white actors did not dominate
the screen. All of this is not to dismiss the problematic representation in the
show, particularly with which characters experience violent deaths and
villain-as-disabled trope. Yet, the show represents a network television show
actively engaging with not only diversity but post-9/11 thinking. Indeed, the
United Nations’ Assistant
Secretary-General for Policy Planning Robert Orr commented that “if [Battlestar Galactica] can get us thinking
about [post-9/11 issues], then Amen, because it isn’t easy” (Woerner). Few
shows on network television have as successfully demonstrated these
commitments—and surely not on the Sci-Fi/SyFy channel, though The Magicians (2015-present) makes similar attempts. Current
scholarship on Battlestar
Galactica
examines the show’s diversity and exploration of othernesss through the Cylons,
but much of the scholarship focuses on the show’s connection to international
relations. This paper argues that show represents an early presentation of human rights
post-9/11 and creatively engages with what James Dawes’ calls “literature and
human rights:” “[It] is not only a name for an academic subfield; it is a
descriptor of increasingly deliberate institutional relationships and collaborations”
(128). During the years that Dawes argues the field was solidifying (around
2007), Battlestar Galactica also
explored these ideas on the small screen.
While different season arcs develop and
create complexity from 2003-2010, a singular concern on Battlestar Galactica remains survival. The opening miniseries shows
the hatred between humans and Cylons as Cylons destroy the majority of the
humanity with a nuclear holocaust. Less than fifty thousand people survive,
including Commander Adama (Edward James Olmos), commanding the only remaining
battlestar, a military ship. After the genocide, Commander Adama and his crew
represent the remaining human military force and only protection against the
Cylons’ military presence. A few civilian ships escape and form a fleet under
Commander Adama and the new president of humanity, Laura Roslyn, who was sworn
in because she was thirty-fourth in line as minister of education. This power
imbalance between experience and lack thereof (and between civilian and
military authority) creates much of the tension around Commander Adama’s
character arc in the first thirteen episodes. In season one, two main conflicts
dictate the arc: general survival after the nuclear destruction of humanity and
uncovering the human-like Cylons in the fleet.
While popular culture has not always
handled human rights issues with sensitivity, Battlestar Galactica’s season arcs align with the creation of James
Dawes subgenre of human rights literature. Dawes describes the paradox of human
rights literature: “That representations of atrocity are both ethical
interventions and acts of voyeurism; that human rights work protects the
dignity of the human by juridically restricting what counts as human; or that
it grounds itself in the integrity of the unviolated body even as its
theoretical dualism denigrates bodily experience” (130). Exploring atrocity
through speculative fiction shortcuts some of these issues—particularly
voyeurism—but creates another: does treating such human rights violations as
science fiction or fantasy dissociate from the reality of these lived
experiences? Perhaps speculative fiction works best in concert with other works
of literature and scholarship but not in isolation. Indeed, speculative works
allow for theories in addition to experiences to be translated to a popular
audience through the lens of popular culture. It also allows for subversion
across partisan lines. For example, in Battlestar
Galactica a season-long arc dramatizes a new colony of humans occupied by
the militarily superior Cylons. The humans respond with suicide bombers, and
while some characters discouraged the action, one of the main characters
(Adama’s best friend, Saul Tigh played by Michael Hogan) deems the suicide
bombers necessary to drive away the Cylons. This arc not only critiques the US
invasion and occupation of Iraq but also demonstrates how that occupation
radicalizes people. Here lies the power of speculative stories—they can distill
ideas into a popular framework.
Notably, the show engages with both plot
structures that Dawes describes in “The Novel of Human Rights:” the justice
plot and the escape plot (137). The first half of the series demonstrates the
justice plot: “In the justice plot, the central narrative is a narrative of
return, of violation and its investigation, of the pull of past crime and
attempts to repair it” (137). Especially in season one, investigation of who
might be a Cylon, how the Cylons were able to destroy humanity, and how the
Cylons are able to track the remaining humans creates much of the tension. In
addition, revenge for the genocide of humanity also provides character
motivation. During the second half of the show, as Cylons and humans
intermingle and form partnerships (including the first Cylon-human child), the
plot shifts to the second plot identified by Dawes, the escape plot: “In the
escape plot, the central narrative is a narrative of departure, of
accumulating, forward-pushing violations, of escape as opposed to repair”
(137). Rather than looking backward and remembering their human cultures,
humanity and Cylons alike search for a paradise-like planet, prophesized as the
home world of human and Cylon: Earth. The focus becomes escape as life is no
longer sustainable on the worn-out ships.
In particular, Roslyn plays
detective while trying to discover why Adama has seemed distracted over the
past few days, thus aligning with Dawes’ theory again: “The justice plot looks
to the detective novel” (137). Indeed, detective novels are a leitmotif
throughout the show, particularly between Adama and Roslyn. She continues the
investigation by asking her assistant to question his girlfriend (an officer on
the battlestar) about Adama’s actions. She even brings in Saul Tigh, Adama’s
best friend, for interrogation with her assistant, creating a low-key good
cop/bad cop situation as she and her assistant question Tigh. The tension rises
as Roslyn says: “I advise you right now to not say anything you would regret”
(Olmos). The investigation continues to unravel as Tigh reveals his wife’s
name, cluing Roslyn into Adama’s distracted behavior and making her suspicious
that Tigh’s wife could be a Cylon.
While the episode could continue to
develop the tension between Adama and Roslyn’s relationship evident throughout
season one, the episode takes an unexpected turn to humor, which also undermines
the justice plot. Due to the serious topics of the show, humor rarely appears. When
the studio asked for “Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down” to represent a less serious
turn on the show, Olmos disagreed with the choice but said: “Okay, but if you
guys want humor, then I want to direct it” (ScreenRelish). The required use of
humor inspired Olmos directorial debut on the show, and certain moments of
humor in the episode are decidedly directorial through blocking, framing, and
camera angles, particularly in central ensemble scene: a celebratory dinner and
a confrontation over who could be a Cylon. The dinner scene consists of five
characters: Saul Tigh and his newly recovered wife Ellen Tigh; Adama and Roslyn
who both believe Ellen could be a Cylon; and Adama’s son Lee, a fighter pilot
captain. Adama and Roslyn each attempt to ensnare a drunken Ellen in her words,
such as when Adama says: “Any one of us could be a Cylon” (Olmos). Even though
intoxicated, Ellen eventually catches on. A series of quick cuts provide close
ups of each actor as they consider whether Ellen might be a Cylon, interrupted
by Ellen shouting “Boo!” A wider shot shows the startled reactions as the
moment of tension—in the room and for the viewer—is broken as there is no way
this drunken, silly woman could be a master mind of evil. As
Roslyn says later: “You actually think that woman is a Cylon?” (Olmos). Ellen’s
actions end the dinner, though Adama, Roslyn, and Lee compare notes afterward,
leading to another moment of humor. After watching Saul and Ellen drunkenly
stumble out, almost falling in the corridor, Adama says: “Ellen used to
encourage the worst instincts in this guy. Bring out the self-destructive
streak in him” (Olmos). His son Lee responds: “Used to” (Olmos)? They stop
cleaning up the dinner plates, pause for an extended beat staring into the
middle distance, then resume cleaning. In a cathartic release with the
characters, the audience can laugh about how ridiculous the drunken Ellen can
act. This beat also enforces that Tigh, a recovering alcoholic, is in serious
trouble with the return of his wife.
Battlestar
Galactica rarely uses humor throughout an episode, so the turn to humor
could possibly undermine the show, one reason Olmos wanted to direct the
difficult—though memorable—episode. Similarly, the novels James Dawes explores
as part of defining the human rights subgenre are not comedies but serious
explorations of atrocity. While the episode’s humor is decidedly
dark—questioning someone’s humanity, which would lead to their execution, is
not typical dinner table talk—it demonstrates how such atrocity deeply changes
people until even what is acceptable humor changes. Overall, Battlestar
Galactica questions what becomes acceptable after genocide—torture, suicide
bombers, mandated childbirth, martial law. Part of this questioning eventually
leads to what becomes acceptable for survival, including relationships with
Cylons. Through the popular culture medium of a speculative television show on
the often derided Sci-Fi/SyFy channel, Battlestar
Galactica ultimately works to erase the imagined line between what is
arbitrarily defined as human or alien.
Works Cited
Dawes,
James. “The Novel of Human Rights.” American
Literature, Volume 88, Number 1, March 2016. DOI 10.1215/00029831-3453684.
“Edward
James Olmos.” Internet Movie Database, imdb.com, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001579/#director. Accessed on
March 10, 2019.
Olmos,
Edward James. “Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down.” Battlestar
Galactica, Season 1, Episode 9, Universal,
2004.
Woerner,
Meredith. “The Night Battlestar Galactica
Took Over The U.N.” io9, 2009, https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-night-battlestar-galactica-took-over-the-u-n-5173862. Accessed March
10, 2019.
Screenrelish.
“Edward James Olmos: Humor on Battlestar Galactica - Fan Expo 2014.” YouTube,
2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPnsw8_YU5w. Accessed March
10, 2019.
Phoebe Wagner currently studies at University of Nevada: Reno. When not writing or reading, she can be found kayaking at the nearest lake. Follow her at phoebe-wagner.com or on Twitter @pheebs_w.
