I found this over at Lee’s blog, but the full article is here.
His quote is perfect, so I’ll be a copy cat:
Battlestar Gallactica showrunner Ron Moore has a blog and a couple of people wrote complaining about sex on the show and how their kids couldn’t watch it and so on. He gives a tremendously great response.
First of all, I’m sorry your friend can’t watch the show with his son, but I always intended this series to be for adults. I have two small children, and I wouldn’t dream of letting them watch the show — mostly because of the violent content. Second of all, I disagree that the sexuality is intended to be exploitative or that it’s somehow not integral to the story. We’re presenting adult human beings as adults, and their sexuality is a key part of their lives. Baltar’s sexual weaknesses, Sharon & Tyrol’s forbidden love affair, and Starbuck’s promiscuity are part of who and what they are. I think the only reason this gets the kind of attention is does is that we’re not used to seeing sex treated maturely in science fiction — nine times out of ten, any sex is either something to snigger at or to make fun of. Somehow it’s okay to fetishize sex by putting women in S&M leather “space†outfits or have Carrie Fisher run around in harem clothes (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but to portray two mature adults simply having sex is somehow controversial in sci-fi circles.
I’d also point out, as I have many times before, the strange standards of American audiences, who can become red-faced with indignation over nudity, but find no problem with slasher films or chains-saw massacres. I mean, Galactica’s premised on a massive genocide, and the pilot deals with violent, shocking deaths over and over again, but people get upset about the sex? Weird….
I love Battlestar Galactica! We watched the first season and missed the second season so Greg downloaded it from iTunes. We watched a few episodes on the computer but it seemed silly to turn our backs on the 57″ TV to watch a 21″ monitor (literally, the computer and TV are on opposite ends of the room). So he bought this nifty iPod dock that hooks his video iPod up to the TV!
And I just confessed to the entire internet what geeks we are, huh?
Although Greg got mad at me when I bitched about Lee Adama getting “fat.” Hey, he’d have made the same comment if Starbuck or Number Six had gained weight.
That couldn’t be more true.
The obsessive behavior to ridicule anything “sexual” is a real problem with some people. These of course are the same people complaining they will no longer be able to go to Starbucks because of the logo being reverted back to the original with the drawn outline of breasts.
Perhaps if they were having sex a bit more often themselves, they wouldn’t be so obsessed over it.
The hubs and I wait until our girls are good and asleep before watching Battlestar Galactica. I’d never DREAM of allowing my kids to watch, more because of the violence than the sex! The last episode we saw was the ‘dance’. Actually, it looked like Starbuck and Lee shouldn’t have denied themselves for this long…
I agree with Jay that the people who are wanting to censor television need to stop obsessing over it! Buy a TV with a V-Chip like we did! (o)
Hmm.
I too love Battlestar Galactica. It beats the metaphorical pants off anything on TV. Period.
Would I let my kid watch it? Hell no. And I would say I let my daughter watch things that are a bit beyond her years (Nightmare Before Xmas, Star Trek #1, some might even say Wallace and Gromit). The violence in BG, as well as some other series on Sci-Fi, is just way out of her league. Of course, she’s 4…