Alaina Huffman (l), Ming Na (Rear), Elyse Levesque (r)
Stargate Universe is one of the most well received new shows so far this season. Anything that is compared to legends like LOST and Battlestar Galactica from the get-go can be considered an instant success, and the full potential of the series is becoming clear as it shifts away from the hype of premiere day into its episodic template. TVOvermind had the pleasure of sitting down with some of the Universe cast this week, and those interviews will be published over the next couple of days.
Universe deviates from its predecessors in the Stargate franchise, as well as its early comparisons, by remaining a purely character motivated show. There is no Cylon horde, or smoke monster, there are instead ever mounting tests of the Destiny survivors’ wills as they struggle against apparently hopeless situations, and a seething struggle for control that could boil over any moment. Universe is intense.
Surprisingly though, detractors of the show have managed to level some criticisms that, regardless of their validity, have begun to resonate through the blogosphere. Most prominently is the view that Stargate Universe suffers from sexism where its female characters are concerned. According to some people, Stargate Universe has a shortage of interesting characters, particularly of the female gender.
I don’t know what aspect of this criticism bothers me more, the fact that it is pretty baseless, Stargate’s ladies are some tough cookies in my book, or the fact that the criticism has arisen from the kvetching on forums like TWOP and been flipped into the public consciousness by entertainment columnists whose own negative opinions on Stargate Universe have turned out to be sorely outnumbered.
My opinion is that this assault on the show is the result of playground politicking; scrounging boards for unfriendly remarks, and packaging them into a loosely bound ‘I told you so.’ That not everyone is going to like Stargate Universe is a given, to promote the notion that those who don't like it represent the most rational criticism, though, is quite weak. Regardless of how it got started, it was enlightening to get to talk to the Stargate Universe cast about this manufactured controversy and get their ground-zero take on it.
“You know, I heard that – being on Twitter you tend to get a lot of ‘stuff’ – and it really, honestly upset me, and there is not a lot that I read that upsets me.” David Blue, who plays Eli on Stargate Universe, told me when I asked him what he thought of the criticism du jour. Blue is accustomed to telling fans frustrated with the emerging plot to just “… wait another week …”, but the actor sees the criticism against his female co-stars as even more premature. “Every female character on this is a strong, intelligent woman. We’ve only shown you four episodes, but those four episodes have only been one day in the life of these characters.”
Alaina Huffman as T.J. on Stargate Universe
And even though we are only four episodes in, Stargate Universe’s women have already proven to be free-thinking, fast acting, intelligent characters painted from the whole-human pallet. Alaina Huffman’s T.J., for instance. On the surface, she is the “I wasn’t supposed to be here” fish out of water – a medical officer who was days away from leaving the program, with skills that are not exactly up to what the moment calls for. Having withdrawn from medical school, T.J. now has to become a trauma autodidact.
When I asked Alaina about the criticism, her initial response was not surprising. “I think as an actor sometimes you read things about yourself that are unpleasant, and you have an innate desire to defend yourself and your character. I think T.J. is a very strong and independent woman. She’s a great character and she’s very well rounded.” As she went on, Alaina intelligently reminded me that the true representation of a strong character has multiple facets. “She’s not one-dimensional. She’s not just going to be this strong and immaculate person; she’s got flaws and has her own demons to work out. That is really the point of this show, to show people in extreme circumstances.”
Strong characters are not, in other words, an archetype – they are the sum of the big actions, and the more subtle. David Blue also makes the point that many of Universe’s writers have already proven themselves when it comes to crafting strong female leads. “Not only do you have people like Ming Na, who is a brilliant actress who wouldn’t sign on to play a role that is useless and boring, on top of that you have writers who have written strong women, like Carter on SG1, and are really good at speaking in those voices.”
Elyse Levesque as Chloe Armstrong
When I asked Elyse Levesque, who plays Chloe, for her opinion on the criticism she echoed Alaina on the more subtle requirements for ‘strong’ character. “What’s different is that these woman are a lot more expressive of their fears. In life, people aren’t perfect and nobody can be strong all the time. I think if you are going to create an interesting drama, we need to see multidimensional characters. We need to see people lose themselves a bit, we need to see them find themselves again. I don’t think it is fair to label them as completely strong or completely vulnerable, I think they are a combination of those things, which to me makes for far more interesting characters.”
By most literary definitions, good characters are defined by how they behave on a morally challenging journey. In his quest to define the makeup of a hero, mythologist Joseph Campbell famously outlined the trials that forge a hero as “The Heroes’ Journey”, not “The Heroes’ Debut”. Campbell sussed out through thousands of comparative studies on myths from around the globe that heroes are the result of an extensive process.
Good characters are defined along the way, not as static beings – and furthermore, first impressions mean absolutely nothing; the best characters are the ones that through the course of their journey blossom into radiant contrasts to the person we met at the beginning. Good characters, in other words, are crafted over time and toned by change. Reserving judgment, then, isn’t just a courtesy – it’s the price of admission.
Yet, it’s not so surprising that in today’s ‘instant gratification’ economy some fans might expect fully realized demigods from day one, but that is not how stories work. If you want to buy-in to a rewarding story, you need to cut up your credit cards and shut down your lines of credit; in a real story, everything is pay as you go.
Watch for our full interviews with Stargate Universe’s David Blue, Alaina Huffman, and Elyse Levesque coming tomorrow. Subscribe to our RSS Feed, follow us on twitter, or friend me on FaceBook.
