A few weeks ago I was thinking about Stargate SG-1 and the representation problems throughout it’s run. It’s one of my all-time favorite shows, but even I can’t ignore that across ten seasons there was only ever one black character in the main cast. And this wasn’t even only one at a time, but one total: The same black guy in the cast despite a rather hefty number of cast swings in the last five seasons. Teal’c is one of my favorite characters -- bumping shoulders with Samantha Carter for 1st Place -- but having the only black character be an alien who acts and speaks different from everybody else...there’s problems there.
So over the past few days I’ve been thinking over how they could have used those cast swings to address this and the different angles they could have worked with. Even without something as blatant as a Very Special Episode, it could have been enmeshed in the fabric of the show.
The first cast swing came in the crossover from seasons five to six, when Michael Shanks (Daniel Jackson) left the series and was replaced by Corin Nemec (Jonas Quinn). Jonas was an alien, but unlike Teal’c he was a “human” alien, with a ‘normal’ (i.e. White American) way of speaking and a common-sense knowledge of our society. He had some cultural blindspots, but he wasn’t Othered the way that Teal’c was and often passed on Earth as a regular guy. So how about if instead of Parker Lewis we cast an actor of color in the role, who on Earth needs to adjust to the way that people treat him differently from the rest of SG1 even thought he ‘acts normal’. It’s a different problem with assimilation than Teal’c faced. Everybody always knew that Teal’c wasn’t “from here” -- in the episode where he got his own apartment the cover story was that he was from Mozambique -- but with Jonas Quinn’s Average Joe personality they wouldn’t have that jump.
The next cast swing came at the start to season eight. Don S. Davis (General Hammond) largely retired from acting, so Richard Dean Anderson’s character (Jack O’Neill) was promoted to both fill the Leader story gap and also to give him a lessened acting role without fully stepping down. Nobody new was brought in to replace Jack, with SG1 operating as a three-person team, but what if they had brought in a new teammate? What if it had even been Lieutenant Ford (Rainbow Sun Franks)? Aiden Ford was a character on the spinoff series Stargate Atlantis which began airing at the same time as SG1′s season eight, and without getting into the problems which his character had in season two, what if he had instead become SG1s fourth member? Ford was “just” a soldier, not a genius scientist or alien or archaeologist like the rest of the team, but he had an energetic and fun personality on his own show that was different from everybody else on SG1. There was a little bit of the kid who’s excited just to be in space and meeting aliens. It’s not that the SG1 team had become jaded by then, but they have gotten used to what’s been happening after they’ve been doing it for eight years, whereas a lot of it is still new for Ford. Adding him to the team would have brought in a whole new personality type and perspective at odds to the Old Soldiers we’ve been following for close to a decade by now.
The biggest cast swing came at the start to season nine. Richard Dean Anderson stepped down completely and we got two new actors: Beau Bridges (General Landry) as the overall leader of the SGC and Ben Browder (Cameron Mitchell) as the sarcastic hotshot in command of SG1. In-universe at this time the SGC began having its budget cut by government oversight when it was thought that their mission was largely finished since now Earth had the technology to build their own giant spaceships. So what if “coincidentally” the SGC gets a new black commander at the same time its budget is being slashed? They don’t need to make it explicit, but we can make the connections and realize that they’re shuffling this officer into what was once a priority post but is now viewed as of secondary importance. The same thing with Cameron Mitchell: He’s put in command of SG1 as his reward for his heroics in the Battle of Antarctica, but all the members of SG1 have left for other duties so all he is really getting is -- as he puts it -- two letters and a number. Now he’s got to face the problems of rebuilding the unit, and maybe there’s some hostility from jarheads and grunts that don’t want to transfer to his authority instead of the “real” SG1.
Outside of the cast swings which did happen on the show, there’s all the times where a hypothetical change could have happened and given extra layers to the story. We meet many different cultures who in real-life have faced colonialism or been forced to near-extinction, and what if SG1 had members from these people on the team? How would a Native American team-member have felt seeing the Salish people in “Spirits” who had been able to rebuild their society after the Spirits overthrew the Goa’uld instead of being colonized by them turn. There are also System Lords impersonating Olokun and Kali active in the course of the show, how would somebody from the Yoruba people or India react to this insult? Would they be even more incensed to fight the Goa’uld? Would this shake or confirm their own personal faith? Instead of talking about all of the “dead” religions and cultures that the Goa’uld have stolen, let’s see the reactions from the still-living people.
As I said I still really like SG1 as a show, but the more time passes from the series the more I weep at all the possibilities that were lost. This was a show made to explore all the different cultures of Earth, and it never really made that effort.
The programme has such a long history, that it often comes as a surprise that the writers don’t reuse tropes or characters from previous episodes or serials.
While the show runner has been very intent on bringing more ‘real-life’ characters, the inclusion of a gay couple isn’t new. Nor is the Inspector snogging someone.
You know what keeps me quiet sometimes? The oppressive weight of not knowing if people around me are allies because they are “not political” and never declare themselves as allies.
i’m gonna assign you rebecca, who’s a pretty quiet 14 y/o from token minority (the michigan script).
her aesthetic: vintage tolkien covers, picking flowers when you’re bored and sat on grass, flipping pages in a window seat, bright children’s diaries, hamantaschen, terracotta pots, foil stickers, scrunchies, a sharp eye trained on others’ pain
OKAY HERE’S THE THING MY DUDE….. i couldn’t decide between three of them and u dru my gals so good. so have three.
first up is emily, who’s from token minority and is an asshole little 14 y/o who loves shakespeare
her aesthetic: fidgeting, drawing on your shoes bc ur bored, whispering words from a book to memorise them, bus seat patterns, big gestures that you don’t fully understand
second is kim, a biracial trans boy in witchtank, my trans time travel script!!
his aesthetic: cracked concrete, standing in the middle of a huge field by yourself, hot red rage, those curtains from the early 00s with entire murals as the pattern, soft flannel shirts, trash dumped in the woods, the thin angular lines of a family tree
AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST, edgy trans man pérez, a space soldier in the future who’s on the opposite side of the civil war
his aesthetic: dusty GSR down your front, ornate golden crucifixes, withered roses, impulsive head-shaving, skulls with empty stares, purple black eyes, frightening aim
HEYA!! i think JD is a good fit - he’s a music and band teacher with very little tolerance for bullshit, omfg. but he’s the best mate ever.
his aesthetic: polished brass, paper that got screwed up but smoothed out again, shop shutters, well worn doc martens, receipts in an ashtray, holding someone close and pressing your face into their hair, sarky notes against assigned work
HEY FAM!!!!! cole u get laqueta, who’s a black muslim 14 y/o at a WASPy school
her aesthetic: phosphenes, the glide of a calligraphy nib, rolled eyes, holding your idiot friends back by their collar, retro-futuristic transport, a crash cymbal, cheap tween stationery with themes like dolphins and glitter, old yellowed plastic
Emily Williams of Axis Evil and Genderpunk.net on her trans experience and cultural appropriation (GRRL031)
Grrl on Grrl is back again with episode 31 featuring Emily Williams.
We talk about her music project Axis Evil–some weird time signature drum stuff, some weird guitar stuff, a sitar she bought in India, along with some very, very personal lyrics; navigating her trans-ness and her woman-ness thru the lenses of her science and engineering background at her blog Genderpunk.net; and being a token…
