Crossgender Poll

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1232856]

Previously.

Comments

[joexnz.livejournal.com]

i like starbuck as a women, but i would also argue shes not portrayed as a well balanced individual, i wonder if this was the trade off. Also is she a solider first, screw up second, women third. And if so, does this make gender more or less important to the character?

Commissioner Gordon as a women, now that would given an interesting frission to the batman as the dark knight, unobtainable alpha (?) male.

[andrewducker]

Is _anyone_ in BSG portrayed as a balanced individual?

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

It'd ruin it, because it would mean that Batman had had someone in his life he could regard as a mother figure. See my argument in this entry.

[andrewducker]

Only if you currently consider Gordon to be a father figure. Which would also ruin Batman, as part of the point is that he has neither.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

No, that's not a fair assumption. Again, see my arguments in the other entry.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen your article yet but it does throw into interesting relief that Batman is ALWAYS portayed as screwed up by father-loss but not particularly by loss of his mother..? That's why a female commr Gordon suddenly struck me as v interesting - the Oedipal elemets would be fascinating.. and yes there already IS Alfred as pseudo father.. so what if there were sparks between Gordon and Alfred too?\ooh, Batman's jealousy! (and then of course he'd turn to Robin . wow it has everything for Batman's obvious fucked up homerotic semi pedophile leanings..)

I'd like to write that actually - I'd start by making Alfred younger..

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

ps why can't i edit my comments??

[matgb]

You don't have a paid account. The only bit of the spec that wasn't my idea :-(

Late to the party, but I only saw it on Saturday

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

While rewatching BB a few weeks ago, I was struck by just how much they talk about how Bruce lost his father and how much of an influence of Batman/Bruce it is, while they almost never mention his mother - the loss of the father figure in his life is a big deal while the loss of his mother isn't.

So I think you could quite easily have a female Gordon without it messing up the films, because the only place where I see it making a difference is the perception that she would be a maternal figure to young Bruce, and since they never really show Bruce lacking a maternal influence I don't think it would make a difference.

[snowking.livejournal.com]

You wouldn't consider Alfred in the Nolan films to be at least partly a father figure?

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

oh, nice point.

[drjon.livejournal.com]

Starbuck the Character, independent of gender, does not seem well-balanced to me.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

You do know that posting a poll in a seperate entry doesn't actually count as a logical counter-argument? :P

[andrewducker]

I'm not arguing anything - I'm wondering what people think.

[matgb]

No, but it does bring the discussion to the attention of others and allow more thoughts to be brought to bear, hence the link to the thread.

Not having seen Batman Begins I'm doing some digging and asking someone who has before hitting submit...

[snowking.livejournal.com]

I can't think of any actress who could pull off the 'tache, to be honest.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

And it would mean getting rid of Gary Oldman.

[snowking.livejournal.com]

Well, indeed.

Slightly more seriously, are we proposing a simple swap of gender in the Nolan films or arguing that in some other version? I could see it meaning slight changes in Dark Knight or one part would fall rather flat dramatically. Also, I can think of a certain character choice in the film that would ring less true for me with a woman playing Jane Gordon.

In terms of a different telling of Batman, well, we had a female Commissioner Gordon in Batman Beyond, although that was Barbara taking her father's place rather than a simple switch.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

I was talking about it from the perspective of the Nolan films, personally...

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

A female commr Gordon would also nicely compensate for the horribly gratuitous crippling of Barbara Gordon in the DC continuity.

[drjon.livejournal.com]

What if it'd been a female Joker who crippled Barbara?

What if it'd been a female Joker who crippled a male Barbara Gordon?

[captainlucy.livejournal.com]

Hmmm ... A difficult question to answer with just a "Yes/No" choice...

Casting Katie Sackhoff as Starbuck worked like a charm, because she has seldom (if ever) acted anything other than superbly, the character is complex and interesting, has been involved in many of the strongest storylines in Galactica, and has always been superbly written.

Casting a woman as Commissioner Gordon in a future imagining of Batman could also work well, but it would, of course, be dependent upon a believable casting choice and a good script (just as it would be were the role to go to a man). And it could introduce an interesting new tension to the Batman/Gordon relationship, though there is always the danger (however small) of the scriptwriters taking a lazy corner and making her another woman to be rescued by the dashing antihero.

At the end of the day, though, re-casting a character as the opposite gender to previous incarnations is a decision that should always be made after a great deal of thought to how it affects the story adn the interplay of the characters, and not simply to "make up the numbers".

[derumi.livejournal.com]

Unless Starbuck remains a sexist womanizer.

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

Or what about about casting a white guy as Tigh and a black guy as Harvey Dent?

Nah, that would never happen.

It's a silly poll to attempt to answer without any context. All the characters that overlap into the RDM Galactica are completely different. It's not like you're casting Katie Sackoff into Dirk Benedict's role. You're making a new character that just happens to have the same callsign.

[drjon.livejournal.com]

The previous post seems rather chocka, so let me say here that Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon was an awesome piece of acting. If anyone deserves an Oscar from Dark Knight, Oldman does.

I'd have loved to have seen what Cate Blanchett would have done with the role, though.

[andrewducker]

I do think that Oldman was great in TDK. Very subtle compared to the rest of the cast, which is why it's not mentioned as much.

And yes, me too :->

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, the always awesome Mark Kermode singled out Gary Oldman's performance as one of the best things about the film.

[random-redhead.livejournal.com]

Casting a woman is fine, so long as they don't then go for the sexual tension route. Women can do jobs (and take lead roles in plot lines) without being romantically involved.