The Invisible Library

So, I was reading Pandagon yesterday when I discovered that some really weird folk think Battlestar Galactica is secretly a Mormon recruitment tool[1]. Their evidence? The show makes use of religious imagery and mythology. Which is pretty week as arguments for propaganda go. By this definition, Superman,[2] Star Wars[3] and everything Philip K. Dick[4] ever wrote is also super secret (but right out there in the open) religious propaganda.

Once upon a time, this argument might have applied to the original BSG, which was Mormon mythology dressed up in swank, quilted late seventies space opera. But the new series? Not so much. As Amanda Marcotte pointed out, just because a story derives some of its momentum from popular religious ideas doesn’t automatically mean the creators are promoting that religion. Also, religious pluralism, modern gender roles with women in leadership positions and decidedly secular attitudes towards sex, drinking and drug use don’t exactly scream, “Join The Mormons!” As with any artfully done work of storytelling, it’s not that simple. BSG can’t be broken down into simple declarative statements about its morals and message. It’s a nuanced discussion of various current ideas.

But there is one really obvious way you can tell that BSG isn’t telling it from the mountain: stories told with an ideological agenda are no fun. Whether they are serialized TV dramas, movies, comics or novels, an ideologically driven narrative stands out because the author is selling you a flat pack of easy answers to hard questions. And he (usually it’s a he) is not afraid to beat you silly with the truth stick to make his point[5]. This has some predictable effect on the way the story is told.

Ideological stories are loaded down with minutia that do not help the flow of the story, but are there to prop up whatever hobby horse the author is riding. Does every character have to stop in the middle of the action to sit down and talk about their feelings? Or does the strong and manly man leader shoot people who disagree with him and then muscle everyone else into obedience, with no consequences? This is the author telling you how they would resolve conflicts if they were in charge. It’s not realistic or motivated by human behavior, it’s the author working through control issues and the fact that daddy didn’t hug him enough. Author Appeal is common and mostly harmless, until it gets to be the point of the story rather than just a background detail [6]. While Admiral Cain got a little gun happy, her actions, like everyone else in the fleet, has consequences. Baltar may be trying on the Jesus/Brigham Young sandals but it’s not like those shoes haven’t been worn before. And as we all know, every character that decides to play Messiah ends up living happily ever after.

Ideological fiction is populated by characters who aren’t characters, but are stand-ins for types or groups or classes of people. Stereotypes are useful in fiction as a quick and easy way to introduce a character. But if the stereotype is never broken or challenged, you might be reading propaganda, because the author is here to tell you how all These Sorts of people behave and what you can expect from Them. Science fiction and Fantasy is notable for the number of crackpot notions that get aired, especially when it comes to race [7]. BSG is notable in that it subverts this expectation. We thought we knew all about those Cylons, until it turned out that Caprica Six and some of the other Cylon models are a lot more conflicted than previously thought and now there are the secret five who are way more conflicted about what means to be a Cylon. Killer robots with second and third thoughts on genocide, the nature of God and the shape of things to come aren’t exactly a familiar stereotype.

One of the worst aspects of the ideological story is the obvious hammer and nails used to put the plot together. Fred Clark at Slacktivist has been doing a bang up job analyzing the Left Behind Series, which is notorious for using the End Times checklist instead of a plot. Characters do things not for internally motivated or consistent reasons, but because that’s what happens next on the End of the World, The-Antichrist-is-coming-to-town checklist. Things just sort of happen and no real thought is given as to how real people or realistically drawn characters would react. The characters all know they are in an End Times novel, and so just get herded around with the reader from one set piece to the next, like they are on some really tedious tour through a creationist museum that also happens to be on fire [8]. All the drama and tension is sucked out of the story because no effects have causes other than obscure details from the ramblings of a 1st century ergot fiend and 2000 years of collective fears of mortality projected onto a culture that stubbornly refuses to die according to schedule [9]. Again, this is subverted nicely in BSG by President Rosylen, who thought she had this whole Pythia Prophecy thing nailed, until she didn’t and now maybe she does, but not in the way she or anyone else thought they did. It remains to be seen how Starbuck fits in to all this but it’s not going to be a clearcut case of by-the-numbers prophesy, that’s for sure.

Characters in ideological fiction often give long speeches outlining the author’s philosophy, especially if it’s an Ayn Rand novel or a story by some Randroid Objectivist, who is here to show all us mere mortals the virtues of selfishness.[10] Speechifying happens in regular fiction as well, but never for so long or in such detail. Cicero comes not to honor Cesar but to give a point by point refutation of his faulty economic policies, which are the true cause of the collapse of the Republic. This is another area where the BSG writers have artfully reversed the trope. Us BSG trufans can’t wait to hear Adama give a “So Say We All” speech, because you know it’s going to be good because, hey, it’s Edward James Almos! Reversewise, no one can make heads or tails of what comes out of the Hybrids mouths, especially the characters who think they know. Having a babbling prophet no one can understand is next level stuff.

Ronald Moore and the writers are constructing a multi layered narrative that brings up hard questions, looks at them from different angles and then asks the viewer, “So what do you think?” That’s as far from propaganda as it gets. But that’s not really the concern the people claiming it is Mormon Propaganda have. As Amanda Marcotte put it:

I think certain stories have more stick in various points in time because they speak to people’s concerns, but if you don’t bring the will to believe, I don’t see why you can’t enjoy the stories in a literary sense. The relationship between Mormon mythology and BSG makes me realize why Mormonism is such a popular religion, easily recruiting from those who want to believe. The sense of unmooredness, being adrift is something that speaks to people in these times, when living in the same neighborhood as your parents is becoming rare to the point of being frowned upon. Our highly mobile society has a lot of advantages, but this sense of being adrift is an undeniable part of it, so if you’re feeling particularly affected by it and looking for religious answers, Mormonism seems to fit the bill.

They aren’t upset that it might be Mormon Propaganda, but that it might be Mormon Propaganda. They’d be happy if BSG were peddling mainstream Christianity, like the Narnia books and films. But what really has them squicked is the idea that some aspect of LDS theology might gain wide acceptance in mainstream media. Or worse, Mormons might have something valid to say about the state of the world. It’s hard to maintain cultural dominance by Christians if you keep letting all those minor cults and atheists have a voice in popular culture. They might accidentally let on that their are other ways to look at the world, ways that don’t involve White Male Christian power politics and capitalist pyramid schemes. And that you don’t have to preach to get your point across.

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1. Not the Pandagonians. General consensus in the comments is that some of the people on these TV forums and out there hither and yon on the Internet are ontologically confused, much in the same way as people who think Harry Potter promotes Satanism and witchcraft.

2. A religion based around Superman would be pretty cool. Their god really could kick your god’s ass. Of course, a cult that is afraid of geology could be a problem.

3. The Jedi Church already exists, but they don’t proselytize. Which is a shame. The sooner people realize all religions are just fanclubs for fantasy, the better off we’ll be. In fact, I’d be willing to concede a bit of ground in the culture war if all we were up against were Jedi, Fremen and the cult of Kal El. But we’re not. Damn Scientologists…

4. I do know one person who converted to Gnostic Christianity because of Philip K. Dick, so their might be an outlier phenomenon here but one that is so small as to be statistically meaningless. I could probably fit the number of psychedelic abusers who have joined a dead branch of esoteric Christian Mysticism because of a science fiction author in my living room. I wouldn’t, because they’d eat all my peanut M&Ms and never shut up about VALIS and the Black Iron Prison. But still.

5. We’ve all seen this movie. It’s called The Passion of The Christ: A theological snuff film that is nothing but a parade of stereotypes and speeches (in Aramaic), interspersed with fetishistic violence and strung together following the twelve stations of the Passion. It’s not meant to entertain or spark discussion, but to bludgeon through repetition of ideological motifs until the viewer is no longer able to question anything but will relent to whatever Mel Gibson has to tell them.

6. Fun fact: Wonder Woman creator, William Moulton Marston was in a long term, poly-amorous relationship and also liked light bondage. This is why the early Wonder Woman adventures often featured her being tied up in elaborate ways and using her lasso of truth to subdue men. He also invented the polygraph machine.

7. Edgar Rice Burroughs was fond of digressing on the benefits of eugenics while both Lovecraft and Tolkien have been criticized for their characterization of races which was considered pointedly Anglo centered even for the early twentieth century. Tolkien denied that there was any racial undertones in his stories, and that any subtext on that subject was baggage brought to the story by the reader. When broached on the topic, Lovecraft would just wander off, muttering about subhuman, rat faced things lurking in your ancestry.

8. I highly recommend Fred’s Left Behind series at Slacktivist. He deftly deconstructs everything that is wrong with these stories from the bad writing to the horrible and inhuman theology and has a lot of fun while doing it. Stay for the comments too as there are a couple of dozen smart people from various faiths and backgrounds adding their wacky two cents. Lots of fun.

9. End of the World prophecies make for bad storytelling anyway. The drama of OMG, The End Is Nigh!11!!! gets in the way of any interesting character development to be had. Plus, the complete and utter disregard for free will makes you wander why anyone would want to save the world in the first place. What are you fighting for? To continue to live in a universe ruled by grinding, indifferent fate? And if you win, you’ve managed to beat God at his own game and I’m sure that will end well. It’s not like God has a reputation for being a total dick and a sore looser. That really is what makes the Left Behind books so appalling: that moment when you realize that the authors want the world to end. And not just in a fictionalized, “let’s start over and build a better society,” sort of metaphorical way, but in a visceral, belching hell fire and mass destruction kind of way. Because they don’t like you, think you aren’t as good or noble or deserving of forgiveness as they are and that they’d really like to watch you be tortured by demons for eternity.

10. True story: Elvira didn’t believe me when I told her about Atlas Shrugged and how John Gault gives a speech for fifty pages. I had to find a copy at the library and show her. She couldn’t read more than a page or two before declaring it crap philosophy.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 8:27 pm and is filed under Television, Comics, Battlestar Galactica, Politics, Religion, Books, Culture War, Geek. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.