Gay Mafiosi and Group Marriage Monotheists: Sex, "Caprica," and a Changing World

Caprica_poster
Well, I wasn’t expecting this.

I’ve recently gotten sucked into “Caprica,” the prequel series to “Battlestar Galactica” airing on the SyFy Channel. (Yes, this is about sex — hear me out.) I hadn’t planned to put yet another hour-long drama on my TV schedule, and Loki knows I don’t have time for it; but I watched fifteen minutes of the pilot when I was channel surfing, and I got hooked. I’m such a slut. Give me a complex, thoughtful, nuanced exploration of consciousness and selfhood, and I’m anybody’s.

And the show has had some surprising plot developments in the sexual arena — developments that were all the more surprising for how unceremoniously they were introduced.

A quick precis, for those who aren’t familiar: The weekly science fiction TV series, “Caprica,” takes place in a world that’s eerily parallel to Earth. But the world has some interesting differences from ours, and at the time this story takes place, they’re a few years/ decades ahead of us. Technologically, and socially.

And “socially” is where the sex comes in. (Caution: Spoiler alert. Multiple spoilers. Suck it up.) There’s a major gay character in “Caprica,” and there’s a major polyamorous character. And the way these characters and their sexualities get woven into the story shows a huge leap forward in the way our culture has started to view alternative sexualities… and an enormous leap forward in how we view our sexual future.

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Thus begins my new piece on the Blowfish Blog, Gay Mafiosi and Group Marriage Monotheists: Sex, “Caprica,” and a Changing World. To read more about the gay and polyamorous characters in “Caprica,” and what I think they reveal about our own non-Cylon-infested world, read the rest of the piece. (And if you’re inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog — they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

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Gay Mafiosi and Group Marriage Monotheists: Sex, "Caprica," and a Changing World
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4 thoughts on “Gay Mafiosi and Group Marriage Monotheists: Sex, "Caprica," and a Changing World

  1. 1

    [Cross-posted to Blowfish.]
    I watched the pilot of Caprica and I really liked it, but I stopped watching after that. (Midterms got in the way.) I guess I’ll have to start watching again.
    “So say we all.”

  2. 2

    Yeah, I’m beginning to like this show too, and partially for the reasons you mentioned. I thought that the pilot started off a little weak (some of the acting felt stiff to me), but it did pick up eventually.

  3. 3

    I watched the pilot, and I really liked it, but I just can’t watch it.
    I always end up thinking something like, “That’s not how you get to Caprica City. That’s how you get to Granville Station!” Hell, in the pilot, the sign that reads “Caprica City” is exactly the same as the Skytrain signs, just with a different word.
    And when they go to the sporting event, they go to the dressing rooms and lo and behold! the team colours are the same ones of the Vancouver Canucks, how ’bout that, eh?
    I look at their cities, which are supposed to be some futuristic city I’ve never seen, but it looks like my home.

    I’ll stop ranting now.

  4. 4

    Personally, I believe television to be a terrible place to explore alternative lifestyles. The only reason such things get on is to titillate the jaded viewers into a return visit. Should that be successful, and if one stays somewhat objective, one realizes that the titillation gets reduced as the lot gets submerged into trite soap opera themes.
    The best example of this I have to offer is Big Love. I’ve not actually seen it, but a couple of my coworkers were big fans of the show. They were especially enamored with the Margene character and her outrageous behaviors. From their descriptions, I didn’t hear a whole lot of real world exploration that one can’t find on the daytime network soaps, or even Telemundo’s telenovellas (and I don’t speak Spanish!).
    There were a couple such shows that come to mind, neither of which I remember the names of, which I remember using sexual issues as the Maguffin. One was allegedly about a television news department and all the phoniness and promiscuity that resided there. It lasted about three weeks as I recall. I was amazed it lasted that long, because even the most promiscuous people I knew in my life didn’t act like these characters did and still remain employed.
    The other was some sort of lost world adventure. The first episode opened with a comely lass positioned perfectly on a spanking table, yet she wasn’t one of the characters nor did anything else of interest occur. She was just there to hold onto the viewers long enough to set the mood of the show. The one thing I did find interesting about this show is that a couple of the actors clearly had major hots for each other. I still wonder what the writers did with that real-world intrusion into their fantasy land!
    So when it comes to exploring alternative anything, count me out when it comes to television. It just doesn’t have the time to do the topics justice. I’d much rather read a good book on the topics.

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