Miss Cylon: Empire and Adoption in "Battlestar Galactica"

Miss Cylon: Empire and Adoption in "Battlestar Galactica"
Author(s): Juliana Hu Pegues
Source: MELUS, Vol. 33, No. 4, Alien/Asian (Winter, 2008), pp. 189-209
Published by: The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS)
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inBattlestar
Miss Cylon: Empire and Adoption
Gal?ctica
Hu Pegues
Juliana
of Minnesota
University
this: a white
Picture
in military
American,
uniform,
enemy lines. He is aided by an
man, presumably
is stranded behind
a soldier,
presumably
to him, is to seduce him and make
Asian woman whose
job, unbeknownst
him fall in love with her. Once they have consummated
their affair, how
soldier and
ever, it is the Asian woman who falls in love with the white
Saigon and Madame
betrays her own people. Like Miss
Butterfly before
woman
the
that
she
is
she
will
do anything
Asian
discovers
her,
pregnant;
to protect her child. Wait,
there's more. This old orientalist
tale is given
man is a lieutenant from the planet Caprica.
is not human; her spine glows bright red when
she
that was a
has sex. She is a cyborg, an exact replica of the same model
of
the
male
fellow
her
and
officer
soldier
before
friend, crush,
kind, the
so
to
Not
all
of
familiar?
This
is one
attempted
destroy
humanity.
Cylons,
a new
And
treatment.
The white
woman
the Asian
in the breakout
television hit Battlestar
Gal?ctica
storylines
a
Ronald
D.
Moore
and
David
of
Eick),
(produced by
storyline
importance
as a colonialist
the contemporary moment.
reiteration within
of the many
The Battlestar
series
Gal?ctica
(BSG)
has become
the highest-rated
than 2.8 million
ever to air on the Sei Fi Channel, with more
program
Not just popular with audi
viewers
during its first season (Drumming).
sources
as diverse as Stephen King
comments
the
show
drew
from
ences,
andindiedirectorKevinSmith,andofficialaccoladesfromtheAmericanFilm
who named?SG
Institute and TIME Magazine's
James Poniewozik,
best
hitting
ductive
and
show of 2005.
television
socio political
and fans agree
TIME'S
that Battlestar's
hard
repro
(war, torture, refugees, suicide bombing,
action sequences,
and the state, etc.), space-battle
issues
rights, religion
PG-13
dalliances
unexpected
9/11 American
Critics
A sudden,
add up to a winning
combination.
on humanity
resonance
holds a particular
for a post
Stone writer Gavin Edwards
audience. Rolling
viewing
attack
the show "TV's most
vivid depiction of the post-9/11 world and what
a
at
to
war."
A growing body of academic
happens
society
scholarship has
most notably
also materialized,
the recent anthology Cylons
in America:
calls
Critical
Marshall).
Studies
While
in Battlestar
this
Gal?ctica
(edited by Tiffany
is an undeniably
MELUS,
Volume
33, Number
important
Potter
collection,
4 (Winter 2008)
and C. W.
it lacks an
190
HU PEGUES
as an Asian American
(aka "Boomer")
on
Sharon does not examine
issues
figure. The essay by Robert W. Moore
as
that formulates
the piece by Christopher
Deis
of race, while
Cylons
of the character
analysis
racial others does not
Sharon
include Boomer.
on BSG's
I reflect
and the character of Boomer
popularity
generally
American
studies
and science fiction discourses
Asian
putting
specifically,
I look most closely at the first two seasons of BSG, when
into conversation.
are interchangeable
names
for the Cylon Number
Sharon and Boomer
or post-Fordist,
moment
is reflected and
Eight. I ask how the globalized,
addressed
read as
in the logics of BSG and how the character Boomer,
new
an Asian American
in
female, employs old tropes
ways.1 As science
to postmodern,
from Utopian to dystopian,
to neoliberal,
of "Asian" and
how are the constructions
are previous
of
"female" altered and reified? How
imperialist narratives
in Michael
female
Hardt and
the Asian
subject reconfigured
romancing
an
and
de-terri
of
Antonio
formulation
emergent Empire,
global
Negri's
texts shift from modern
fiction
and from
liberal
torialized?
The character
Saigon narrative
the Vietnam War
that renders
and theWar
ized and colonized
from a white
theMadame
Butterfly/Miss
redeploys
the colonialist
connection
visible
between
of Boomer
on Terror. As
a new
articulation
of the racial
shifts the figure of the cyborg
subject, Boomer
an
Asian American
of
of the other to
representation
female
signifier
Boomer
occupies
Specifically,
most notably
of
miscegenation,
positions
of adoptee and birth mother.
the other.
both the metaphoric
in the simultaneous
and
literal
embodiment
Miss Saigon Redeployed
The
Battlestar
a quick
created
Cylons
breathtaking
Gal?ctica
three-hour
mini-series
that
launched
the
2003
included a surprise ending. First,
program
it:
the Cylons were robotic droids
for
those
who
missed
synopsis
on the Twelve Colonies;
to
make
life
easier
the
by humankind
rose up against humans
and after a long war, an armistice was
television
left for another world and no one has seen them for
the Cylons
on
's decommissioning,
the
Gal?ctica
day of the ship Battlestar
forty years;
the Cylons
launch an all-out attack, destroying much of the human worlds
declared;
now
the dated-yet-sturdy
Battlestar
Gal?ctica
detonations;
one
new
human
As
of
the
twists
of
the
of
the
survivors.
leads
fleet
50,000
show loosely based on the 1970s science fiction series of the
"re-imagined"
with
nuclear
same name, the robotic version of the Cylons
is joined by twelve human
one
the twelve. These human
of
each
of
oid models,
with multiple
copies
a
are
of the Cylons'
variants
surprise attack,
key component
appearing
could be a Cylon"
fear that "anyone
with
the attending
preoccupying
191
EMPIRE AND ADOPTION
the human
survivors.
At
of the mini-series,
the human fleet has
in search of the mythical
thirteenth colony,
outcome
bemoan
this
and stress the
Cylons
the close
jumped out of Cylon clutches,
Earth. Several of the humanoid
to give chase. The camera pans to Lieutenant
Sharon Valerii, known
actress Grace Park.
Korean
Canadian
call
her
"Boomer,"
played
by
by
sign
she
"Don't
we'll
find
them" (1 .M.02).2
and
confident,
says,
worry,
Smiling
need
of Sharon
aboard Gal?ctica
is unaware
of her Cylon
identity,
a
that she is
sub
and her impending
realization
sleeper agent is a major
to
in
the
transition
mini-series
from
television
While
program.
regular
plot
much
is made of the show's "colorblind"
casting of Park in the role of
The version
her embodiment
of the Asian American
female and the charac
Boomer,
as both model minority
ter's configurations
and yellow peril fuel dramatic
tension in the show.3
The
the series produces
construction
through the multivalent
are situated within
the current moment
of globalization,
which
anxieties
of Boomer
as "post-Fordist"
or a period of "flexible accumula
may be characterized
tion." In The Condition
David Harvey names flexibility
of Postmodernity,
as the marker of late capitalism,
in a shift from the Fordist economic model
mass
as consumers
to an era of flex
and workers
production
where greatly enhanced global financial
ible accumulation
systems benefit
from the increased mobility
of labor markets,
and consump
production,
tion. The world of the BSG series reflects a particular aspect of this flex
of centralized
and Negri formulate as Empire: "Along with
and global circuits of production
the global market
has emerged a global
new
a
structure
and
of
rule"
and Negri
Hardt
order,
(xi).
logic
clearly dif
ferentiate
the new disciplining
function of this nascent Empire from the
ible accumulation
old
system
that Hardt
of imperialism, which
relied on territorial expansion
and the
boundaries
of the nation-state.
BSG follows
this same set of
geographic
logics: the territories
stars' abilities
to make
of the home
planets have been
(faster than light) jumps
of human, i.e. national,
FTL
the battle
destroyed,
connote a borderless
crossing, and the disciplining
subjects occurs with
out geographic
As
Hardt
and
assert,
parameters.
Negri
"Perhaps the fun
of imperial sovereignty
damental characteristic
is that its space is always
connects
this open space with BSG,
open" (167). Erika Johnson-Lewis
asserting: "If the 'War on Terror' asks us to fight an imagined catastrophic
this fight has on the
future, BSG asks us to think about the ramifications
civilization,
present by de-territorializing
leaving it to float in space" (28).
Within
BSG's
articulation
of Empire,
then, how do we account
of the Asian American
female?
romance
for the
recuperated
imperial
I take my cue from scholars who analyze the
To answer this question,
construction
of Asian American
within mainstream
US
representations
as implicated
in the genealogies
discourses
of Orientalism,
racism, sexism,
192
HU PEGUES
As Robert
and colonialism.
the deviant,
the Oriental
coolie,
portray
(8). Lee's
junctures at which
family"
G. Lee argues, "Six images?the
the
pollutant,
the yellow peril, the model minority,
and the gook?
as an alien body and a threat to the American
national
research on these six images foregrounds
the historic
each one appears. For example, by the early
as national anxieties
image had come to dominate
"yellow peril"
ing US colonialism
as a threat to nation,
race,
immigration
are
not
to
these
fixed
certain
time,
images
rigidly
as when
and overlap,
the "yellow
peril" image
they reemerge
inAsia, most notably
itself in times of US wars and interventions
epochs;
reasserts
World War
articulated
the same
and family. At
II.
tropes. Lee's
through these various
images are
in the numerous
identical versions
of Boomer/Sharon
Valerii.
Boomer
is constructed
emphasized
The deployment
notions of fixed
both
1900s, the
surround
of many copies of Boomer
and flexible
representations.
the non-human
American.
At
Cylon,
the same
and changing.
The Boomer we
inauthentic
lends itself particularly well to
Boomer
is fixed as the other,
and dangerous,
and the Asian
time, her embodiment
of these different
images
is
fluid
first meet
on Gal?ctica
does not know
she is a Cylon.
She is in a relationship with Chief Petty Officer Galen "Chief Tyrol.
is illicit as she is his superior officer, thus bordering on
relationship
what Lee calls "deviant." Her deviancy
becomes more blatant once the
audience realizes she is a Cylon meeting
the Chief for a secret rendezvous.
Their
Boomer
from blackouts,
devices
Suffering
unknowingly
plants explosive
on the ship. This can be seen as a metaphoric
con
form of "pollutant,"
a
as
the body of the fleet. Furthermore,
taminating
sleeper agent, Gal?ctica
is the epitome of the "yellow peril."
In contrast, the Boomer we meet on Caprica, which
the Cylons'
attack
rescues her crewmate Karl "Helo" Agathon.
has rendered post-apocalyptic,
Boomer
Stuck on the planet soon after the Cylon attack, Helo is unaware that Cylons
and has no idea that Caprica Boomer
take on a new appearance,
is
other
than
This
Boomer's
mission
is
human.4
something
straightforward:
she is to exploit Helo's
crush on her to make him fall in love with her and
now
thereby creating a human-Cylon
hybrid baby. All three of the
are
with
Gal?ctica
Boomer
also present here: pollutant,
tropes apparent
deviant, and yellow peril.
the different
and regen
tropes enabled by Boomer's
Viewing
multiple
have
erative
sex,
iterations
underscores
constitutive
unaware
nature. Gal?ctica
while
(as the yet
minority"
Cylon),
out
is
the
acting
Caprica
willfully
deceptive
"yellow peril" role.
as
the
Gal?ctica
Boomer's
actions
the
sleeper agent endanger
Conversely,
while Caprica Boomer's
lives of humans onboard Gal?ctica,
newfound
Boomer
is the "model
their mutually
Boomer
193
EMPIRE AND ADOPTION
feelings of love compel
should be underscored,
her to rescue Helo
from Cylon clutches. The point
that these tropes are still disciplined:
the
however,
of both Boomers'
contrasting
images remains within
eters of heterosexual,
romantic love with a white man.
the param
deviance
further complicates
Lee's multiple
images by looking at
of yellow peril inHollywood
portrayals of interracial romances.
woman
that
of
white
male-Asian
depictions
pairings
posits
an
over
Asian
"romance
the West's
other, whereby
hegemony
Gina Marchetti
discourses
Marchetti
represent
and sexuality
the metaphoric
for this domination.
provide
justification
act
of
with
it
domination
However,
any
brings
opposition,
guilt, repres
into these myths and
sion, and resistance, which also must be incorporated
or otherwise
eliminated"
domesticated,
silenced,
rationalized,
(6). In the
to have a child with Helo,
of Caprica Boomer's
successful mission
to rejoin the ship Gal?ctica.
In this way,
she helps him escape Caprica
the Caprica Boomer-Helo
rearticulates
theMadame
relationship
Butterfly
course
of the white
of
narratives
Saigon
imperialist
fantasy/tragedy
love.5 Caprica Boomer's
interracial
love for Helo demands
and Miss
white-Asian
over Cylons,
a cultural/ethnic
to humans
that
renunciation
started
with
Madame
Susan Koshy
fur
argues
Butterfly, Koshy postulates
ther that this "structural feature of the story of white-Asian
miscegenation
her alliance
became
many
Of
an integral element of the white
of its later forms" (49).
the Madame
Butterfly
woman
man-Asian
rearticulations,
the Boomers
romance
in
most
closely
that tells the
Saigon narrative,
invoking
romance between American
GI Chris
doomed
story of the Vietnam-era
as
Kim.
the
and Vietnamese
Billed
"classic
love
story of our
prostitute
resemble
aMiss
the hit musical
time," Miss
Saigon
enjoyed
ning a decade, with a final
study of Miss Saigon
of Madame
Butterfly.
places
a highly
run on Broadway
span
in 2001. Karen
Shimakawa's
successful
performance
the musical's
formation
within
the genealogy
... the self-sacrifice of an Asian woman for the love of a white (Western)
man has become an archetypal template, against which Asian women's sexu
in terms of self-denial/self-destruction
(and often
ality is always measured
unavoidable?
racism). Thus it is entirely predictable?perhaps
an
woman
to
in
tell
love
Asian
and a white
that, wanting
any
story involving
were
reminded of Puccini's heroine, ninety
man, Boublil and Sch?enberg (sic)
histories notwithstanding
years and nationalities/national
(26).
internalized
Boomer
romance
as the overarching
is as overdetermined
relationship
o? Butterfly's
Cio-Cio
San and Pinkerton,
and Saigon's Kim and
and Helo's
Chris.
Celine
Parre?as
Shimizu
asserts
that "Miss Saigon
reenacts
on stage
194
HU PEGUES
the warring
a narrative
twinned
encounter
of
interracial
Boomers
is a war
tionship
the Vietnamese
sense
between
bodies
continue
in which
Vietnam
enmeshed
and
the United
in sexual
States
relations"
that encounter?the
through
(32). The
their rela
for
backdrop
are
with
the
enemy. Similar to
they
sleeping
are in a
inMiss
both of the Boomers
Saigon,
prostitute
for the Cylons. Caprica Boomer's
is to
explicit mission
Boomer
and have sex with Helo, while Gal?ctica
gains protection
sex workers
seduce
covers for her after her
from her relationship with Chief, who repeatedly
of sex and war is highlighted
in the
blackouts.
The imbrication
memory
hidden
One episode
"Litmus"; Boomer
area of Gal?ctica
causes a hatch
suicide
bomber
Season
Not
and Chief's
door
tryst in a
and a Cylon
romantic
to be left open
enters
the ship (1.06).
a reprisal of the interracial white-Asian
romance, however,
simply
the US's
loss in the Vietnam War through Chris's
Saigon recuperates
love and ultimate rejection of Kim, and through Kim's
suicide, committed
Miss
so that their son can live out an ideal future with
his Western
father. Tellingly,
Dream,"
sung by her
suicide is "The American
the song preceding Kim's
such as "What's
that I smell in the
the
Eurasian
Lyrics
Engineer.
pimp
/ Spend
Dream
air? ... Girls can buy tits by the pair," and "The American
to spare," celebrate
the US's final victory over Vietnam
and have money
late capitalist globalization
Thus, Miss
(Boublil and Sch?nberg).
reassures
with
the
the
past (Vietnam-era
present
anxieties)
(flex
Saigon
ible accumulation's
ascendancy).6
vis-?-vis
as aMiss Saigon figure in
embodiment
How might we view Boomer's
future
and competing
relation to the colonial past, present recuperation,
visions?
Lee reminds us that the image of the "gook" emerged
during
the "dystopian
narratives
of post
and after the Vietnam War, enabling
is both identified
the Asian American
Fordist urban America,
[where]
the United
and figured as
the enemy that defeated
States in Vietnam
the agent of the current collapse
of the American
empire" (190). At the
same time, the Miss
trope is in excess of Lee's con
Saigon/Miss
Cylon
with
to the gendered
that surpasses
of Boomer
racialization
figuration,
pointing
The
that
of
Lee's taxonomy,
the
"gook."
conjuring of theMiss
including
invokes the menacing
in Boomer's
revenge
relationships
Saigon narrative
that must be disciplined.
of the colonial masses
This threat exceeds
the
the alternate and co-constitutive
of the gook?in
expression
configuration
and the
of the alluring and deviant sexuality of the demure lotus blossom
Hardt
and
the
"From
diabolical
that,
Negri posit
lady. Tellingly,
dragon
... the Vietnam War
as
seen
the
be
the
States
of
United
might
perspective
in
before
the
US
of the imperialist
final moment
tendency"
participation
the new
reminds us, articu
(178). As Walter Benjamin
system of Empire
as
means
of
it
flashes
"hold
the
memory
up at amoment
past
seizing
lating
195
EMPIRE AND ADOPTION
interracial romance allows
of danger"
(255). The trope of white-Asian
to
its
the
anxieties
such an image
imperial antecedent;
Empire
recognize
on
the
Vietnam
War
the
War
Terror.
reinscribe
upon
produces
The Post-9/11
Connecting
nial narratives
Oriental
to past texts of hypersexual
of Boomer
colo
the depictions
but Battlestar
Gal?ctica
of the Asian female is productive,
a conversation
between past and present. Genre is important
is not simply
and BSG is constructed
in future-time.
While
the colonies
in a separate space-time
continuum
(and may
or
the
framework,
present
conceptual
past),
and human-created
with
therefore
of Kobol
exist
exist
in Earth's
with
spaceships
a
in
futuristic realm
story
links
subject. Greg Grewell
complete
the BSG
non-humans,
places
to the racialized
attention
speculative
to the specula
and European
colonialist
literatures
"earthly" American
to
tive genre, arguing that the "science fiction
its tendency
with
industry,
to a (de)familiarized
to
universe out there, continues
(dis)place other-ness
colonial narrative, a nar
through its use of the all-too-familiar
promulgate
rative that both sanctions and justifies violence
against 'others,' regardless
of their planet of origin" (37).
To examine
this further, I draw on studies of televised
science fiction,
in particular
the
Star
Trek. Works
television
series
scholarship
analyzing
such as Daniel Leonard Bernardi's Star Trek and History: Race-ing
Toward
a White
Future
Zones: Critical Positions
and the anthology Enterprise
on Star Trek (ed. Taylor Harrison
a post-World
et al) situate BSG within
War II genre of televised
science fiction with
liberal humanist
underpin
of this genre, the
nings. With Star Trek as the first and most emblematic
of a racially integrated
of
future expressed
presentation
by the diversity
at
of
the crew denotes
liberalism's
least
(or
promise
tolerance)
equality
Cold War (and later, de-industrialization)
through capitalism. Meanwhile,
are projected
onto
interstellar
interactions
anxieties
the fears
their
with
alien
and triumphs of the Federation
"races." The human environs
in
is
as a post-oppression
and de-racialized
future; simultaneously
imagined
to depict the non-human
the series uses racist constructions
other. Hence,
Sulu is an integrated Asian American member
of the Federation while
the
non-human
tionless;
Romulans
Vulcans
likewise,
of being rational and emo
stereotypes
embody Asian
crew member while
is an affable Russian
Chekov
the
to destroy
totalitarian race that wishes
represent the calculating,
to
the African nationalist
the Federation;
and Uhura represents
disciplined
a pink-collar
while
the Klingons
the oversexed
and
occupation,
embody
warlike
As
Bernardi
explains:
savage.7
196
HU PEGUES
cinematic Trek is a representation of our future, and because it so
to a coherent and intelligible diegesis, it is particularly adept
sticks
earnestly
at naturalizing the ideology in its historicity, and thus perpetuating myth. This
myth is ultimately about a humanocentric universe that casts aliens as dark
[B]ecause
and treacherous Others whom our white heroes must battle, civilize, and over
come in the name of manifest destiny, divine evolution: white future-time.
(104)
this formation within BSG, stating, "although
racial dif
emphasizes
of the racialized Other are not overt categories
of
ference and questions
social difference
between
and among human characters, BSG
meaningful
Deis
by a conception
constructed Other"
forward
is driven
are a carefully
The figure
Galactica's
of racial difference
where
the Cylons
(157).
the position
in the
of team player
occupies
crew at the same time that her identity as a
liberal humanist
of Boomer
is
Boomer
the alien other. The fact that Gal?ctica
agent represents
unaware
of
of
underscores
her
the
both
instability
identity
initially
Cylon
in
her character and liberalism,
liberal pluralism's
illustrating
fracturing
Cylon
moment.
the Miss
the globalized
invoked by
Ultimately,
Saigon figure
from
the liberal
is post-liberal,
the plural Boomers
implying yet departing
premise of Star Trek's final frontier. The BSG series opens with the liberal
humanist
cultural
multi
of televised
science fiction?a
tropes familiar to audiences
crew aboard a battleship
that functions for humanitarian
purposes
a
ones. All that changes with
the Cylon offensive,
than military
for theWorld Trade Center attacks. Echoing Karen
thinly veiled metaphor
of Miss Saigon at the his
of
the
Shimakawa's
Broadway
production
study
toric moment
of the first Gulf War, how is the neoliberal figure of Boomer
rather
at once
a static and flexible
Star Trek scholars
of the post-9/11 Oriental?
representation
that as the series shifted from Cold War
demonstrate
the figure of the Klingon
into a post-Civil Rights
liberalism,
protectionism
a
to
toAfrican American
Chinese
of Russian
from
morphed
representation
to Latino while
fixed as a racialized
other. This flexible
yet
remaining
as other. In this
is also found in the figure of Boomer
fixed racialization
that casts her
is marked
Boomer
moment,
by an Orientalism
as (South)East Asian and West Asian,
specifically Arab. In
simultaneously
the Season Two episode "Scar," Caprica Boomer
explains her viewpoints
post-9/11
on Cylon "reincarnation."
tropes of Buddhist wisdom,
Invoking orientalist
.
.
.
a learning experience"
In
states: "death
becomes
Boomer
(2.5.15).
a
a subsequent
when
with
different
death
connotation,
appears
episode,
Gal?ctica
Boomer
a new
is congratulated
orientalist
invoking
Boomer's
hero
after being
of Muslim
stereotypes
of jihad as holy war ("Downloaded"
emblematic
is simultaneously
otherness
body,
ism and distortions
way,
as a war
re-born
into
fundamental
In this
2.5.18).8
and
of Buddhism
197
EMPIRE AND ADOPTION
Islam. This
reading also complicates
of Orientalism
articulation
Americanist
an Asian
the relationship
between
theo
and Edward Said's original
retical work, a connection most often collapsed
through
lation "Orient/Oriental"
for both East and West Asians.
fluid
the differential
interrogates
and "American
be termed as "Orientalism"
treatment
interpel
Instead, Boomer's
intersection
between what
embodiment
might
The
the similar
neo-Orientalism."9
of torture on the show underscores
the colonialist
link
this
other. Entertainment
age to this flexible Asian/Arab
Weekly describes
a
on
in
BSG:
theme
"During
ripped-from-the-headlines
episode
post-9/11
a fundamentalist
season 1, Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff)
brutalizes
prisoner
on the show include beatings, withholding
Ghraib." Depictions
in
and
references
heads
water, with numerous
food,
submerging
dialogue
to rape. "Tltown
out an airlock" becomes
with
execution
synonymous
trial; Importantly,
these explicit treatments are reserved primarily
without
? la Abu
such as Number
Six or Leoben.
for "white" Cylons
of my reading, I turn my attention away from these
For the purposes
more complex
overt portrayals
of torture to focus on Boomer's
represen
tation through such a lens. In the episode "Litmus" she is subject toWar
on-Terror
treatment,
but her narrative
as imprisoned
subject
overlaps
with
theMiss Saigon fantasy (1.06). In this episode Chief ends his relationship
to Gal?ctica
the end of his protection
Boomer
and the cover
(signaling
to Caprica
their relationship
while
Helo
affirms
his
commitment
provides)
Boomer.
"Litmus" takes place after Caprica Boomer finds Helo and they
are on the run, but before they have sex and before he discovers
that she is
a Cylon. Helo thinks Boomer has been captured by the Cylons,
though she
has actually been recalled for a Cylon conference.
She stands on a rooftop
two other Cylons
reaction
(Number Six and Doral), observing Helo's
to her "capture." The Cylons
detail Helo's
fate: if he goes north look
he lives. If he runs south, escaping by himself,
ing for Boomer,
they kill
some hesitation,
runs north, letting the Cylons
him. After
Helo
proceed
with
their plan of seduction. Caprica Boomer
decision:
analyzes Helo's
"He's a good man. He always does the right thing" ("Litmus"
1.06). While
this futuristic scene of cyborg surveillance may seem a far cry from Miss
of Helo's
character mirrors Miss
the assessment
Saigon,
Saigon's white
with
hero Chris when
I'm an American
Chris
/ How
laments,
could
"I wanted
to save her, protect
I fail to do good?"
her / Christ,
("The Confrontation,"
Boublil and Sch?nberg).
When Helo finally finds Boomer, she is hooded and shackled, being led
the Centurion,
by a robotic Cylon, or Centurion. Helo battles and destroys
of Helo and Boomer
and then the camera pulls in for a close-up
sitting
next to each other. Here the images of kidnapping
and torture are revisited,
but in a more
unexpected
setting. This
is the scene of romance,
even with
198
HU PEGUES
of the double cross. (And the treachery within
this scene will
soon be displaced
once Boomer
the
escapes/betrays
Cylons with Helo.)
and de-hoods Boomer. We see her bloodied
Helo unshackles
and bruised
the subtext
face, and she is crying. As climax to this scene Helo kisses her; this is their
this is the visual moment
first kiss ("Litmus"
that
1.06). Cinematically,
as
Shimakawa
Helo's
love for Sharon. Just
argues that "the
recognizes
in the Persian
and Sch?enberg's
Gulf, combined with Boublil's
as
of
Pinkerton
the
worked
Chris,
(sic) rewriting
saintly-heroic
together to
rescue
'jettison' the abject feelings of guilt and shame" (53), this do-gooder
'victory'
the American
by Helo recuperates
project of theWar on Terror,
a
lens
of
romantic subjectivity.
tactics
and
all, through
questionable
of (South)East
Boomer's
and West Asian
is devel
double signification
of Boomer
further during her imprisonment. After going with Helo to Gal?ctica,
is put in a cell. She simultaneously
represents Miss
Caprica Boomer
to
the military white man, and also the
the child-bearing
partner
Saigon,
a prenatal hospital ward or a
At
times
her
cell
resembles
enemy.
captured
oped
11 rendered the sepa
living room, but she remains behind bars. September
and
threat
and the Asian
the promise
of Empire negligible,
ration between
as multicultural
female must
be simultaneously
American
disciplined
On
is temporar
and
terrorist
threat.
Boomer
occasions,
subject
multiple
defeat the Cylons,
ily released from her cell to help the crew of Gal?ctica
renunciation
of her own people and of
creating a double and contradictory
on an enemy combatant.
use of interrogation
the effective military
the treat
reading of the text is a critical aspect of deconstructing
of war and torture on the show. The Gal?ctica
is juxtaposed with
This
ment
crew have physically
the Pegasus,
whose
and sexually
battlestar,
their Cylon prisoner (a version of the leggy blonde model, Number
in her cell on Gal?ctica
Six) and who also attempt to rape Caprica Boomer
reading of this demonstrates
"good war"
("Pegasus" 2.0.10). A superficial
another
abused
"bad war," that is, endorsing war yet opposing
one could
torture. Upon
closer examination,
however,
Six's treatment akin to that at Abu Ghraib and Boomer's
versus
Guant?namo.
visual
proof
tive extends
That
is, Number
abuse
reveals
bruises
such as
Number
to practices
from
on her face as
of the physical
she endures. The Abu Ghraib
beatings
case
as
torture defined as "excessive
in Number
Six's
abuse
with
the ancillary
debate
narra
force"
blame?
surrounding
or the commanding
at fault? Unlike
officers
Six,
is less apparent and remains obfuscated. While
impris
against prisoners-of-war,
were
the foot soldiers
Boomer's
Six's
practices
consider
on Gal?ctica,
is hit, kicked,
and has a gun drawn
Caprica Boomer
on her, but she doesn't display
of abuse that Six does.
the visual markers
circulated
internet photos
of
the relationship
between
This parallels
oned
Abu
Ghraib
torture
and Amnesty
International's
report
of abuse
during
199
EMPIRE AND ADOPTION
and prolonged
Guant?namo
(4).
incommunicado
"secret
detention"
at the US Naval
Base
at
arc of Miss
the white-savior
the rape of Caprica
Furthering
Saigon,
on
Boomer
Lieutenant
Thorne
his ship as "Cylon
(known
by Pegasus'
white
is averted by the arrival of Helo and Chief, Boomer's
Interrogator")
lover and ex-lover
Boomer's
rape is stopped,
("Pegasus"
2.0.10). While
in a later attempt to force
the right to control her own body is jeopardized
her to have an abortion against her will ("Epiphanies"
2.5.13). Rather than
connects
Boomer
and
abuse
the
sexual
Six,
them,
contrasting
elucidating
sex
between
of
and
Here
the
rape
spectrum
prisoners
gendered discipline.
ual violence
of colonial
conquest
exceeds
racialization,
nation, and gender,
of the
Iraqi Freedom
the tacit sanctioning
paralleling
during Operation
and the rapes and murders
sexual assault of male "enemy combatants"
of
are
as
US female soldiers that
classified
"noncombat
related injuries."10
The logics of this new Empire as witnessed
via the treatment of Boomer
to the violent consequences
link the myth of global economy's
inevitability
of post-9/11
anxieties. Reading
BSG's open space back onto Hardt and
formulation
of Empire reveals a preoccupation
with re-territoriali
Negri's
zation
even within
Caprica,
takeover
the post-national
settlement of New
paradigm. Human
a barely habitable planet, proves disastrous;
the resulting Cylon
serves as ametaphor
for the occupation
of Iraq ("Lay Down Your
Part 2" 2.5.20, "Occupation"
anxieties
Burdens,
3.01). Territorial
eclipse
and extend to the national body, as when human
desires for land, however,
are taken to protest Boomer's
on board Gal?ctica.
The
presence
hostages
leader
"The
takers'
colonial
fleet
has
become
hostage
proclaims,
Cylon
than applying Hardt and
2.5.16). Rather
territory" ("Sacrifice"
that
under
conclusion
historic
and
break
Negri's
Empire's
epistemological
as Other, no one is excluded
"no identity is designated
from the domain,
occupied
there is no outside"
locate the traces of colonialist
(194), we might
othering
what Grace Kyungwon
state
Hong terms the "flexibly neocolonial"
a
woman
conversa
of
color
feminist
in
(144). Through
reading practice
tion with
racialized
culture, Hong maps
immigrant women's
capital's
within
transition
"flexible
from
a national
accumulation's
to global expression.
She elucidates
the ways
of
nonmodern
and
modern
forms
strategy
mixing
of production
racialized
and gendered
depends on and reproduces
exploi
tation" (115). While
its
from
occurs,
separation
Empire's
imperialism
as
in
the
Boomer
of
the doubly configured
grounding
(neo)colonialism
post-9/11
Oriental
continues.
Cyborg
The representation
of Boomer
as Adoptee
in Battlestar
Gal?ctica
at once
reaffirms
HU PEGUES
200
the cyborg archetype. Here I depart from the genealogy
of
and redeploys
televised
science fiction to engage with the cinematic figure of the cyborg,
most notably the rise of the cyborg inUS films of the 1980s. At just the
moment
liberal multiculturalism
finds its post-Fordist
when
expression
in colorblindness,
in films such as The Terminator,
the cyborg emerges
race from
and Blade Runner. The colorblind
ethos eliminates
RoboCop,
race remains the subtext.
text, but as these films demonstrate,
iconic in this aspect, with its replicants,
Blade Runner
is perhaps the most
serv
or "skin jobs" (the same epithet used in BSG for humanoid
Cylons)
the surface
of the racialized other. Several scholars have
ing as the white embodiment
noted how the Aryan-looking
represent,
alternately,
escaped
replicants
and the Asian American model minority
workers,
slaves, "docile" Mexican
Blade Runnerremains
(Carr 134-43, Lee 191-96, Abu-Lughod378-79).n
the most cited cyborg film of its era and the most foundational;
however,
in the iconic form of the cyborg in such foundational
Boomer
intervenes
texts.
She
is not
the white
signifier
other, but an Asian
of the racialized
American
representation.
as metaphoric
and literal
Boomer's
double signification
Complicating
on the cyborg that suggests
this figure represents
other is the scholarship
individual or the tragic mulatto. As LeiLani Nishime
elu
the mixed-race
cidates,
the cyborg's
hybridity
it from
differentiates
the alien. Nishime
argues:
As a hybrid, the cyborg is not completely the Other. Rather, its narrative power
comes from its ability to blur boundaries by blending the Other and the human.
. . .This uncanny mixture infects the portrayal of both mixed-race people and
cyborgs. It is only a short leap, then, to read anxieties
the body of the cyborg as a parallel to the confusion
on the body of the multiracial human. (35)
about the incoherence of
and concern that centers
share humans as allegorical
all Cylons
parents, Boomer's
intimacy
her
her
underscores
with humans
miscegenation
hybrid status,
typified by
to white/human
lovers. She can be read not only as Asian
her proximity
as
and
also
issues of biculturalism
with
attendant
but
biracial,
American,
While
misidentification.
Because
of Caprica
to Helo and
relationship
and humans think she is "one of
Boomer's
to humans, Cylons
status as a "passing"
Boomer,
them," highlighting
subject. Gal?ctica
fears of being a Cylon,
of her Cylon
has
before human detection
status,
are "gonna think I'm a Cylon agent" ("Water"
that her crewmates
worrying
identification
1.02). Her fears and ultimate
self-discovery
place Boomer's
subsequent
allegiance
her
not
the miscegenated
only within
but also within
mixed-race,
adoptee
recent work
In Sara K. Dorow's
space between
discourse.
on US
adoption
human
and Cylon
of Chinese
as
children,
EMPIRE AND ADOPTION
201
an "impossible
racial
contradiction,
namely, fixed and flexible
mutable
characterizations
of
Asianness
coexist
with
histories
imaginarles',
that have continually
to fix and contain
invented ways
it" (20-21). This
she names
construction
Boomer
of adoption
also emerges within
the BSG texts. Gal?ctica
to question
on a mission
her identity while
to bomb a
she
is
confronted
versions
of
As
herself.
there,
by multiple
starts
Cylon
ship;
the many Boomers
ominous
Valerii,
Valerii"
music
I was
"We love you, Sharon. And we always will,"
proclaim,
"I'm not a Cylon.
sounds. Boomer
I'm Sharon
responds,
born on Troy. My parents were Katherine
and Abraham
Last Gleaming,
Part 2" 1.13). Even after she is killed
term
BSG
for Cylon
(the
rebirth), she returns to her
on
with
of
her
friends
and family, and even
apartment
Caprica
photos
a
she
is
told
she
is
Number
copy of
though
Eight, she will only go by the
names Sharon or Boomer. Number
Six visits her, trying to persuade her
("Kobol's
and "downloaded"
to embrace
Sharon's
her new
coffee
BOOMER:
identity,
and asks about
a set of carved
elephants
on
table.
My mother
gave
them to me
the day I left for the Fleet
Academy.
SIX:
BOOMER:
SIX:
BOOMER:
Is this her? [holding up photo]
Supposed to be. Of course, none of it's real. All fabricated for
my mission. It's all a lie.
God loves you.
[holding up photo of herself with Gal?ctica crew] This is love.
I loved them. And then I betrayed
These people love me....
them.
I shot
a man
I love.
Frakked
his life. And why? Because
king Cylon! ("Downloaded"
over
another
I'm a lying machine!
2.5.18)
man,
ruined
I'm a frak
as Gal?ctica
Boomer
her love for Adama,
Galactica's
professes
leader and her adoptive
father figure, Caprica Boomer
refuses Adama's
the human
repeated requests to name the remaining Cylons hidden within
survivors. Sharon will not choose an absolute alliance, demonstrating
the
ultimate falsity of essentializing
her identity as either human or Cylon. As
a liminal subject, she refutes the human-Cylon
writers
binary. Adoptee
and scholars
in the anthology
Outsiders
Within: Writing on Transracial
Even
articulate Boomer's
Adoption
stances of birth and adoption,
strategy: "By the very nature of our circum
we cannot be contained by national borders
or simple dichotomies"
(Trenka, Oparah, and Shin 14). Not only making
a post-national
the editors of this volume
also provide
the
assertion,
embedded materialism
that speaks to Boomer's
speculative
identity as an
adoptee,
nization,
which
reveals
adoption as the intimate
and globalization"
imperialism,
"transracial
racism, militarism,
face of colo
(7).
202
HU PEGUES
Boomer's
simultaneous
as birth mother
construction
further
compli
as soon as Caprica Boomer
the figure of her as adoptee. Almost
arrives on Gal?ctica,
both Cylons
and humans
claim her unborn child.
to the human scientist Gaius Baltar and
Number
Six appears as a vision
cates
from
the beginning
of Season Two starts prophesizing
about "their child."
returns with Helo to Gal?ctica,
Boomer
she is immediately
placed
in prison. Baltar listens in as Helo tells Boomer,
I don't want
"It's just...
When
our baby born
in this cell." The
BALTAR:
Their child?
I told you a child would arrive. I told you itwould be born
right here in this room. How could you ever doubt me?
our child? ("Home, Part 2"
Boomer
is going to bear ...
2.0.07)
SIX:
BALTAR:
This
ensues:
conversation
following
occurs
in the foreground
the two white
between
char
and newly-elected
scientist
of the
Vice President
conversation
acters, the renowned
and the statuesque
Colonies
white
adoptive
the background,
baby without
Laura Roslin,
fusion
baby
Cylon with bleached blond hair. Future-time's
to talk about "their baby" with Boomer
in
proceed
parents
out of focus. The human
concern
wants
from the fetus
saves Roslin's
is born, political
and military
ROSLIN:
characters
for the Cylon mother.
to terminate Boomer's
debate
the fate of the
The President
of the Colonies,
until a blood trans
pregnancy,
life ("Epiphanies"
2.5.13).12 When
leaders call a meeting.
If the baby does survive, the question
the
is, what do we do with
it?
are you
BALTAR:
Do? What
ROSLIN:
airlock?
I don't make
out
BALTAR:
COL. TIGH:
suggesting?
That we
throw it out of an
suggestions, Mr. Baltar. If Iwant
an airlock,
I'd
say
to toss a baby
so.
it's really gratifying to know that infanticide is not on
Well,
the table.
Do I have to point out that this is not a baby? It's a
machine.
BALTAR:
ADAMA:
ROSLIN:
No, it's half machine, half human. I suggest we all keep that
half inmind.
The Cylons went through a great deal of trouble to create
this thing. It should go without saying that if it's good for
them, it's gonna be bad for us.
I completely agree. And I take it as a given we can't turn it
over
to
Sharon
("Downloaded"
to
2.5.18)
raise.
That
would
be
disastrous.
203
EMPIRE AND ADOPTION
or humans make
Cylons
own
child is foreclosed.
raising her
the "half machine,
birth to Hera,
Whether
of Boomer
the prospect
the decision,
The figurative biracial, Boomer
gives
half human." Adoptee
birth
becomes
to raise.
and her daughter
is taken and given to a human mother
mother,
this adoption scenario by misleading
the
The president further complicates
a
is high-rank
into thinking that the birth mother
human adoptive mother
ing human and lying to Boomer
transition
way, the metaphor's
"mulatta"
that her baby died soon after birth. In this
to literal re-occurs?Boomer,
the cyborg
the hybrid
is the birth mother
of Hera,
If, as Deis suggests, "the Cylon threat can
adopted by humans,
who
"passes" for human.
Cylon
be interpreted as embodying
deep
fears by white
societies
(157), this is nowhere more
and long-held
and racial passing"
regarding miscegenation
evident than in the anxieties produced by Boomer
are we
What
tomake
in the transformation
1980s
articulation
of Boomer's
and her daughter Hera.
of the adoptee cyborg,
representation
to actual? What has occurred since the
from allegory
of colorblind multiculturalism
that enables
the depar
Bascara
argues
signifier
. . . and
that "both multiculturalism
inModel-Minority
Imperialism
glo
. . . have
in recent years, revealing
balization
that they
begun to unravel
to the very ideologies
resemblance
bear uncanny
and practices
they had
ture from
the white
of racialized
other? Victor
to displace,"
and that this unraveling
"shows us how the post
emerged
colonial Oriental under globalization
converges with the Asian American
Boomer's
literal embodiment
under multiculturalism"
of the racial
(xvii).
that in the post-9/11 moment
the contradictions
of
no longer hold their organizing
and globalization
logics
ized other demonstrates
multiculturalism
in place, especially
for the colonized
and outside US
subject both within
woman
"the
white
man-Asian
borders. Koshy
asserts,
dyad emerged from
a history of interracial intimacy in which
the Asian woman was identified
with forms of extraterritorial
desire that are excluded from the moral order
of marriage
and nationhood"
(32-33);
and her mixed-species
afflict Boomer
both Cylon
and human anxieties
child because
the romance of the
cannot be completely
disciplined
by either domestic
or
to
The
the
nation.
othered
attempt
discipline
subject within a nation
ity
a distressed
with porous and precarious
borders produces
redeployment
of tropes that elides Empire's
these tropes
however,
project; ultimately,
colonialist
adventure
render visible
the disavowal
of the colonialism
that creates
racialized
and
difference.
gendered
To conclude,
I posit the nonnormative
of BSG's
reitera
possibilities
of
tion of Miss Saigon. Within
the repeating
Madame
storyline
Butterfly
the Asian birth mother
kills herself,
setting the path for the adoption of
the child
father
lows
tradition?she
by the white
in this orientalist
and his white
wife.
Gal?ctica
is shot and killed
Boomer
in Season
fol
Two
204
HU PEGUES
being transported as a prisoner amid shouts of "bitch" and "traitor"
the crowd ("Resistance"
this is a yellow peril/dragon
2.0.04). While
of Boomer, who
is in prison for shooting
the captain of
lady articulation
the tragic, interracial romance
is recovered as she lies dying in
Gal?ctica,
while
from
are, "I
Tyrol's arms. He repeats, "No, no, no," and her last words
love you, Chief." Her story ends, however, without
the "ultimate sacrifice"
of Cio-Cio
San orMiss Saigon's Kim. She and Chief do not have a child
Galen
before she is down
together, and her death is but a temporary moment
loaded into a new body.
to the heroine of Miss Saigon and the actress who played her
Referring
on Broadway,
Bascara argues, "The image of a Kim/Lea
Salonga, about to
child's better life inAmerica,
suicide for the sake of her Eurasian
can be read as an attempt to write over previous
and forthcoming
empires"
Boomer
rewrite
back into the narra
does
then,
(139). How,
imperialism
commit
tive? Caprica Boomer
gives birth to Hera, and, very much alive, turns her
her child was killed by humans,
anger on her colonialist
captors. Believing
and chokes the doctor who delivered
she shouts, "You're all murderers!"
her baby ("Downloaded"
enacted on
2.5.18). Here the silencing violence
theMiss Saigon figure is redirected at imperial powers.
in Season
is domesticated,
The oppositional
however,
figure of Boomer
Three
of BSG.
This
occurs
through the lens of family with
the lens of nation as she becomes
confi
domestication
to Helo and through
her marriage
dante to military
leader Adama. Wife
an officer
re-born
Sharon's
and mother,
the new
promises
Even in Season
fatal suicide
Three, the new Mrs.
scene inMiss Saigon:
Sharon Agathon
SHARON:
Sharon sobbing.]
I love you.
HELO:
I love you too. ("Rapture" 3.12)
camera
Sharon;
catches
pulls back
blood splatters
her?her
This
agony.
and the Asian
death
is also re-made/
call
inverts
the fateful/
I'm begging you to do this. Find the courage to do this for
both of us, okay?
[Sharon gives a brave smile through her tears. Helo takes her
face in his hand, with tears in his eyes as well. They embrace,
SHARON:
The
Boomer
("Torn" 3.06).
sign "Athena"
carries
the
threat
of yellow peril; this threat
assimilation
always
to play itself out by the end of ?SG's
fourth and final season.
and given
to show
them
on the wall
in each
behind
other's
arms. Helo
her. The music
shoots
swells.
Helo
in
she is dead. He cries, then screams
eyes are closed;
of Miss
the sentimentality
invokes
suicide,
Saigon's
sacrifice. But in this case, Sharon's
woman's
supposed
scene
is not to assure her child's
place
in an assimilated
future without
her.
EMPIRE AND ADOPTION
205
shoots Sharon to facilitate her rebirth aboard the Cylon base ship
so that she might
that have taken her.
steal her daughter from the Cylons
romance of the Asian American
the colonialist
female, Sharon
Perverting
an
to
statement
Six
in
of
Number
ironic
heterosexual
romance,
deadpans
Helo
[the humans]
"They
wouldn't
let me
see my
daughter,
so my
husband
shot
me."
BSG
the intersection
and repetition of miscegenation
and
complicates
with
the
simultaneous
embodiment
of
birth
and
mother
adoption
adoptee
in the figure of Boomer.
In the musical Miss Saigon, mixed-race
children of
GIs and Vietnamese
women
receive
sentimental
treatment
in the "Bui Doi"
former GI John
number. Accompanying
slides of Vietnamese
orphanages,
never
one
"I
the
/
For
half-breeds
sings
following:
thought
day I'd plead
from a land that's torn / But then I saw a camp for children /Whose
crime
was being born / They're called Bui Doi / The dust of life / Conceived in
hell /And born in strife" (Boublil and Sch?nberg). As Marchetti argues,
their American
to fight
heroes another opportunity
and win, this time, by staking a patriarchal, blood claim
to Vietnam's
of the Amerasian
children. The absorption
children of war
into America
argues against any residual charges of American
racism, cru
or
heartlessness"
(100).
elty,
"these narratives
the Vietnam
Miss
tions
allow
War
connec
renders the larger colonial
Saigon's
adoption narrative
as victims. Kim's
invisible and constructs both children and mothers
into multicultural
through suicide facilitates her son's vanishing
a wartime
text
of
Battlestar
Galactica's
inter
newly employed
racial white-Asian
affair makes
the connection
between birth mother
and
vanishing
America.
child mutually
adopted
obfuscation
and articulation
Empire. Marchetti
Butterfly becomes
reminds
to the simultaneous
constitutive,
pointing
of neocolonialism
within
the emergent global
us that from Madame
Butterfly forward, "The
the emblem of excess?emotionally,
sexually, culturally,
cannot
be
into
this
of
domestic
racially?that
recuperated
picture
tranquil
It
is
this
of
of
Boomer
the
that makes
ity" (88).
precisely
irreducibility
figure
text to read/view. Battlestar
BSG a pleasurable
Gal?ctica
may
employ
and gendered
tropes, but the global order's fracturing demon
strates that its totalizing has always been a fiction, and the unruly contesta
tion of this narrative by the Asian American
female refuses to disappear.
racialized
206
HU PEGUES
Notes
I would
like to thank Jigna Desai, Josephine Lee, Erika Lee, Kelly Condit
Shrestha, Shannon Gibney, and Thien-bao Phi for their generous and insightful
feedback on this essay.
1.1 use the term "Asian American" carefully here, aware of the multiplicity of the
term in which a Korean Canadian actress plays a role that is not racially articu
to audiences. Similarly, BSG
lated but obviously racialized as Asian American
is produced in Vancouver with an overwhelmingly
Canadian cast, yet is shown
to a US viewing audience. While not the focus of my study, these inter
esting complexities demonstrate the limits of usefulness for terms such as Asian
American, and in the context of BSG American might be best understood as "North
primarily
Similarly, the actor who plays Sharons 's lover/husband Helo, Tahmoh
a
is
mixed-race Canadian of British andWhite River First Nation ances
Penikett,
This
love affair, yet demon
try.
complicates the representation of a white-Asian
strates that such intricacies are lost tomore overdetermined
tropes.
Part 2, which was released on DVD
2. This notation refers to the Miniseries,
as part of Season One. Subsequent citations for the series will follow a similar
American."
format. For example, "1.06" refers to Season One, Episode 6; "2.5.13" refers to
Season 2.5, Episode 13.
3. The role in the original 1970s series was played by African American actor
Herb Jefferson, Jr.While outside the scope of this paper, the recasting of Boomer
from a black man to an Asian American woman might yield a productive com
parative inquiry.
4. I use a dated "canon" to name these two versions of Cylon Number Eight, or
Sharon. The names "Gal?ctica Boomer" and "Caprica Boomer" were used for
the first two seasons of BSG, while from Season Three forward, these characters
are more
commonly
referred
to as
"Boomer"
use the old formulation
"Athena." I consciously
lations more closely match
and
"Sharon,"
or
"Boomer"
and
for several reasons:
1) these appel
from the first and second
the doubling configurations
seasons; 2) I resist renaming Caprica Boomer as "Sharon" because it implies that
Cylon has personhood; 3) "Athena" does not receive
only the human-identified
this call sign until Season Three; and 4) separating "Sharon" and "Athena" from
"Boomer" distances the assimilated wife, mother, and officer from a more messy
and entwined relationship with the Cylon first known aboard Gal?ctica.
5. For readers unfamiliar with this genealogy, Susan Koshy cites John Luther
articula
Long's short story "Madame Butterfly" (1898) as the first American
interracial romance. Long based his story of the doomed
tion of a white-Asian
romance between an American
sailor and a Japanese geisha on the 1887 travel
ogue Madame Chrysanthemum by French author Pierre Loti. Later incarnations
of this narrative include Giacomo Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly (1904) and
the musicals The World of Suzie Wong (1957) andMiss Saigon (1989) (Koshy 29).
In the US, Puccini's libretto (David Belasco's
script) is commonly referred to as
Madame
Butterfly.
EMPIRE AND ADOPTION
207
6. These lyrics were sung on Broadway by the actor Jonathan Pryce in "yellow
face," an action that sparked widespread protest within Asian American communi
ties. For more on casting complaints and other protests of the show's stereotyped
representations, see Shimakawa 43-56, Yoshikawa 275-94, and Zia 109-35.
7.1 stress the racial components within this liberalized vision of future-time even
though this simplifies issues of gender. For example, while Sulu and Uhura are
assimilated within Star Trek's logics, this assimilation renders Uhura the sexual
ized black female and Sulu the emasculated Asian American man.
8. The translation of the Arabic word jihad in English is "supreme effort," mean
ing a struggle or undertaking for a worthy or transcendental cause. This transla
tion has become simplified and distorted tomean "holy war."
9. Thanks to Jigna Desai for both pointing this out and offering the term "neo
Orientalism."
10. Retired US Army Reserve Colonel Ann Wright charts the recent rise of rape
and murder of US women soldiers in connection with the war in Iraq and the US
to investigate.
government's unwillingness
11. Blade Runner holds particular significance for Battlestar Gal?ctica. Veteran
Latino actor Edward James Olmos starred in Blade Runner as the futuristic beat
cop Gaff, and he was arguably the biggest name in the cast of the re-imagined
series. Many fans also note the similarity of Cylon Number Six to the role
of Pris in Blade Runner?a
statuesque, sexualized blonde played in the film by
Potter
and Marshall cite replicants as predecessors to Cylons: "In
Daryl Hannah.
previous science fiction, the closest parallel is provided by the replicants inBlade
BSG
Runner, artificially created synthetic beings with living tissue and cells" (2).
12. The child Hera takes on the stereotypical endowments of hybridity. As Deis
comments, "Hera, a mulatto, and the product of an 'interracial' relationship, is
imbued with fetishistic attributes. In examples ranging from metaphysical
(Hera
has appeared in visions and dreams of the central characters), to the almost magi
cal (her blood has temporarily healed President Roslin's terminal cancer), Hera
symbolizes a child of destiny and a key to resolving the human and Cylon conflict"
(164).
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