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So here I was, discontentedly growling after a week of browsing through Being Human reviews that the fannish law of "if a female character critisizes, is hostile towards or, gasp, takes direct action against a hot male character, especially one perceived as a woobie, this female character MUST BE HATED, no matter what good reasons canon gives her for her attitude/actions" still holds. Has there ever been an exception? I wondered, from my Highlander days onwards, in the online fandoms I was part of. And was all prepared to cynically conclude there wasn't, when suddenly I realized that YES THERE WAS.
To wit, a case of canon showing a female character unrelentingly hostile towards, judging and in one instant even coming close to killing an attractive male character whom canon had made very clear from the get go was indeed guilty of a lot of the things she judged him for.... and fandom, by and large, rooted for the female character who remained one of the most beloved of the show. Say what you want about BSG, but Laura Roslin and Gaius Baltar did defy the fannish odds. Of course, it helped that Baltar was never presented as the main hunk, so to speak (he was in a lot of sexual situations, but the male characters pimped to the audience as objects of desire were Lee, Helo and Sam), and that he had arguably some of the best writing of the show in that he never was excused or one dimensionalized for what he had done on screen. But I can think of fandoms where the on screen canon made it similarly clear we weren't dealing with a misunderstood sweetheart here, and fandom went the "but how DARE THAT JUDGMENTAL BITCH ATTACK OUR WOOBIE!" root anyway.
Mind you: at times those of us (read: me) who loved both Laura Roslin and Gaius Baltar and ate that increasingly complex on screen relationship up with a spoon were in the frustrating position of finding fellow Roslin fans only interested in Baltar's demise, but I'd rather have that than wading through Cassandra hate because she dared to want Methos dead for trifling reasons like rape, torture, abuse and mass murder, or currently spoilers for ( Being Human's third season ). And let's not even get into canons where the male character is in love with the female character who is hostile towards him and the "how dare she say no to our darling?" element comes into play as well.
...come to think of it, though, the cynic in me, at constant battle with the opimist, can think of one ship related reason why the Roslin-Baltar situation was received differently, and no, not because of Mary McDonnell's awesome acting or Laura Roslin, until the second half of s4 anyway, being one of the best written female characters around. See, Baltar was never part of a popular slash (or het!) 'ship that Roslin could have been perceived at interfering with. Half the ire for Cassandra was due to her being seen as upsetting Methos/Duncan. ( More spoilers for Being Human, season 3. ) Whereas in terms of BSG's favourite canonical and fanonical couples, Laura Roslin's attitude towards Gaius Baltar neither had any impact nor was seen to have any impact. Roslin herself of course was part of one of the most popular 'ships, Adama/Roslin, which had nothing to do with Baltar (err, or only in the sense that Bill proved his devotion and increasing autocratism and questionable morals by offering to let him disappear discreetly in s3), and while Baltar/Gaeta is probably the closest thing BSG has to an m/m dynamic that's somewhere between canon and fanon, it was never a popular 'ship on the same scale Adama/Roslin, Lee/Kara or Kara/Sam were. (And again, that dynamic had nothing to do with Laura Roslin, or she with it.) So the "how dare X interfere with my beloved ship!" factor simply was not there.
...but that thought depresses me, and so I'd rather conclude Laura and Gaius prove that the winds, they are ever so slowly changing.
To wit, a case of canon showing a female character unrelentingly hostile towards, judging and in one instant even coming close to killing an attractive male character whom canon had made very clear from the get go was indeed guilty of a lot of the things she judged him for.... and fandom, by and large, rooted for the female character who remained one of the most beloved of the show. Say what you want about BSG, but Laura Roslin and Gaius Baltar did defy the fannish odds. Of course, it helped that Baltar was never presented as the main hunk, so to speak (he was in a lot of sexual situations, but the male characters pimped to the audience as objects of desire were Lee, Helo and Sam), and that he had arguably some of the best writing of the show in that he never was excused or one dimensionalized for what he had done on screen. But I can think of fandoms where the on screen canon made it similarly clear we weren't dealing with a misunderstood sweetheart here, and fandom went the "but how DARE THAT JUDGMENTAL BITCH ATTACK OUR WOOBIE!" root anyway.
Mind you: at times those of us (read: me) who loved both Laura Roslin and Gaius Baltar and ate that increasingly complex on screen relationship up with a spoon were in the frustrating position of finding fellow Roslin fans only interested in Baltar's demise, but I'd rather have that than wading through Cassandra hate because she dared to want Methos dead for trifling reasons like rape, torture, abuse and mass murder, or currently spoilers for ( Being Human's third season ). And let's not even get into canons where the male character is in love with the female character who is hostile towards him and the "how dare she say no to our darling?" element comes into play as well.
...come to think of it, though, the cynic in me, at constant battle with the opimist, can think of one ship related reason why the Roslin-Baltar situation was received differently, and no, not because of Mary McDonnell's awesome acting or Laura Roslin, until the second half of s4 anyway, being one of the best written female characters around. See, Baltar was never part of a popular slash (or het!) 'ship that Roslin could have been perceived at interfering with. Half the ire for Cassandra was due to her being seen as upsetting Methos/Duncan. ( More spoilers for Being Human, season 3. ) Whereas in terms of BSG's favourite canonical and fanonical couples, Laura Roslin's attitude towards Gaius Baltar neither had any impact nor was seen to have any impact. Roslin herself of course was part of one of the most popular 'ships, Adama/Roslin, which had nothing to do with Baltar (err, or only in the sense that Bill proved his devotion and increasing autocratism and questionable morals by offering to let him disappear discreetly in s3), and while Baltar/Gaeta is probably the closest thing BSG has to an m/m dynamic that's somewhere between canon and fanon, it was never a popular 'ship on the same scale Adama/Roslin, Lee/Kara or Kara/Sam were. (And again, that dynamic had nothing to do with Laura Roslin, or she with it.) So the "how dare X interfere with my beloved ship!" factor simply was not there.
...but that thought depresses me, and so I'd rather conclude Laura and Gaius prove that the winds, they are ever so slowly changing.
