Battlestar Galactica

Mary McDonnell recently gave an interview to two Brown University professors where the three women compared the ongoing writer’s strike to the quest for Earth.

It’s an interesting premise.  Consider that the writers tend to feel that they are fighting for the survival of their way of life now that traditional media is being eroded, just as the humans on Battlestar Galactica are fighting for their survival after the genocide of the Cylons.  The humans invented the Cylons, just as the writers invent the characters and plots of Hollywood projects, but the Cylons later found a way to survive without the humans, just as the television producers have found unguilded writers and reality television. 

To take the analogy further, both the humans and the Cylons feel that it is vitally important for their species to find Earth.  The humans, however, feel that they cannot survive without it while the Cylons are drawn to it by a religious calling and a need to make sure the humans do not find a place called home.  This is similar to the writers’ strike as well, as the writers accurately predict that they cannot survive without the studios granting them access to the profits from online endeavors, while the studios seem to have a religious feeling of righteousness that those are their profits and they have no obligation to share.

Both situations have a common fear of technology, of the unknown, of giving up the familiar mind set of the past even when that mind set may be the very thing that kills your future.  Just as the majority of the Cylons and the humans on Battlestar Galactica seem determined to see one another as enemies throughout the series, the reality is that — like the writers and the producers in Hollywood - both sides could accomplish so much more, and have a much better quality of life, if the could find a way to work together peacefully.

The major difference between the humans on Battlestar Galactica and the writers on strike is that the humans had nothing to go back to, their only choice is to keep pushing forward or to die where they stand.  Returning to Caprica, to their old way of life, is not an option.  While many writers feel that going back to the status quo before the strike is not an option, the reality is that the past is a lovely landscape stretched out behind them while the future they are fighting for is uncertain ground.  If fear is the only constant certainty of human emotion, then the writers strike is truly a test of faith … faith that this fight will be worth it, that the leaders are smart enough to broker a good deal, that a better future is on the horizon, and that there will be work and wonder when the strike finally ends.

Mary McDonnell tried to describe the mood on the set of Battlestar Galactica just before production shut down for the strike, as people in the center of the storm tried to muster resolve for the long haul and keep the strike will help the writers survive the minefield of new media:

"Because, on some level, this is the reformation of the entertainment industry, and how long that may take — or will we go all the way…? Where are we going to go with it? Are we truly going to reform the entire system because it has outgrown the old modality, or are we going to get a little bit of a compromise and then everybody go back to work because the idea of reform at this time in the economy and this time in the state of the world is so frightening to everyone? And will there be a visionary person on either side of the issues that can create the new way for technology and artistry to evolve forward?"

Good questions, Mary, and ones that seem just as potent today as they were when the strike began.  Hopefully the relations between the two sides will evolve, just as the relations between the humans and the Cylons evolved on Battlestar Galactica, and the writers and the studios will decide to work together to find the Earth that is a resolution to this conflict.