Some things you might not know:
1. Dirk Benedict — the original Starbuck and Face from the A-Team — is still alive!
2. He’s a right-winger who is blogging for conservative entertainment blog BigHollywood.com, which is kind of like The Huffington Post except without the Greek accent or the cultural cache.
3. He believes that the latest incarnation of Battlestar Galatica is terrible because of its obvious liberal agenda.
Excerpts after the jump. I’m telling you now as a friend, check them out. It’s like having a conversation about Sarah Palin with your grandmother, except your grandmother is Face from the A-Team!
On the Hollywood “suits” who ruined the original (and, according to Benedict the “good” BSG) by asking him to tone down his rampant sexuality:
“If Dirk doesn’t quit playing every scene with a girl like he wants to get her in bed, he’s fired.” This was, well, it was blatant heterosexuality, treating women like “sex objects.” I thought it was flirting. Never mind, they wouldn’t have it. I wouldn’t have it any other way, or rather Starbuck wouldn’t. So we persevered, Starbuck and I.
(Read that closely: he’s defending treating women like sex objects. For real. There’s no irony there. It’s not like Mad Men where there’s kind of a wink every time an ad exec slaps a secretary’s bottom: he actually believes what he’s saying!)
On how Lorne Greene would react to the new BSG:
I would guess Lorne is glad he’s in that Big Bonanza in the sky and well out of it.
(Yep, you read that right, Lorne Greene would rather be dead than see what happened to BSG. Really? Lorne took the role of Adama that seriously? I never knew that playing a space captain in what is widely considered an awful late-’70s TV show meant that much to Mr. Greene. Imagine how the narrator of Lorne Greene’s New Wilderness would have felt watching Wild Boyz on MTV….)
On the “re-imaging” of the show:
Witness the “re-imagined” “Battlestar Galactica,” bleak, miserable, despairing, angry and confused. Which is to say, it reflects in microcosm the complete change in the politics and morality of today’s world, as opposed to the world of yesterday.
“Re-imagining,” they call it. “Un-imagining” is more accurate.
On how the show’s moral ambiguity:
A show in which the aliens (Cylons) are justified in their desire to destroy human civilization, one would assume. Indeed, let us not say who the good guys are and who the bad are. That is being “judgmental,” taking sides, and that kind of (simplistic) thinking went out with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and Kathryn Hepburn and John Wayne and, well, the original “Battlestar Galactica.”
(Notice the use of quotes to indicate sarcasm in that last excerpt. Apparently any kind of fiction in which it’s not immediately clear in the first eleven seconds who the good guys are is left-wing propaganda. If only there was some kind of indicator that allowed you to see right away who was good and who was bad. Perhaps a colored hat? Or a mustache that could potentially be twirled? Are there no right-wing social scientists working on this problem!?)
And finally, my favorite piece of writing perhaps ever put onto the internet, regarding how his character of Starbuck was turned into a woman:
The best minds in the world of un-imagination doubled their intake of Double Soy Latte’s as they gathered in their smoke-free offices to curse the day that this chauvinistic Viper Pilot was allowed to be. But never under-estimate the power of the un-imaginative mind when it encounters an obstacle (character) it subconsciously loathes. “Re-inspiration” struck. Starbuck would go the way of most men in today’s society. Starbuck would become “Stardoe.” What the Suits of yesteryear had been incapable of doing to Starbuck 25 years ago was accomplished quicker than you can say orchiectomy. Much quicker, as in, “Frak! Gonads Gone!”
And the word went out to all the Suits in all the smoke-free offices throughout the land of Un-imagination, “Starbuck is dead. Long live Stardoe!”
Long live Stardoe indeed sir.
Clacked by Jay Black 
on Jan 20, 2009 @ 15:30 EST5EDT
I’ve read his thoughts before.
IMHO Starbuck TOS was not a chauvinist. Although I might be blinded by the fact that I used to think of him as my boyfriend ;) (As I stated in an earlier post)
I never saw this show as having a “liberal” leaning. I think all sides are displayed.
Sour grapes perhaps?
Not a liberal leaning, per se, but definitely a liberal perspective, which is quite obvious when you listen to Moore’s podcasts or when interviews with the writers or actors touch on politics. It’s a natural result when everyone in the room has the same point of view, and I don’t doubt they believe they are being completely evenhanded in their treatment. Witness the gender and racial politics problems in the Stargate Atlantis writing.
Fortunately BSG is a much much much much MUCH better show.
Ditto, bsg. I never thought SB TOS was a chauvinist either, but I too was probably blinded by DB’s prettiness; but, now I’m slightly horrified. While I do think the show has liberal inclinations, I don’t understand how not clearly defining good and bad is seen as such. Also, his construction of Starbuck as a balls-less ‘Stardoe’ does seem a bit odd, to say the least -
Having not been a big fan of TOS, I can’t comment much…
But Jay, just because Lorne Green’s no longer among us doesn’t mean he’d disagree with the direction of the show. Benedict obviously isn’t, and Hatch surely wasn’t (at least publicly) a big fan of the miniseries (At least, now that I said that, I hope he wasn’t). I don’t know if I read “he’d rather be dead” out of Benedict’s comments there.
But, on today of all days, it is interesting to see a different perspective how how society was different even 25 years ago.
(And frankly, I can’t imagine anyone having more balls than the current Starbuck. Just sayin’ :) )
Actually he’s saying that the perception was that he was treating women as sex objects. That’s why there are quotes. From his perspective he was playing the character as a bit of a playboy, flirting, not as a chauvinist. He is definitely not saying woman are sex objects.
Suggesting BSG is “un-imagined” is going to far. Instead, the imagination is directed elsewhere. The old BSG was about the survival of humanity and good (humans) over evil (Cylons). The new BSG isn’t — instead being more about moral ambiguity as he suggests. There are no heroes in the new BSG. We are learning that the perceived evil is actually almost exactly the same as the perceived good, just from their own perspective.
Actually, the new BSG is a take on the conservative ideals of old and new in many ways. It pushes a dream, but it also pushes fear. However, the dream turns out to be a sham and the feared enemy is shown to not be evil after all.
The new BSG is good. However, it is extremely liberal. He shouldn’t hate on it for that. He’s not “insane” though — just inarticulate and stubborn. :-)
I agree with DB.
And I can’t understand your thinking: any man flirting with a woman is “treating women as a sex object”? Let me guess: Sex in the City where women using men as sex objects are “empowering”? Usually that bizarre thinking goes hand in hand.
Benedict has been pushing this line of bull since the new series began and it’s tiring. Playing Starbuck is the one thing he’s really famous for, since Mr. T had the personality on “The A-Team” while George Peppard’s cigar out acted “Faceman.” His ego is so huge that he can’t see the one dimensional nature of his character. He probably regards Richard Hatch as a traitor.
As for Lorne Greene, he would have appreciated the moral ambiguity of the reimagined “Galactica.” Greene did Shakespeare at Stratford in Ontario (and did it well) as well as some great radio dramas in Canada that were full of moral ambiguity – what has Dirk Benedict ever done?
*POST AUTHOR*
DarkBhudda, I wasn’t reading in between the lines with regards to DB’s comments, I was, you know, _reading the actual lines_:
“This was, well, it was blatant heterosexuality, treating women like ‘sex objects'”.
If any of the original cast of Sex and the City writes a diatribe like this one in 2021 when that show is reimagined with Samatha being played by a genetically engineered tomato, I promise you my post about that will pull no punches. Promise.
I submit that the character, Kara Thrace aka Starbuck, has bigger balls than most of the men I know. Maybe the reincarnation makes Benedict uncomfortable because Starbuck and Apollo have sumthin’ goin’ on.
I would imagine most of his sour grapes come from something that once belonged only to him – the character Starbuck – is now something he has to share. This newer creation of BSG is so much more than the original series could have ever hoped to be doesn’t make it any better. Could be he was hoping for a cameo that never materialized.
However, Benedict is entitled to his opinion and just keep in mind that opinions are like assholes. Everyone has at least one and some of them stink.
Smoke free offices? Obviously this guy has never heard RDM do a podcast. I’m quite sure there are even podcasts out there with Mrs. Ron yelling at him for smoking (and doing a lot of heavy drinking).
dirk benedict is a closet homosexual. the current BSG is the best show on TV ever, and i’m not exagerating, i guess he doesn’t know quality, but then again, what do you expect from a has-been / never-was.
Please feel free to forward my comment to him and his entire family.
Best regards,
The topic is quite trendy in the net right now. What do you pay attention to while choosing what to write ?