V and colonialism
(Disclaimer: I am white. I am sure I'm not saying anything PoC who've experienced colonialism could not say far better. Also, spoilers for V.)
I've been watching V, at least half-attentively, but I'm getting more annoyed by it. The dialogue and acting is getting worse - it's completely okay with me if Morena Baccarin, as Anna, the main (evil alien) Visitor, chews the scenery - she does quite a good job of it - but I trust the writers and other actors less and less to do a decent job.
Then the other reason I'm annoyed struck me: this is a show about colonisation, from the point of view of the colonised, with the colonised as deceptive, evil oppressors. And the show presents it completely as "Wow! here's a neat SF premise", not as having any relationship whatsoever to what many PoC around the planet have experienced at the hands of Europeans over the centuries. Our heroes are white American people*, (descendants of European colonisers), who are the unfortunate victims of the evil alien Visitors and couldn't possibly ever themselves have behaved somewhat similarly towards any other human beings.
I think what really triggered me to pay attention to this aspect of the show was the current plotline where the Visitors are searching out humans with really good DNA to improve themselves. (If you don't know, I've done a lot of research involving real DNA and this plot/premise makes so little sense in so many ways it hurts my head when I start trying to make a list.) Because while there is no known reason why aliens from another planet would even have DNA**, back here in the real world with real humans being colonised by other humans, a major issue for the colonised (and enslaved transplants eg African-descended slaves in the Americas) is being used as breeding stock by the colonisers.
And in places that were colonised, there's clear DNA evidence: eg in Brazil, mitochondrial DNA (which is inherited through the maternal line) is of native origin much more commonly than main genomic DNA, while Y chromosomal DNA (inherited through the paternal line) is heavily, heavily dominated by European lineages. From my reading of Australian history, I imagine a similar pattern would be found here, except that I suspect the total genetic contribution of Indigeneous Australians to the "mainstream" Australian community to be much less, and you'd probably find that the self-identified Indigenous Australian community has almost entirely Indigenous mtDNA, and some measurable level of European Y-DNA depending on where in Australia you look.
So in V, the entirely legitimate fear of colonised PoC women that they might be raped and forced to bear half-European children becomes a much more abstract techno-fear of "aliens stealing our best DNA", except without any awareness that I can detect on the part of anyone involved in the show that that's what they've effectively done. White humans are still the heroes, regardless of whether they're colonisers or colonised.
*There is a black man who is part of the rebellion against the Visitors. Only, he's actually a Visitor himself. Sigh.
**DNA - technically, I would have to include RNA but that's far beyond the level the show is at. And okay, we don't currently know of any other molecule capable of storing and transmitting biological information but that's part of the evidence that life on this planet evolved just once. Even if it turns out that DNA, with the four bases we use is somehow particularly magically special (very unlikely since we know of other possibilities for bases), the code by which DNA is translated into protein is arbitrary and certainly, at that level, the case is very strong that all life on this planet descends from one single event early in Earth's history.
This entry is originally published at http://aquaeri.dreamwidth.org/84725.html. Please go here to read comments; here to leave a comment (you can use your LJ OpenID).
comments so far.
I've been watching V, at least half-attentively, but I'm getting more annoyed by it. The dialogue and acting is getting worse - it's completely okay with me if Morena Baccarin, as Anna, the main (evil alien) Visitor, chews the scenery - she does quite a good job of it - but I trust the writers and other actors less and less to do a decent job.
Then the other reason I'm annoyed struck me: this is a show about colonisation, from the point of view of the colonised, with the colonised as deceptive, evil oppressors. And the show presents it completely as "Wow! here's a neat SF premise", not as having any relationship whatsoever to what many PoC around the planet have experienced at the hands of Europeans over the centuries. Our heroes are white American people*, (descendants of European colonisers), who are the unfortunate victims of the evil alien Visitors and couldn't possibly ever themselves have behaved somewhat similarly towards any other human beings.
I think what really triggered me to pay attention to this aspect of the show was the current plotline where the Visitors are searching out humans with really good DNA to improve themselves. (If you don't know, I've done a lot of research involving real DNA and this plot/premise makes so little sense in so many ways it hurts my head when I start trying to make a list.) Because while there is no known reason why aliens from another planet would even have DNA**, back here in the real world with real humans being colonised by other humans, a major issue for the colonised (and enslaved transplants eg African-descended slaves in the Americas) is being used as breeding stock by the colonisers.
And in places that were colonised, there's clear DNA evidence: eg in Brazil, mitochondrial DNA (which is inherited through the maternal line) is of native origin much more commonly than main genomic DNA, while Y chromosomal DNA (inherited through the paternal line) is heavily, heavily dominated by European lineages. From my reading of Australian history, I imagine a similar pattern would be found here, except that I suspect the total genetic contribution of Indigeneous Australians to the "mainstream" Australian community to be much less, and you'd probably find that the self-identified Indigenous Australian community has almost entirely Indigenous mtDNA, and some measurable level of European Y-DNA depending on where in Australia you look.
So in V, the entirely legitimate fear of colonised PoC women that they might be raped and forced to bear half-European children becomes a much more abstract techno-fear of "aliens stealing our best DNA", except without any awareness that I can detect on the part of anyone involved in the show that that's what they've effectively done. White humans are still the heroes, regardless of whether they're colonisers or colonised.
*There is a black man who is part of the rebellion against the Visitors. Only, he's actually a Visitor himself. Sigh.
**DNA - technically, I would have to include RNA but that's far beyond the level the show is at. And okay, we don't currently know of any other molecule capable of storing and transmitting biological information but that's part of the evidence that life on this planet evolved just once. Even if it turns out that DNA, with the four bases we use is somehow particularly magically special (very unlikely since we know of other possibilities for bases), the code by which DNA is translated into protein is arbitrary and certainly, at that level, the case is very strong that all life on this planet descends from one single event early in Earth's history.
This entry is originally published at http://aquaeri.dreamwidth.org/84725.html. Please go here to read comments; here to leave a comment (you can use your LJ OpenID).
comments so far.