A friend of mine and I watched Stargate together on rabbit today. I hadn't seen either one in several years. I get really fixated on things I like sometimes, but for the past couple of years I feel like the way I used to get involved in things has reached something of a mass that I can't maintain anymore. Does anyone remember that Katamari Demassi (I am probably spelling that wrong) game? About the little guy who would push a ball around and gather up everything in site and the ball would get bigger and bigger and the bigger it got the bigger things it'd pick up? I feel like that is me and fandom over the past couple of years.
I was telling my friend that I have a teddy bear I sometimes sleep with (when not too warm) named Dr. Jackson. This happened because I was most-into Stargate that first time around the time I got my wisdom teeth out. I believe this was the very end of the year I was 19. I was home from college and my mom gave me the teddy bear out of the things she had gotten my for Christmas early as a sort of reassurance/comfort gift given that I had just had minor oral surgery. I spent a lot of time in bed, drinking liquids and watching Stargate. I don't remember major pain, really, because it healed well and I took my medicine on time, but I do remember feeling sort of loopy and weak and helpless. It was a time when I had not been nurtured in a long time but then I was for a while. It probably sounds spoiled rotten from an outside perspective, but I guess I just really miss being cared for by other people. I often feel ignored and expected to carry myself by people I care about, even though I know it's a result of the way my personality projects or something in part at least. Anyway, it was just really nice, and Dr. Jackson has remained special to me ever since.
In rewatching these first few installments, I'm reminded of how much I do remember and how much I don't. There were questions my quite-pedantic viewing friend had that I honestly didn't know how to answer. Then again, I was able to wash dishes and do a few other things will the rabbitcast was going without missing the important stuff. That happens when you're into something that's really long. The early installments become boringly familiar while the later ones become more and more distant.
Rewatching the movie and the first episode with a more adult, critical eye now, I can't help but notice a couple of things. Even five years or more ago, I was aware of the fact that this series was very-90s, reassuringly so in some ways. I got into it late, but i remember Stargate being peripherally there at random times throughout my growing up years. But now, being more aware as I am, I just feel like there are certain kinds of innocence and naivete about presentation that just wouldn't fly now. My friend said it was very "post-Reagan capitalism" in the movie and then laughed about the Clinton Administration being in power at the time that they were in Chulak.
I was actually surprised by the fact that in Children of the Gods, Daniel actually lampshaded the fact that he was being treated as a "savior" by the people on Abydos. The white savior vibe meter is high in both the movie and the show. It's not so egregious that I think that in a vacuum the show suffers for it or is especially white-person aggrandizing, but seeing as these things don't exist in a vacuum my skin crawled a bit. But for escapism, I can appreciate this show in its own little space and appreciate that they at least tried to, in a period-typical way, acknowledge the trope and suggest that it wasn't that simple. I read some pretty good meta, way back when, on LJ about how Sha'u're actually was herself the most revolutionary character in the original film. I really liked it at the time, but I wonder how much of it is true and how much of it is wishful thinking.
Sha're and Skaara being taken in Children of the Gods is also very sad on one level but also really frustrating. I know that I ship Jack/Daniel and always have but it's still really kind of icky feeling that it's necessarily built on the back of Sha're and Skaara being taken in order to propel the plot. I really just can't help feeling Sha're and Skaara are among those characters who really deserved better. Nevertheless, I am along for the likely slow-ride of rewatching this show and falling in love with Jack/Daniel again. I was asked by my friend, who knows my penchant for shipping OT3s, if I had one in this show. I remember writing a fic that was Daniel/Sam once as a sort of mutual pining for Jack thing when he was gone, but overall I feel like I didn't really? Which seems unlike me. I'm not opposed to it, but I think I mostly shipped Jack/Daniel and Sam/Martouf???
