Sexualized Saturdays: Camile Wray

Despite all the awfulness of Stargate Universe’s storylines, it did have some fantastic characters. A lot of people complained that the show was trying to be Star Trek, which I can see, but what I liked most about it was that it wasn’t trying to be SG1 or SG Atlantis. It is still part of the franchise and in the same universe, but it is a completely different show. The biggest change of pace was with the characters. They were not the same archetypes that the franchise had grown used to over the years.

Stargate Universe also has a diverse cast. The character I’m focusing on today, Camile Wray, is a civilian working on the Stargate program through the IOA—International Oversight Advisory, an organization setup to oversee Stargate operations—and she is of Chinese decent. On top of being a leading character who happens to be both female and Asian, Wray is also the first openly gay character in the Stargate universe.

Spoilers after the jump.

Theatre Thursdays: August Wilson and Colorblind Casting

When questioned on the identity of one Christopher Marlowe, Hallie Flanagan, then director of the Federal Theatre Project, said “Put in the record that he was the greatest dramatist in the period immediately preceding Shakespeare.”

August Wilson

Well, put it in the record that August Wilson was the greatest American playwright at the turn of twenty-first century. A bold claim, I know, but one I stand behind. The latest of America’s greats, he belongs in the hallowed halls along with Miller, Hansberry, and Williams. The two-time Pulitzer Prize winner (Fences, The Piano Lesson)  became famous for a series of ten plays known as the Pittsburgh Cycle, or alternatively as the American Century Cycle. Each one played on the stage of black life in America and American life in general in each of the decades of the twentieth century. Wilson captured the spirit of African-American existence and ambition in ways previously unattempted and unmatched in quality. His works are as much plays as they are staged ethnographies of the black experience, invigorating to those who could identify with them and illuminating to those who could not. He passed away in 2005.