I've been doing a rewatch of the last two seasons of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA this last week. Once it gets into that fourth season the show is really hitting on all cylinders again. But one thing I keep noticing that is really true of the show as a whole is that it relies frequently on the trope of the Hysterical Woman.
Time and again, the story of women on BSG involves them just losing their minds in one way or another. That's basically Boomer's whole story in Season One, her being unable to control herself and eventually trying to kill Adama. It's Callie's story in Season Two, when she gets so mad she kills Boomer, and again in Season Four, where she decides to kill herself and her baby because she's found some shocking stuff. It's also Dee's story in Season Four, when she, too, decides to kill herself after the Earth they end up on doesn't turn out to be what they hoped. It's also Tory's story in season four, when she suddenly awakens to a new sense of self and starts hitting on pretty much every man she meets.
It's Deana's story in season three, when she keeps killing herself--huh, look at that theme keep popping up--because she just knows there's something important to learn in her between-life dreams. It's often Caprica Six's story. (It's interesting, the Caprica Six that Baltar is often hallucinating is NEVER hysterical, always bold and strong, whereas the real one and some of her clones are often suddenly fragile or scared.)
And so, so very often, it is Starbuck's story. She is constantly making decisions that make no sense to no one else, and getting in shouting matches with Lee or Adama for it. Sometimes those decisions pay off, but even when they do, in the process she absolutely seems insane, none worse than the time she kills herself--there it is again--because her instincts tell her there's something more for her. While that is confirmed--huzzah!--it's pretty quickly revealed thereafter that she's going to be lead humanity to its doom.
Other times her emotional flips are presented as far less coherent. She meets Sam, falls in love with him so hard she insists on going back to Caprica for him--which is itself viewed as a crazy decision--then ends up cheating on him with Lee, repeatedly, and despite the fact he, too, is married.
And along the way she brawls physically with Lee and also Adama, who in one season four episode literally takes her and throws her to the ground. Adama also renounces his affection for her (more than once, I think), which in some ways ends up being more violent as he is really all the parent she has. And in every case, there's no sense of those men being in the wrong in any way. No, even though we sympathize with Kara, still, she's the problem here.
I go back and forth whether to include Roslyn in this category or not. She's definitely a strong, stable character, and a fine one. But she does have this spiritual streak which requires everyone to trust her in ways that there is no way they should. As with Starbuck, these risks are eventually vindicated in the short term, but also undermined near the end, when Earth is revealed to be a radioactive dump. (And what does she do then? She makes the very emotional choice to just walk away from everything she'd be working toward, until Adama is in danger.)
There are some crazy men on the show, too -- Baltar, Lee, Gaeta. But with the exception of Baltar, their craziness is more self-contained. Lee has a suicidal moment. Gaeta leads an insurrection, but honestly it's incredibly well thought out and rational. And much of Baltar's craziness is balanced out with our knowledge he is having actual visions, that he is being led by some kind of spirit. Really he's just a slime ball who is terrified of being found out for what he did. Kara and Laura's leaps meanwhile are much more intuitive and uncertain.
I'm someone who loves BSG, and would like to be able to say that madness or hysteria is in part in service of the show's themes about faith and overcoming one's assumptions about other beings. They seem mad because they're so out of step with those around them, but in the end they're vindicated. Except Dee isn't. Callie isn't. Boomer isn't. In fact Callie and Boomer's stories are more or less wrecked after their initial bouts of insanity. The show has no clue really what to do with them after that. Callie becomes the shrill, needy wife (as does Dee, at times); Boomer drifts from dumb insurgent leader to sex toy of the Ones.
Even Starbuck is really harmed by the trope eventually. You want her to find some kind of stability and sense of identity, for sure, you want her to end on a win. But her stories get so tired. She's the best pilot on the force, she's got bravado for miles and yet over and over again the story finds a way to once again undermine her strengths in favor of mental and emotional instability.
At some point the trend with her and the other characters is obvious and disturbing.
If you're looking for a little suggestion today, look to the women or other minorities in a script you've done. Do their choices ever revolve around them losing their mind in some way? See if you can find another way forward.
