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Caprica is a new show on the SyFy network that is actually set 58 years before the

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events of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. As I watched the second episode

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I noticed something said that was so subtle I almost missed it.

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"I used to hangout here with your dad. All the Tauron kids came here. I'd be hopelessly

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trying to flirt with some guy, meanwhile your dad would get a date with his sister."

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Did you catch that? Because that man just said he was gay.

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And it wasn't a big production, it wasn't a big coming out story, it wasn't said in big

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flashing lights, it was so normalized that I didn't even notice it at first.

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I actually had to go back and listen to it again because I was like, Oh, it just was in passing,

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how it should be.

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That man's name is Sam Adama and he's a part of the main cast on Caprica.

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It's also really nice to see that he's not stereotypically gay like we often see

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in queer representations on TV. Gay men are often flamboyant and obsessed with fashion.

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You might recognize these men...

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But there is one teeny little problem

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Sam Adama is a murderer, he's actually a hired hit man, that's a part of a gang.

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He also isn't your average killer, in that you know he doesn't dress in black

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and kill someone with a silencer quietly and then sneak back out of the house,

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like we've come to see on television and movies.

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No, he ah, chooses to use two very large, very phallic knives

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to slash open his victims in a grotesque and guesome way.

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Hollywood has a long history of making queer characters monsters and sociopaths

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and murderers who have no moral compass. This trope is used in order to reinforce

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the fear of homosexuality. So do you see the problem here? One one hand you have this

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awesome representation of a queer character who's totally normalized in being queer

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it's not even an issue, it's totally accepted in society and he's not stereotypical in that way.

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On the other hand he's kind of crazy and he's a murderer.

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Just when I want to celebrate a genuine accomplishment of Hollywood

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they have to go make queer man disturbingly evil.