Caprica and the Queerness of Sam Adama

In the new SyFy show Caprica we are introduced to a queer character, Sam Adama. Here is the good and the bad of his queer representation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

how it should be.

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

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

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

You might recognize these men...

But there is one teeny little problem

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

awesome representation of a queer character whose totally normalized in being queer

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

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

Just when I want to celebrate a genuine accomplishment of Hollywood

they have to go queer man disturbingly evil.