- He has no sense of humor
- In spite of being a hunk, he has no sex appeal. None of his relationships with women are particularly compelling on the soft porn front. Whenever he and Dualla kiss they always end up rubbing foreheads. His only sex scene with Starbuck is short and not particularly convincing. It certainly doesn't stand up well when compared with her sex scenes with Anders. Or Zak. Or Baltar. Or Leoben.
- His anger is one-dimensional, and shouting is his only mode of expressing it. His absolutely first meaningful scene in the Miniseries has him yelling at his father. Obviously Lee hasn't caught on to the fact that the scariest anger is often based on intonation, not volume.
- His second most-frequent emotional expression is that of being deeply, quietly moved. This is manifested by his eyes shining with unshed tears, and sometimes he presses his lips together.
- He is a maudlin drunk.
- He is pompous. When he says to Dualla in "Exodus Part 2" "I am proud to serve with you and proud to call you my wife," I had a hard time keeping my gag reflex under control. Barf.
- He is self-righteous, and is always explaining to people (lecturing, actually) why he is right and they are wrong. He does it at the end of Bastille Day and a WHOLE BUNCH the minute he decides to play lawyer and defend Baltar.
- He has a huge ego.
- Notwithstanding reason number 8, he has all these ridiculous insecurities and is in constant need or reassurance. In "The Hand of God" he keeps whining about how everybody thinks Starbuck would do a better job, and instead of slapping him in the face and telling him to pull himself together, everyone caters to him. In "Sometimes a Great Notion" Dualla spends the entire time she is with him (her last moments alive, actually) telling him how smart he is, how he did such a good job handling the Quorum, and on and on until you just want to kill yourself (which, of course, is exactly what Dualla does).
- Speaking of Dualla, Lee cheats on his wife, and then we are supposed to feel compassion for him because he is obviously suffering tremendous guilt over it.
*I can think of more appropriate terms than "jerk," but none of them seem appropriate in polite society, so I am hesitant to use them in the title of a post. Were it not for my desire to avoid offending sensitive souls, I would probably choose to call Lee a prick.
Lol.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a Lee hater, but I'm not a Lee lover either. So I guess that means I don't really have anything to add either for or against this!! (Although I do agree with the reply on Ravelry that a lot of this may be due to the acting job and not the character himself. However, I would take Lee and all his jerkiness over the horrific acting on Lost any day.)
- Cesia.
I'm not a Lee hater, but sometimes he makes me want to slap him.
ReplyDeleteGreat list!
I would never get involved with Lee, for more than a one night stand. (Is that too honest? Too Starbuck? I mean, he is a babe.) But, he is also a self -righteous idiot. And insecure and a really lousy husband. I've had those. Wouldn't want another. He has zero appeal to me.
ReplyDeleteI love Lee Adama, but you're right. He could be a complete twat at times...but the arms and the abs and the cheekbones and the eyes and the smile...they cancel out so much of the douchefication of our would-be hero, except during S3 with the love polygon of doom and all those furtive, longing looks at Kara Thrace that were almost unbearable.
ReplyDeleteThere were times that I just wanted Dee to kick him in the nutsack and send him on his way, but I loved seeing him on screen, even when he was being a prick.
Great blog, btw, some of the best, most intelligent and insightful writing on the internet about BSG (or anything else). Thanks for lugging around two keyboards and being generous enough to share your thoughts and feelings with us.
Nice article, but I felt as if you were critizing the actor instead of the character, it would seem.
ReplyDelete"(...)the scariest anger is often based on intonation, not volume." and the whole point four. Perhaps that's Jamie Bamber's fault.
Maybe that's the way he learned to express his anger. Maybe his drunk mother only yelled at him and he never learned a healthy way to express his anger.
DeleteLee Adama is a very good looking man, incredible body and blue eyes and all the rest, but I don´t understand why he wanted Starbuck, when his wife Dualla was more beautiful and sexier woman.
ReplyDeletewww.lee-adama.is-a-jerk.com
ReplyDeleteHa ha. I'll always love Lee. I found him to be an annoying Jimeny Cricket until he started walking around in a towel, and then suddenly his personality became much more compelling.
ReplyDeleteI loved all the angst with Kara. Any pair of people who went though that much together couldn't help but be in love. But he's way too straight-laced for her.
Looking sexy isn't a reason to like the guy or think he isn't an idiot (I mean the character, not the actor). I am re-watching the whole BSG saga. I like the show less the second time around. There are so my things that are done that make sense only for a few episodes and then things get back to normal, mostly these aberrations are some means to let Balthar escape or to keep him from getting killed (which I would have done several times over).
ReplyDeleteLee Adama is the principle idiot in all of this. He never learns. He continues to be an idiot throughout. If you remember from the very beginning he had a beef with his father for something his dad never actually did. He gets married in childish fit to Dualla, after being rejected by the nutcase Starbuck and ruins Dualla's life. After all of that, he cheats on her. Yet and still, Lee Adama finds the balls to lecture people about right and wrong. The character is an actual a-hole. I really can't express how annoying the character is. I recognize that using a-hole is pretty silly, but since I don't want to offend anyone, it's the best i can do.
I completely agree with your blog post. I googled to find if anyone else thought the same. I'm watching him just becoming a Quorum member now, and I want to beat the holy living hell out of him every second he's on the screen. And what's with all the shallow women on here? Sure he's an ass and an idiot, but look at his muscles?! So many women really do get married to these self-righteous, arrogant idiots who cheat on them and ruin their lives, just because of their bodies and their cocky attitudes. Good luck with that ladies.
ReplyDeleteI'm just catching this series for the first time on Netflix.
ReplyDeleteI really disliked Lee Adama. Especially the whole love triangle thing. He was married to the hottest woman on the show but he preferred starbuck. But when he said that he was raised by an alcoholic and an absent father, everything made sense, especially his attraction to starbuck the drunk. Under cognitive theory analysis and therapy, Lee Adama is affected by several schemas. These schemas explain his behavior. The funny thing about human beings is that we are “attracted” to the thing that hurt us the most. We become emotionally stuck in that moment and somehow try to recreate it in our current situation, possibly to try to overcome it. But most of the time, reliving that pain without proper insight and strategy just keeps us stuck and we don’t grow. Lee’s relationship with Starbuck is the classic example. His attraction to her is very intense. Like a moth to fire. A part of him knows that that relationship will only harm him, but he can’t help but go into the fire. Every other female seems dull and not as appealing to him as starbuck because of the schema. She is a drunk and is very unstable, just like his mother was. In a way, unconsciously, he is recreating that painful experience. How he is trying to overcome that pain is unclear. But for sure starbuck is the surrogate for his mother. Does he plan on helping starbuck overcome her issues? Maybe as a child he wanted to help his mother but was powerless to do so. Maybe, like most children of alcoholics, he grew up feeling unloved; unwanted; worthless; etc. He unconsciously seeks love etc from Starbuck to help him heal his wounds.