You find some of the coolest stuff on Salon sometimes… for instance,
here’s a
recent essay on the (lack of) gay characters in Star Trek canon. Is
this a big deal? Does anyone even care? As always, we want your feedback.
You find some of the coolest stuff on Salon sometimes… for instance,
here’s a
recent essay on the (lack of) gay characters in Star Trek canon. Is
this a big deal? Does anyone even care? As always, we want your feedback.
gay trek
I already thought the show was pretty gay, especially voyager. Words like “fruity” kept popping into my mind. What about tuvok? He seemed to be pretty gay. I think him and neelix where having a secret gay affair.
What the hell do you people want? purple and rainbows everywhere?! maybe a hot gay sex scene!
The show sucks enough as it is.. Seven’s boobs vs. Tom and Torres. grrrr. How about some INTELLIGENT SCI-FI? Who the hell cares who they want to bang, or how sexy they are?
If you want that go to the Spice channel!
It Doesn’t Matter
The show isn’t about romance or anything like it (Though who amoungst us could deny the appeal of Worf and Jadzia’s courtship and wedding).
Trying to get a company to honor the promise of a dead rogue employee for a gay character is a bit much. C’mon people. I can’t even get the dealership down the street to honor a stinking warrenty (that’s written and signed!)
Will we see a gay character in ‘Enterprise’? Who knows. I’m quite justified in worrying that this show may be the dying gasp of what was once delightful entertainment and thought-provoking SciFi. The sexual orientation of the characters should be one of the last things on our minds.
Re: It Doesn’t Matter
‘dead rogue employee’ ?????
Come on now… he created the show! If it weren’t for him Berman wouldn’t have a cash cow to milk!
Star Trek used to have substance
but these days if you want *good* science fiction, you have to look elsewhere. The lack of gay characters on Star Trek is just another clue that the producers are only interested in milking a cash cow, and have absolutely zero interest in making a show that matters. And then they wonder why the falling ratings?
Who needs aliens when we can’t even accept humans?
Classic Trek was all about social change, and particularly about ending prejudice. This was the show that gave us the first televised inter-racial kiss, remember? Its sad that the franchise has lost that edge–lost the nerve to do daring things to try to change the world. Fortunately, there are others that still dare to take those risks.
Not entirely true…
| Through three seasons on television and six movies, the
| decks of the original Enterprise have never witnessed a
| single word or gesture of gay affection. The same goes for
| the Enterprise D from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and
| the eponymous craft from “Deep Space Nine” and “Voyager.”
| No same-sex kisses. No hand-holding. Not even a casual
| reference to the existence of homosexuality.
Remember when Jadzia kissed the female host of an old
lover’s symbiont (“Rejoined”)? I mean, that’s iffy as far as
homosexuality goes, as the asexual symbionts fell in love
while in hosts of different genders, but it was
unquestionably a same-sex kiss… and of course there’s the
TNG episode, “The Outcast,” where Riker becomes involved
with a member of an
androgynous species with a taboo against people considering
themselves to be a specific gender… it’s clearly intended
as a statement on society’s attitudes towards homosexuality.
Now, that said, I don’t think they’ll take the next logical
step and actually deal with homosexuality head-on. The way
Voyager turned out leaves me with little hope that
Enterprise will be any more worthy of the Star Trek name,
and I’d be truly shocked if they managed to tackle *any*
real issue that hasn’t already been done better in a
previous series (see every single Voyager episode about the
ethics of time travel [and the way they did it – yuck], the
rights of artificial life forms, etc.). Oh well.
Re: Not entirely true…
If you read the whole article (it goes on for four pages, and I had to read it twice before it all sank in), they do mention those two examples, and the writer says why they don’t count (basically, what you said – one was a “man in a woman’s body” and one was androgynous, but expressing female notions).
Re: Not entirely true…
For some reason I remember that there were a few more. In DS-9 the alternate universe I seem to remember that Kira / The Intendant (SP?) was gay, or at least seriously bisexual. Now I would say that even though it is from an alternate universe these should still count as we did get to see the reactions of the crew from the “normal” universe. As I recall they took it in stride with no real shock / horror you would see in a homophobe society. Also wasn’t the alt-Ezri-Dax and alt-Leeta (Rom’s wife) openly gay? Well that is all I can think of off the top of my head, but I think that there were one or two more … guess this is a good enough excuse to start taping ST …
Sexual Orientations
Someone mentioned to me that they thought it odd that I, of all people, haven’t commented on this. So here’s my opinion, Alexius :)
I think that Trek is really not the place for this. Why should they focus on sexual orientation when it is something that makes up a small part of you, like your eye color. Trek has larger things to focus on, like the various species. Not all species would find homosexuality as taboo as some humans/humanoids. I just think that sexual orientation isn’t entirely relevant to the concept of space exploration and the discovery of new species. Sure, some people might say that it’s good to bring it up just for exposure in Hollywood, but it has yet to bother me, and I think it might seem a little out of place if forced.