tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post815876330855116762..comments2024-03-15T07:28:47.064-05:00Comments on Treknobabble: Homosexuality and Star TrekUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post-83204741094224786752020-05-10T06:43:35.834-05:002020-05-10T06:43:35.834-05:00How about Elim Garak, the gayest of all Cardashian...How about Elim Garak, the gayest of all Cardashians?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post-29255030414789753072010-03-02T23:20:14.248-06:002010-03-02T23:20:14.248-06:00Betsy, stop stealing the comments I was going to p...Betsy, stop stealing the comments I was going to put in my review! That's number two, right there :)<br /><br />BTW, the shapes are cited by memory alpha as "cuboctahedrons."<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuboctahedronmatthewweflenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07540521459703556959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post-90517383116621043422010-03-02T23:11:41.593-06:002010-03-02T23:11:41.593-06:00The writers play the audience hard by having the h...The writers play the audience <i>hard</i> by having the hot red shirt tell Kirk she's scared to die, and then having one of them killed, and then revealing it's her, but it's one of the many things in the episode that just works. The hallways littered with ex-crew/now-cubes was also a fantastic, cost-effective, supremely creepy moment.Pending Framinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12021268149296624466noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post-89662876824025594082010-03-02T19:08:36.551-06:002010-03-02T19:08:36.551-06:00I just did my half of the review for that episode ...I just did my half of the review for that episode ("By Any Other Name"). I really like it! I made a special point of mentioning that it was surprising that the black male redhsirt lived while the white female yeoman bought it.matthewweflenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07540521459703556959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post-27803271907903636612010-03-02T17:44:20.256-06:002010-03-02T17:44:20.256-06:00...
Man, that makes me feel even worse than usual......<br /><br />Man, that makes me feel even worse than usual about the short uniform dresses. I was just starting to get over them and convince myself that they were functional! Show-wise, at least, since the producer/director would be less likely to kill the red shirt who's showing some leg. (I know I've been proved wrong on this, btw, since I've seen the episode where the high-powered aliens turn two red shirts into cubes and then crush one... I'm still embarrassed about it, but I really did gasp when it was revealed that the black guy lived.)<br /><br />I think that it re-enforces your point though, that if the writers could have a 'favorite attempted-rape target' character, they could spare some time for a 'hits on dudes while on shore leave' character.Pending Framinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12021268149296624466noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post-36165192544112721122010-03-02T16:23:38.355-06:002010-03-02T16:23:38.355-06:00"...although you would need to take care not ..."...although you would need to take care not to portray all gays in all places in all centuries as promiscuous sluts who'll do the nasty at the drop of a hat."<br /><br />Any hat, sir. :)<br /><br />As for depiction, the more subtle the better, I agree. I would just like a pair of Bajoran dudes in the background in the throng of people greeting each other at the airlock. A quick peck on the cheek, a little hand holding as they walk off to the Promenade, and I'm a happy camper. A main or prominent guest LGBT character would be fun, if only for the eye candy, but I'll take what I can get.<br /><br />The thing is, when you get down to it, LGBT relationships aren't that much different than all the others. Yes, gay men have a tad more sex than everyone else, but that's because we're both dudes and both been socialized to equate sex with self esteem and, really it's not like you go to a worse Hell for sleeping with one guy versus sleeping with a thousand, so why not go nuts?<br /><br />Anyway, normalcy is what I think Star Trek had the opportunity to depict really well. Like in "The Offspring," Whoopi Goldberg had wanted there to be a same sex couple in the background of Ten Forward while she was explaining kissing to Lal, but someone nixed it. It's things like that. In the end, pride parades and IML aside, there is far more in common between gay and straight people than not. Under the protection of latex masks and alien cultures, Star Trek could have communicated that message in a thoughtful way and chose not to.<br /><br />And, Betsy, I don't know how much Season 1 of TOS you've been watching, but you have not yet begun to be creeped out by the sexual-assaultiness of TOS. Two words: Yeoman Rand. Go read my half of the review of "The Enemy Within" and come back. I'll wait...Kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11065121037234785365noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post-2105341601946713482010-03-02T13:51:01.514-06:002010-03-02T13:51:01.514-06:00What your brother says is consistent with what I&#...What your brother says is consistent with what I've read. I'm sure it's in one of the books on our coffee table. You should come over sometime. There was an edict that it be kept to a minimum, anyway, which the writers, producers and actors strained against. <br /><br />PS: Why isn't your brother also commenting and/or contributing here?matthewweflenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07540521459703556959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post-2304855878585359252010-03-02T13:48:19.110-06:002010-03-02T13:48:19.110-06:00After the act break, the scene pick up again with ...After the act break, the scene pick up again with Kirk at the cell door, and the scene cuts over to Uhura's cell. Uhura, still clothed, is holding a metal pitcher in her hand as a defensive weapon. Her drill thrall, also fully clothed, angrily leaves the room, muttering "it is not allowed to refuse selection."<br /><br />Not ironclad, but the implication seemed pretty clear to me that Lars had not breached the Starfleet Granny Panty Barrier...<br /><br />http://www.cbs.com/classics/star_trek/video/index.php?pid=Y28aooxY02_caE8B75JkQInbWZzteYYt&vs=Default&play=truematthewweflenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07540521459703556959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post-32458084846853283202010-03-02T13:28:18.628-06:002010-03-02T13:28:18.628-06:00Matt, I must've missed it during the episode, ...Matt, I must've missed it during the episode, and I tried looking over a script but I still couldn't find where they say nothing happened to Uhura: where do they address it? It would make me feel a lot better.<br /><br />"In your basic 7-8 person core cast, you really only want one key romance. Otherwise, it just ends up being a soap opera."<br /><br />My brother told me that there was an edict from Gene Roddenberry forbidding personal conflicts between crew members in TNG, which I haven't been able to confirm AT ALL. But if it's actually true, and in the future there is no drama (at least not among the cast and crew... Once they got rid of the doctor lady who yells at Data...) that would limit your options for crew romance. It wouldn't limit an ex-girlfriend/boyfriend dropping by, but I guess the show decided not to throw down the glove like that. It's really hard to write a scene where somebody like that is introduced, and then never really mentioned again.Pending Framinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12021268149296624466noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post-4599500067797121052010-03-02T13:00:43.005-06:002010-03-02T13:00:43.005-06:00Now that I think about it, probably the best place...Now that I think about it, probably the best place to have told a story about intolerance towards homosexuality would have been DS9. I mean, you have a whole PLANET of people with strong religious leanings. You also have the episode "Accession," in which religious authorities argue from scripture that there are particular places, roles, and lifestyles that should be adhered to by each Bajoran.<br /><br />So you could have had the same apply to sexuality, affording Avery Brooks the opportunity to mercilessly chew scenery during a speech about how "people... should be FREE... to LOVE... in whatever way they WANT!"<br /><br />And you could also establish that Dr. Bashir is actually gay (because YEESH...), and no one really cares.matthewweflenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07540521459703556959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post-47817883777582046682010-03-02T12:52:05.170-06:002010-03-02T12:52:05.170-06:00OK, now, if you have a straight character, you wan...OK, now, if you have a straight character, you want to have one or two romantic possibilities for them. Otherwise, there's little to no dramatic tension. <br /><br />So now let's say you have your one gay character. Let's make it Harry Kim. <br /><br />It seems like you can do one of three things.<br /><br />1. You can have no potential love interests for him. Then it seems almost worse to have him on the show than it would be to simply make him straight.<br /><br />2. You can make another core cast member gay and pair them up. But isn't that like saying "Hey, you're gay, and I have a gay friend. You two should date!" ? You're positing that since character X is gay/black/vulcan/android/whatever, they should naturally be attracted to the person who shares their minority status. Seems rather conspicuous and demeaning. The only way around it is to add even more gay characters, which begins to strain credulity, unless:<br /><br />3. You pair up your gay cast member with minor recurring and/or one-shot characters. This would get around profiling concerns, perhaps, although you would need to take care not to portray all gays in all places in all centuries as promiscuous sluts who'll do the nasty at the drop of a hat. The plus side is that you might open up some interesting storytelling avenues. Are other races homophobic? Trisexual? Who knows? <br /><br />3.5: I suppose you could have stories about gay characters (Harry) crushing on straight ones (Tom). But is that really somewhere you want to go? Is Star Trek really about sexual harassment or unwanted inter-sexual-preference attraction? <br /><br />I think #3 is by far the most preferable, done well. <br /><br />But the main point is, for me anyway, and this applies to straight romance as well, that Star Trek isn't about people hooking up in space. It shouldn't be a main theme. Star Trek is about a kind of society and a future time period that's better than ours. Sure, people should have relationships in it, but it shouldn't be the main theme of more than 1 out of let's say every 20 episodes. How love survives in this future world is interesting, but it can't be the ONLY interesting sci-fi story to tell in this backdrop.matthewweflenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07540521459703556959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post-67840453032852972692010-03-02T12:51:47.602-06:002010-03-02T12:51:47.602-06:00Betsy, I actually just watched that one. And the s...Betsy, I actually just watched that one. And the scene is disturbing, no doubt. But dialogue indicates clearly that Uhura does not end up getting raped. Chekov, on the other hand...<br /><br />Kelly, I agree that Star Trek pushes envelopes at times but doesn't always blaze new trails. Looking at context fairly, it's Enterprise that really drops the ball, here. It was on the air at a time that gay characters were already on television, and it seems like at least 5 or 6 out of 80 crew members should have been homosexual. There is a storytelling question, though - you have to be sure you're not just "making a point," or worse, simply pandering (e.g. the ongoing DS9 lesbo-festival), you have to tell an organic story in a way that doesn't seem forced. Straight characters don't walk around for whole episodes whistling and proclaiming "whee! I like straight sex!" Although there are some instances of this for gay persons in our day and age (with the word "gay" replaced for "straight" in the above sentence), presumably in such an enlightened future, no one would bat an eyelash or feel the need to be so "flamboyantly OUT."<br /><br />So I wonder how a gay character/theme/romance would and could play out.<br /><br />In your basic 7-8 person core cast, you really only want one key romance. Otherwise, it just ends up being a soap opera. In TNG, it's Troi/Riker. In DS9, it's Worf/Dax. In Voyager, it's B'Elanna/Tom. In ENT it's T'Pol/Trip. I think experience shows that when you branch out from the one romance per show limit, things go off the rails REALLY quickly (Exhibit A: Kira/Odo. Exhibit B: Picard/Beverly. Exhibit C: Chakotay/Seven). <br /><br />The only other solution is to bring in outside characters to serve as romantic interests for the core cast. These can either be one-offs (practically every one) or repeating characters (e.g. Kasidy Yates).matthewweflenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07540521459703556959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post-61108980598234560332010-03-02T12:02:09.569-06:002010-03-02T12:02:09.569-06:00@Matt: I'll argue more when I've actually ...@Matt: I'll argue more when I've actually seen the episode, and I'm not just talking out of my ass, but I don't think the context makes the kiss any better. I've argued a lot that you have to consider things in their historical context (in a lot of very different arguments) but when I'm looking at the pop culture landscape context I'm seeing 'Guess Who's Coming To Dinner' released in 1967. That's about an interracial couple actually being a couple and dealing with the personal and social fallout, which makes two people being forced by aliens to kiss seem pretty weak.<br /><br />But I don't even know, I've been messed up about Uhura since that episode ('The Gamesters of Triskelion') where she's in cell and her evil-brain-thing assigned trainer announces that he's been picked for her, and walks menacingly in while she starts screaming her head off and it really comes off like she's getting raped. WHAT THE HELL.Pending Framinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12021268149296624466noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post-40182926015260195852010-03-02T11:25:41.320-06:002010-03-02T11:25:41.320-06:00"My sorrow is compounded by the fact that TNG..."My sorrow is compounded by the fact that TNG arguably takes a few steps backwards on gender issues, especially in its early years. After the loss of Tasha Yar, the women on board are all in caregiver functions, and get far too little screen time."<br /><br />I'd argue that Tasha Yar is as much a stereotype as Troi is, if not moreso. TNG is a product of 80s feminism, and it doesn't move beyond it. A large part of the reason I love Voyager so very very much is that the female characters are actually well-rounded. But that's all a whole different post.<br /><br />Either way, I think it's clear that even when they push the envelope a bit, Star Trek is always a product of its time. If you had a good Star Trek series now (good meaning more forward-looking than Enterprise), I would assume there would be gay characters, if not storylines. As long as they keep with movies, though, I doubt we'll see it.Kellyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08447483088054283298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post-67689333829274531272010-03-02T00:52:41.365-06:002010-03-02T00:52:41.365-06:00Well, besides my obvious affection for an episode ...Well, besides my obvious affection for an episode that features PLATO (however mangled a version it is), I will defend the episode on these grounds:<br /><br />1. It was 1968. And that's not just saying "oh, it was the past, people were different back then," that's saying "it was the most tumultuous year culturally in American history in decades, if not since the Civil War." Black people were rioting in the streets (mostly for good reasons), people were getting assassinated, American citizens were rejecting monogamy, patriotism, sobriety, gender roles, and who knows what else left and right... and Star Trek had their white hero kissing his black co-star. Arguing the particulars of the story is ignoring heaping helpings of context.<br /><br />2. But as far as the particulars of the story, Kirk and Uhura are kissing and playing with whips at the behest of the Platonians, who are manipulating their prisoners for amusement. So the disdain that Kirk and Uhura show is not directed at the notion of interracial smooching, it is at the abrogation of their personal liberty and sovereignty. I would argue that showing a black female in popular entertainment with such dignity is a revolutionary step, given the context mentioned above. They could have had him kissing Nurse Chapel and no one would have batted an eyelash.<br /><br />It's a pretty good episode. I'm sure we'll discuss it deeply, maybe even podcast it. In the rush to not overrate things, we shouldn't lose our appreciation for context and reflexively underrate them.matthewweflenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07540521459703556959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post-82582093415706208922010-03-02T00:15:51.124-06:002010-03-02T00:15:51.124-06:00Onion AV club came down pretty hard on the kiss in...Onion AV club came down pretty hard on the kiss in Plato's Stepchildren:<br />"This was something of a big deal with the ep first aired, being arguably the first interracial kiss to air on television--despite the fact that the kiss was far from pleasurable for either party. ... And hell, not minutes after that kiss, Kirk is threatening Uhura with a whip. Clearly, not really a sex-positive message."<br />I haven't seen the episode yet (tonight's ep was The Cold War Made Boring And Annoying, aka 'Assignment: Earth') but the clips I've seen of the kiss do make it look so uncomfortable you'd be forgiven for thinking interracial kissing is physically painful. For me, that puts 'Code of Honor' over the top in the offensiveness sweepstakes, because it's the low point of a continued trajectory of being really racially tone-deaf.<br /><br />...Sooo... If I read the entry on Stigma right, and Enterprise's AIDS parable is that Vulcan mind-melding is like sex, would that take away Kirk's man-whore championship title and give it to Spock? 'Cause he seems to mind-meld plenty of people, sometimes while Kirk or McCoy <i>watches</i>.Pending Framinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12021268149296624466noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post-72779804729644686202010-03-01T21:16:30.199-06:002010-03-01T21:16:30.199-06:00You only devote that much of your brain to helping...You only devote that much of your brain to helping abused women? For shame.<br /><br />Just kidding.<br /><br />I did like your final picture in the post.<br /><br />Malcolm was supposed to be gay? Really? I never knew that before.<br /><br />...and... I'd go more in depth with my comment, but I need more time to come up with intelligent remarks.phoenixbethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06376883289739855226noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post-9936620324835486762010-03-01T17:23:23.083-06:002010-03-01T17:23:23.083-06:00More offensive: Code of Honor or Angel One?
Gosh,...More offensive: Code of Honor or Angel One?<br /><br />Gosh, that's a round table all its own. We should definitely podcast both when we get to them sometime in the next decade...<br /><br />I mean, both distill their main antagonists down to the crudest, most offensive possible stereotypes. In "Code," persons of African descent with dark skin are all horny Tom-Cats who lust after white women, bang on bongo drums, and solve their problems with violence. As you lay out above, in "Angel," masculinity is portrayed as violence and aggression, femininity as weakness and prissiness, and any blend of the two gender roles is viewed as a subject for humor and derision (even by the women, who poke fun at Riker in "angel" gear).<br /><br />I think, in its historical context, "Code" is the worse sin against propriety. Race issues had been given much more air time in the public sphere than gender issues. Remember, this was 20 years after the great Civil Rights struggles for African-Americans, but in the midst of debates over the ERA.matthewweflenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07540521459703556959noreply@blogger.com