Slightly pathetic that theres never been LGBT characters in ST

Well maybe trans, if we consider some of the aliens, but turning back the clock, sci fi has been responsible for some of the most forward thinking tv in history. Mixed racial kisses - Star trek! Russians working with americans on the same side - Star trek !(and WW2 of course). The twilight zone was responsible for a lot of forward thinking stuff too.

But Rod Serling was a homophobe who made public videos talking about gays like they were pedos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkzSVR2Oqck

And gene roddenberry took a while to see LBGT as part of the larger civil rights struggle, pushing the idea of gay couples into TNG, just before he died.

So in the future we are left with no gay humans of any kind in all the federation and only one bunch of androgenous aliens and some "old man in girl on girl" action on DS9 to go on.

Am I gay? Nope.

Do I think graphic representation of homosexuals on a childrens program is questionable? Maybe, but less so frankly as time goes on.

Should we have shows set in the future, that creates a world this big and has zero even in mention of LGBT? Of course not. Its silly.

Sci Fi and ST has a long history of addressing issues and isms. Its one of the hallmarks and value claims of Sci Fi. Yet its painfully absent from Star Trek.

 

Similarly themed thread active last week:

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=237445

 

The moral debate is irrelevant. You couldn't get a character like that past the censors in those days. And remember, the censors work for the people who fronted a good portion of money to get your series made. You upset them enough, they'll pull their money and you won't have any show period.

TOS pushed it very far having minorities in intelligent command positions on the Enterprise and Roddenberry was damned lucky he got that. He lost having a woman being second in command. He did win with Nichelle Nichols having the right to wear a mini-skirt, which was a victory for the women's movement in the 60s.

 

Bloody big one too. Thing is, they are looking at it from within the world itself. I have no such need. I know, and you know, and we all know, this old football must have come up for kicking many times in the history of the production of the show, and only in the smallest ways did anyone touch on it.

One of the hallmarks of the TOS is they didnt give a s___ when it came to something like Kirk kissing Uhura. TNG went into a great many places, and handled some serious issues, but it never really went near this. DS9 had license and took some liberties with it. Voyager basically has a captain who seems quite gay. The motion picure has a gay star. But this is all evidence more of the fact some people are gay, and this includes openly gay actors, where they are more scarce than openly gay footballers. Takei came out as well.

So pretty much every incarnation has had a gay actor, but no gay characters and zero in the way of gay storylines, other than ultra insider allusions to storylines.

Someone should have bit the bullet and just gone full homo at some point and fuck the consequences, but I guess the "family show" tag was just too much of a constrictor. Sad really.

 

Simpsons has had gay characters...

 

If I recall correctly, Majel Barrett as Number One, was scrapped because she was Roddenberry's Mistress, not because a Female First Officer was unacceptable in itself.

 

A PSA from the 1950s referring to child molesters as homosexuals is itself pretty flimsy evidence of homophobia in its narrator.

That said, and despite whatever influence The Twilight Zone had on how sci-fi was presented on TV in the 1960s, what do Rod Serling's specific views one way or another on the subject of homosexuality have to do with either General Trek issues or homosexuality or the lack of it in Star Trek, particularly in the spin-offs from the 1980s onward?

 

Serling's been dead since 1975, so I don't even know why he's being dragged into this.

 

They are neck a neck for the two greatest sci fi shows in history.

Both are responsible for demonstrable and profound ground breaking moments in TV history, especially when it comes to the area of civil rights and representation on television.

The twilight zone became known for this. Star trek also is forever known for kirk kissing uhura and a lot of other stuff.

So I think TZ is relevant, when setting up the context of this discussion. If there is a third show that could claim anything like the impact of TZ and ST, in the history of sci fi, I cant think of it. Both traded in ground breaking tv, and specifically used their detached from our world settings to do so.

Its sad that even in the twilight zone and outer space, much like Iran - "there are no gays".

 

This stuff has been pretty thoroughly debunked over the years.

 

@junkdata: To borrow Melakon's succinct way of putting it, the subject of my question was, why are you dragging Rod Serling into this? The scope of general Star Trek extends from the mid-1960s to the present day, but Serling's been dead since 1975.

And even if it had a place in this forum, you didn't back up your claim regarding Rod Serling's personal beliefs.

 

Why would minorities in command positions be a censor violation in the land of the free, where all men are created equal? Surely minorities have been in command positions for years in the US military.

 

http://the-quantum-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/say-it-isnt-so-rod.html

 

The network didn't want to alienate the market. It was easier to just not put Uhura in a command position than deal with stations refusing to play the show. That's how I understood it, anyway. A lot of stations in the South were mightly pissed at the interracial kiss in Plato's Stepchildren.

 

Serling died the year after homosexuality vanished from the DSM. I can't and won't speak to his reputed homophobia, but given the pervasive attitude, even in much of the medical and psychiatric community during Serling's life, it wouldn't surprise me if he wasn't terribly tolerant in that regard. It's one of the reasons Harvey Milk said everyone must come out, because when gay people are not visible in day to day life, people don't realize how many of them they know, work with, and love.

 

Evidence? And not just Roddenberry or Nichols saying it... there was talk at the time that the producers were worried it MIGHT offend some southern stations but I have never seen any evidence that they actually were "mightily pissed". More Roddenberry mythbuilding, methinks.

As for the original topic, no, I don't think it's fair to use the word "pathetic" here.

 

I would still use the word "pathetic" but I would substitute "totally" for "slightly".

 

The TZ thing was asked and answered, as contextual to sci fi. Roddenbery and Serling were friends as well iirc.

To be fair, Im not a big trekkie, but I did have 25 years worth of questions to ask on this awesome series.

I appreciate the polite and professional manner with which you addressed me, and I defer to your role on this site though.

Im not big on "culture" of hive mind either, but thank you for the opportunity to ask some questions to the experts.

Good weekend.

 

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