Spoilers 1st openly gay character.
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I’ll never understand why some people are just uncomfortable with the idea of seeing gay people on screen. Seems like anyone comfortable with their own sexuality wouldn’t really have any issue.
Why wouldn’t they call themselves gay? For some minorities having a label and group to identify with is extremely empowering. You finally know that you aren’t alone and have a place in the world.
Because the gay identity as we understand it only really has existed for a bit a century. There were certainly people in earlier time periods who were primarily or exclusively interested in the same sex, but they did not self-identify based on that even in cultures where same-sex attraction and relationships were not stigmatized. Thus while it's a certainty that people will still engage in same-sex relationships, it's not certain that any sort of "gay" identity will mean much of anything in the future presuming the Federation is really tolerant and accepting.
Look at how race is treated in Star Trek. There were plenty of episodes which touched on aspects of contemporary racism, but we never got any real indication that the 23rd/24th century black human characters cared much about their blackness per se. The closest was Sisko once mentioning he had an issue with going into the Vegas holodeck program to Cassidy because "people of our skin color wouldn't have been allowed in there." So there might be some level of self-awareness of skin color, but given the Federation has (somehow) evolved past racism, it's not a very salient identity compared to being human, a citizen of the Federation, a Starfleet officer, etc.
I think it would be interesting if human heterosexuality was largely extinct and the majority of humanity was omnisexual. They may have preferred partners, but were all open to various genders and species. Maybe even explain that this was he natural state of the species but was repressed due to social pressures.
Be just my luck to score Saru. Though there would be a curiosity factor there.
I like being heterosexual myself and hope it never is extinct. The natural state of the species? Are you posturing that heterosexuality resulted from social pressure. That's a joke surely? I thought we were all born the way we are?
Star Trek also says that the human race will eventually all get along too.
But if he’s suggesting that being gay as an identity disappears, why shouldn’t the same hold true for straight people?
Strangely, it was Doctor Who of the major franchises which did that.
Mind you, I'm inclined to think sexual attraction is biological and not socialized. Sexual BEHAVIOR is socialized.
So I wouldn't mind a polygamous or group marriage Federation or much more open about sexuality.
Star Trek has ripped off Doctor Who before.
That’s not canon, we become salamanders.
I think this is a deceptively strong post and there is actually a lot of value in the points you make.
However those points are primarily salient from a 23rd/24th century perspective, not a 21st century one. The audience cannot see things from their perspective, they can only see things from the perspective of a time where those prejudices still matter and that is the whole point of progressive television making.
On the other hand, has a character actually been verbally labelled on screen as gay yet anyway? We have Stammets and Saru, both of whom conform to certain gay stereotypes and off screen sources telling us Stammets will be portrayed as gay. We've also been told for months that Burnham will be gay, although as yet that hasn't really manifested beyond a certain simmering tension with Georgiou. The basis of your argument is that in the far future people would be less inclined to draw attention to those labels, which thus far is entirely in fitting with what we have seen. That we are debating this at all is an artefact of modern day attitudes and how uncomfortable a lot people are with the concept but unwilling to express that except by doing so within the semblance of an intellectual framework.
In which alternate universe did that happen?
In which alternate universe did that happen?
Perhaps I should have been clearer, there have been persistent rumours.
Again, where? First time I'm hearing this. And I've been following this show's inception since all the way back when it was first announced.
Just to clarify, nothing would make me happier if they made their main character gay. It's just that I don't recall ever spotting any serious rumors about this anywhere. And something tells with the way they advertised Stamets' sexuality and patted their backs about it we would have heard it about it already if they had plans to write her as gay.
I think most straight people are a bit more bi than they care to admit. Not that there aren't 100% straight people, there are, just not as many as we might think. Social attitudes matter. In ancient Greece homosexual acts were considered perfectly normal and expected parts of sexuality, so they were more common than in many other eras, our modern era included.
It's a scale, and I'd prefer Star Trek to depict it as such.
In Ancient Greece, some homosexual activity was normal. A man of means was expected to maintain a household with a woman, who was his wife, as well as a male lover. As Foucault pointed out, a man who engage exclusively in homosexual activity was considered suspect.
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