AKA "Two hot girls kissing." That was a go-to for the male writing staff of DS9.
THE ORVILLE S2, E7: "DEFLECTORS"
- Thread starter Mudd
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AKA "Two hot girls kissing." That was a go-to for the male writing staff of DS9.
In season 2, Jadzia tried to help a gay bartender at Quark's to frakk Quark.
The gay man turned out to be a straight woman with rubber lobes, but in Jadzia's mind, for almost a full minute, there was nothing wrong with her friend Quark receiving sex from a man.
...
In Outcast Will and Soren banged, so surely there was a place in his heart reserved for them, like there was forever a place in his heart for Minuette?
Soren?
Surely when Will met Soran, in Generations, he would have had that reaction we all have, when we meet a completely different person who has the same name as a lover we have or have had... Every time in Generations that someone says the name/word Soran, Will is thinking about his hot sex with Soren.
The gay man turned out to be a straight woman with rubber lobes, but in Jadzia's mind, for almost a full minute, there was nothing wrong with her friend Quark receiving sex from a man.
...
In Outcast Will and Soren banged, so surely there was a place in his heart reserved for them, like there was forever a place in his heart for Minuette?
Soren?
Surely when Will met Soran, in Generations, he would have had that reaction we all have, when we meet a completely different person who has the same name as a lover we have or have had... Every time in Generations that someone says the name/word Soran, Will is thinking about his hot sex with Soren.
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I get your issue with the number of stories but I've never understood fans objections to allegory. Allegory is part of the very DNA of the franchise. Interestingly, LGBT issues seen to be one of the only things that trigger the objection to allegory. The thing is, you can't have a story about gay discrimination involving Stamets and Culber, because the whole conceit of the franchise is that humans don't have that issue anymore. But if allegorical stories about that are off limits, well I guess we will never have another story on the subject again.
My issue isn't with allegories per se, but rather up until very recently allegories were the only way Trek addressed the existence of the LGBT community. Back in the 60s Star Trek made waves for having a black woman and an Asian guy on a starship bridge, and is remembered for having the first interracial kiss on television. Yet in the 90s Trek became timid when it came to dealing with matters of sexuality. The most direct depictions of homosexuality were in the form of a joke in DS9's Mirror Universe, which as I pointed out is offensive considering what the Mirror Universe is supposed to represent. And the fact the only other depictions of LGBT people were done as allegories seems a bit, I don't know, burying their heads in the sand? Was it so hard to have a gay or transgender character on any of the four shows in production from 1987 to 2005? Even just one guest star? The only ways they could do LGBT storylines is a race of androgynous aliens where one starts identifying with a gender (in which said alien is played by a female who falls in love with a male character) or a story in which two women carry slugs within them who were once inside a man and a woman who were married? There's nothing wrong with either storyline (although the execution of The Outcast left much to be desired) it's just sad these two occasions are the only times in the 700+ episodes done prior to Disco in which the LGBT issues were dealt with on Trek, and even then Trek did them as allegories rather than be direct and have LGBT characters featured on the show in a non-allegorical manner that wasn't "hur-hur. Women kissing each other. Hur."
While writing this post it occurs to me there was another episode that hasn't been mentioned. Profit and Lace on DS9, which I'm sure we can all agree didn't do the LGBT community any favors. Nor was it a particularly good episode.
The "let's treat LGBTQ issues allegorically*" is nonsense on the level of suggesting that instead of having Uhura as a regular on TOS they should just have gone ahead and done the awful "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield."
Cowardice.
The idea that Trek is doing something worthwhile by pretending that it takes place in a time and place where there is no injustice among humans may have seemed hopeful in the 1960s but today it's just evasive - a way of editing out and ignoring the widespread and fundamental human experience, in our time, of having to live with and to resist the efforts of the culture to suppress people.
*Or, at this point in time, any social issue you want to name.
Cowardice.
The idea that Trek is doing something worthwhile by pretending that it takes place in a time and place where there is no injustice among humans may have seemed hopeful in the 1960s but today it's just evasive - a way of editing out and ignoring the widespread and fundamental human experience, in our time, of having to live with and to resist the efforts of the culture to suppress people.
*Or, at this point in time, any social issue you want to name.
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The Outcast is pretty much garbage when it comes to LGBTQ issues on several levels. Mostly by confusing gender with sexuality. It's about a member of an androgynous alien species who identifies as female which means that her relationship with Riker would be heterosexual. The case could be made that it's a trans narrative but she's subjective to conversion therapy which works and erases her gender identity, which is impossible. It is treated as sad, but it's really insulting to even imply that gender identity that can be changed.
I'm glad that Trek got over just using LGBTQ representation as a "very special episode" that's forgotten about next week and he now just have actual characters. We need more of that.
I'm glad that Trek got over just using LGBTQ representation as a "very special episode" that's forgotten about next week and he now just have actual characters. We need more of that.
Impossible given current tech. But possibly not impossible in future tech, unless you hold that by altering someone's neurochemistry that much they're effectively not the same person.
I've read many sci-fi stories where sexuality/gender identity can be changed through numerous means, from literally taking a pill to extensive brain modification. Some of these stories were even written by authors I'm pretty sure are LGBTQ (for example, Greg Egan, who has had lots of queer content in his stories, and sexuality/gender identity frequently changing via the assistance of technology).
"Possibly not impossible in future" = "Once you admit a hypothetical, you can prove anything."
The whole purpose of sci-fi is to examine hypothetical scenarios. IMHO if the stories make you reconsider your ideological priors and make you feel a bit uncomfortable all the better.
This is not a game.
Huh? Explain.
Not untrue. Real life does it long before any a show dares risk audience share and people prefer to see what they want. It's nothing new. Orville just has better scripting and much better acting to some other shows, otherwise I'd laugh myself to the bathroom over some scenes. I'm impressed by the actors putting in absolute sincerity into the performances, playing it absolutely for real. That's helped a LOT to prevent send-up.
I hope we see more of Isaac in human form, as a refresher. Casual viewers not knowing the reference will think Finn emoting deeply and trying to french kiss a lipless robot, for lack of more appropriate word or situation, "wacked". Don't ask where I learned that word from, you mighty actually weep.
But I wonder why people are claiming we won't have another allegorical story? That seems depressing as good sci-fi has always used allegory and metaphor instead of a direct statement on an issue, the latter of which is closer to what's been happening. Allegory and metaphor, or even unrelated parallel are far more open-ended.
Some of TNG's best was unintentional. "Encounter at Farpoint" may have went on and on about various things, but it's a better allegory for homosexuality - far more so than "The Outcast"'s test tube baby (genetic modification) activism, or Orville's "it's okay to be heterosexual and female" running theme for the Maclans.
Orville also does all-out romantic relationships better than any Trek show so far, and is something Trek never exactly got right with heteros either. Cases in point: Forget Data in "In Theory", which is clunky. Let's not mention Yar's pseudo-drunken interlude. Troi/Worf was forced and he's quickly re-scripted to go after Dax and forgetting Troi ever existed, maybe Troi needed to see a counselor after that but nothing's shown on screen either. Picard had a fling in season 6, but it's all so one dimensional. Kirk was more into one night stands than relationships, since love can be either.
Nor do I need two people ostensibly like me (Stamets/Culber) to show me what I didn't need training on but is also 1D compared to my on real life experiences, since in the end of the day sci-fi is still a show for creative entertainment and Trek has tried to show it all. But all this is anecdotal,. we all have our situations, and we all look at what we want in a TV show differently.
The romances between Mercer and Kelly, and Dr Finn and Isaac has been far more compelling as running arcs when discussing human relations. For both, there's some deft and nuanced scripting that feels sincere, especially for the commander/exec officers. For Finn/Isaac, it's down to the acting that's selling the notion more than the plot itself as Penny Johnson's acting is the emotional key to keeping audiences interested, without balking, and she makes the most ludicrous aspects work. I\'m sure she and Isaac are done as an item now, unless the 2-parter is that old standby trope of "dream sequence".
If taken at literal value, Claire is discussing having coitus with a store mannequin that's got an Android phone in the middle. Especially when characters like Mercer make what be crass comparisons to Isaac being a stereo system (and Mercer's universe tells us AI have souls (or at least they run out of space to store data so instead of launching a big space station with a big databank they will take over other planets, without stating the obvious that the minerals will be of use or that they don't need a biosphere but Mercer's glad they do (despite no trees anywhere to photosynthesize oxygen they don't need) but that's a given), real life doesn't so what's the allegory - if one exists? Probably not that the Kaylons are acting no differently to many biological species!) to an agreeing admiral since they don't believe Isaac has a soul, the arc all a metaphor helping a different audience as many exist. Given how Orville is keeping allegory pegged so literally, that might be why there's no brigade stating Isaac is an extension of autistic people and teaching them how to date? Fortunately most autistic people aren't actual robots gone psychopathic genocide-committing notjobs, how much sillier can this get... but here's the point of all that:
Most people citing their discontent of the Maclan episodes might be doing so because they are hetero and aren't "getting the picture", as a result aren't interested in melodramatic soap opera unless it's the occasional Mercer sardonic crack about how bizarre their society's differences involving mating, and aren't in a restrictive society (e.g. marriage, practices, what to wear in public, and so on. Gay people can marry in the US so these episodes are either referring to another topic, or are - as the phrase goes - pushing water uphill where the horse is laying down at. It's a Sisyphean method to them. The message of the allegory isn't getting through to them and they're probably not going to care.
Why not just show people as people reacting to situations and actions with some depth and detail? Orville's doing pretty decently. But I doubt they will show porn in a good light, which would make my alcoholic druggie pornie ex happy - at least for 2 minutes. Or if one wants to make a soap-operatic allegorical allusion, use a parallel but not related scenario instead of a scenario inversion and allow audiences to think in any direction they wish, isn't that a lot more interesting? Orville's done that time and time again, compared to some other modern sci-fi shows. But it too is being a little too literal at times. Then again, a lot of people had no care for "Encounter at Farpoint" either. So that's my perception, tl'dr wacked as it is.
It's not a game. It's a TV show, board or video game sold separately but I didn't know those were made yet.
Eschaton is right, sci-fi is to explore the unknown and different things, while not pandering the audience since that makes them feel less uncomfortable. People don't even get it with the Move Along Home song, it's supposed to make a person feel uncomfortable. One needn't agree with it, unless there's a good reason. Orville may have hinted at one unwittingly in one of its episode too.
Like when Claire said she felt dating Isaac got her out of her comfort zone but in a good way. That, I felt, related to the audience (or at least me) and made the concept of hanky panky with an anthropomorphic radar detector more tolerable. (Getting Penny as Dr Finn was a real coup. Most actors couldn't begin to be as convincing with the material and she won me over as best character in season 1. Then I saw cast interviews and I adore her beliefs far more.) Adding in the simulation of human form was close to sledgehammer territory but it fits the theme perfectly while giving casual audiences something more concrete. Most humans still think a machine is just a bunch of programmed silicon chips that reacts to commands. Meanwhile, Kirk was nagging computers into exploding and telling the audience only people can govern. All while unknowingly spreading potentially contagious diseases across the galaxy in the name of "teaching luuuurve".
Well, if herpes isn't regularly scanned for and remains dormant for decades, does it all need to be spelled out with puke-inducing detail? 
Sexuality and gender identity isn't an ideology that needs to be challenged, only the perception of those in the majority who dismiss or threat it as a bizarre quirk any other group needs to be challenged since it's the dominant and outdated belief. What you dismiss as just being uncomfortable can be seen as an outright attack on an already attacked minority group and telling them to not worry about they'll be "fixed" in the future and made "normal". You're incapable of knowing how that feels and it's a bit worse than just uncomfortable. It's insulting and to certain people are certain times of their life an otherwise enjoyable scifi show can end up being extremely damaging to them.
Okay, a series of questions then.
- Is Ursula K. LeGuin's classic novel The Left Hand of Darkness offensive because it showcases a world where the norm is people are both genders at once and only take a male/female role when sex is initiated?
- Is Iain Banks Culture series of novels offensive because it shows an anarchistic utopia where people freely change which gender they express as on a whim?
- Is Kim Stanley Robinson's newish book 2312 offensive because it posits a future where nearly everyone (partially due to a quirk in how longevity can be achieved) chooses to have their bodies modified to be somewhere on the intersex spectrum?
- A male/straight character falls in love with someone who is neuter, and they have to figure out their relationship.
- Similar to the (later) Altered Carbon, a world where everyone's consciousness is uploaded on a chip by the time they are an adult, so they can freely experience life in a male or female body (the couple in question actually decide to swap bodies first, then clone a female and then a male version respectively to experience everything.
- A far-future world where embodied humans are recreated, with the twist that a penis is a detachable organ, and whoever is in ownership of it at the time is identified as male. The main character loses theirs when they lose their virginity, and then later returns to "reclaim" it.
Because of when this story was written, and who wrote it, I always figured that this was a gay story, and not a trans story.
It was a struggle to write permissible subject matter about gay issues, serious stories about the trans community were way off on the horizon.
It was a struggle to write permissible subject matter about gay issues, serious stories about the trans community were way off on the horizon.
1. That's more about gender norms than LGBTQ issues.
2. No, but it has absolutely nothing to do with trans people. If anything it's assuming that humans don't have a set gender (gender being what's in your head instead of between your legs), which based on research isn't true. But it's entirely possible that every single human is now gender fluid and cis people no longer exist.
3. I'm not intersex and cannot comment on how that might make an intersex person feel.
1. That's about a straight person struggling with their views on sexuality. Either they aren't going to keep viewing themselves as straight or they're attracted to some feminine quality in the agender person. Which does happen and these people do consider themselves straight. Unless it's a coming out narrative, although I doubt it since you describe them as a straight male.
2. That's a body swap, it has nothing to do with being trans at all.
3. Still, nothing to do with trans people.
Good for you, but they don't represent anything other than cis people's misunderstanding of sexuality and gender because they never had to deeply question it for themselves.
I don't mind too much, for now, because it feels like this is leading somewhere. This impression comes from the comments between Ed and Kelly at the end; this focus on Moclan culture is so that the larger conflict coming up is well-earned and justified as being a long string of failures to come to a common understanding. It started on a personal level, has expanded to affect the crew, and now is overflowing to outsiders. It's a well-told escalation of concerns.
I've noticed that most of the ship designs seem to share a specific design element: the Quantum Drive engines are separated away and behind the main body of the ships in some way. Even the Krill cruisers are laid out this way.
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