Yeah I took it as "homo" - homosexual, "phobia" - fear. "Fear of 'homos'"
Pre-2009 Star Trek and LGBTQI+ representation: simple disinterest or active hostility?
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Yeah I took it as "homo" - homosexual, "phobia" - fear. "Fear of 'homos'"
It’s been brought to my attention that you’ve already received a “friendly” warning for this exact same thing.
After consulting with an Admin, you’re getting a formal warning for trolling.
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A silly, shambolic comedy with some stupid, outdated notions of gender roles. It’s saving graces are probably that it does contain some laughs, and that it implies that gender-affirming surgery is an absolute non-issue in the 24th century.
The good news about "Profit and Lace" is that I wouldn't call it either homophobic or transphobic, because no one in it is gay or trans. It's about a straight cis male disguised as a woman to accomplish a goal. Kind of like Daniel Buckley, a 19-year-old Irish kid who escaped the Titanic in a lifeboat by a quick-thinking older woman, who put her shawl over him before any of the crew could realize he wasn't a woman or child.
But that's Ok, because given how utterly misogynistic the episode is, it's plenty offensive without picking on anyone else.
But that's Ok, because given how utterly misogynistic the episode is, it's plenty offensive without picking on anyone else.
I just want to use this opportunity to say that "women and children first" is chivalric bullshit with not basis in maritime law and even in the 18th and 19th century it rarely applied and is for good reason never followed today. The Titanic is one example where it sadly did happen.
It was varied even on the Titanic. On one side, it was "women and children first, but men if there was room". On the other, it was "women and children only". After the Titanic, it didn't matter. All ships had to have lifeboat capacity for all on board.
This was not a subject change, just a IRL example of why "Profit and Lace" was not an LGBTQ episode.
I'm gonna be honest, if someone tried to steal my spot on a lifeboat I'd tell them to get f*****, man or woman.Okay, folks! We all know who to not go on a cruise with!
Doesn't matter though, in real life the crew will put people on the life boats in the order they arrive, sorting the passengers in any way would just be a waste of time, the only actual rule is that they try to keep families together and not split them up.
That doesn't mean it can't be offensive though. It's the old "haha, a man in a dress joke" paired with sexual assault and gay panic when a male character starts to grope and kiss the guy he thinks is a woman.
I do wonder somewhat why the thread-title says "pre-2009"?
ST09 is famously straight & white as fuck! Hell, Into Darkness starts with Kirk having a casual threesome with two hot Asian alien cat twins, and had Bikini-Marcus in the trailer. I wouldn't really call that progressive.
I would put the turning point at around Justin Lin's 'Beyond' - in 2016 - which barely trumped DIS with the first openly gay main character by turning Sulu gay - famously against the direct advice & wish of George Takei, who didn't want to conflate his personal private legacy with a character he explicitly played straight, so I don't know how to feel about that.
I do however love Stamets & Culbert. And the fabulous Dr Aspen - even if they somewhat fall into the trope of the queer coded villain. But in that case it's not subtle subtext - it's full-capslock front page text, and no one bats an eye, so I'm fine with it.
ST09 is famously straight & white as fuck! Hell, Into Darkness starts with Kirk having a casual threesome with two hot Asian alien cat twins, and had Bikini-Marcus in the trailer. I wouldn't really call that progressive.
I would put the turning point at around Justin Lin's 'Beyond' - in 2016 - which barely trumped DIS with the first openly gay main character by turning Sulu gay - famously against the direct advice & wish of George Takei, who didn't want to conflate his personal private legacy with a character he explicitly played straight, so I don't know how to feel about that.
I do however love Stamets & Culbert. And the fabulous Dr Aspen - even if they somewhat fall into the trope of the queer coded villain. But in that case it's not subtle subtext - it's full-capslock front page text, and no one bats an eye, so I'm fine with it.
Because 2009 is the benchmark of the Trek franchise, the point in which many consider to be the beginning of "modern Trek." Yes, it would not be until 2016 when LGBTQIA+ people would get actual representation in the franchise, but that was part of the franchise's era which began in 2009.
And finally the DS9 episodes set in the Mirror Universe. As we know the inhabitants of the MU are eeeeeeeviiiiiiiil. They are perverts that love they leather and bondage. They are psychopaths without morals, ready for the most vile abjections. So, of course some of them are bisexual (gasp) or lesbian (double-gasp!!!!). What greater indicator of evil than a sexual orientation that deviates from right and good heterosexuality? Even the TvTrope site lists DS9 as an example of the Depraved Bisexual trope. Obviously these episodes absolutely do not help the LBGTQI+ cause. Indeed, they clearly say that being evil and deviant is synonymous with "not straight".
Voyager: absolutely nothing, even if Mulgrew herself asked to write some episodes about LBGTQI+ themes or characters. Voyager must be the most LBGTQI+-free show of the entire franchise. I mean, even in the original series there was a character (well, two) who had a gender reassignment! 
And no, I don't really consider the thrown bone to the Janeway-7of9 shippers seriously. If it ever existed.
And no, I don't really consider the thrown bone to the Janeway-7of9 shippers seriously. If it ever existed.
Even if the characters are "blind", they are not naive. They know very well that racism and sexism have existed and exist. I still remember Sisko's speech in Badda-Bing Badda-Bang about how people of color were treated in the 1950s. So, even if the humans of the future have overcome these petty discriminations, they must still be able to recognize them in order to fight them.
So I find it correct that Our Heroes make Heroic Speeches about how stupid Racism and Sexism are by comparing the foolish humans of the past and how Heroically they have now overcome these meannesses. Obviously it's didactic but at least they're sure that viewers have a clear idea. But, for example in "The Host"? Nobody starts talking about how some humans in the past were also discriminated against because of their sexual orientation, while in a previous episode they had no qualms about looking viewers in the eye and slowly spelling out "In case it wasn't clear, DRUGS ARE BAD."
In-Universe makes no sense. Real life, well we all know why.
To be fair, I think what they were going for is “sexing up” everyone in the Mirror Universe, which doesn’t really make it a whole lot better, because then the unfortunate message kinda becomes that being sexual and promiscuous equals evil and deviant. A sort of inadvertent slut shaming on a universe-wide level. And I guess their thinking was, since everyone is so sexual, some of them must be gay, too. In a way I bet they thought they were kinda edgy with this stuff, even if much of it feels like a teenage wet dream brought to the television screen.
But yes, I can totally see now how that aspect of the Mirror Universe is problematic. All of this likely flew right over my head when I watched this as a kid. But now as an adult I got to wonder how much of what they showed me formed some unconscious biased opinions about lesbian and gay people. It’s telling that the only time the writers felt free to include gay characters was when they visited a bizarro “evil” universe. Probably tells us more about them (and the mainstream view of LGBTQ+ people at that point) then they realized when producing these shows.
There’s some stuff at least that can (accidentally) be seen as allegorical to the trans experience: Do you recall the episode “Warlord”? Some (male) despot called Tieran telepathically transfers himself inside Kes, overtaking her body in what seems like a situation not all that dissimilar from how Trill symbionts are joined with their hosts. It’s been a while that I’ve watched the episode, but there’s definitely some tension there because Tieran has a wife, who has trouble adjusting to the new (female) body. Plus, what’s interesting is that Tieran quickly figures out how to use Kes’ body to try and sexually seduce Tuvok.Voyager: absolutely nothing, even if Mulgrew herself asked to write some episodes about LBGTQI+ themes or characters. Voyager must be the most LBGTQI+-free show of the entire franchise. I mean, even in the original series there was a character (well, two) who had a gender reassignment!
And no, I don't really consider the thrown bone to the Janeway-7of9 shippers seriously. If it ever existed.
And then there’s an episode where Seven of Nine starts to display the personalities of people that she assimilated as a Borg, among them a male Ferengi DaiMon. It’s mostly played for laughs and I don’t recall if they use the situation to make some statement about gender roles, although I’d guess they didn’t.
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And Tieran was eeeeeeeeeeeviiiiiiiiiillll, right? Like Janice Lester. Why would you want to change gender unless you're eeeeeeeeeeeviiiiiiiiiillll?
There’s definitely some unfortunate implications in that one, absolutely. Also some plain sexist notions too for good measure, because IIRC Tieran is complaining a couple of times about being stuck in a “little girl’s” body. While at the same time abusing her mental abilities to his advantage. Yeah, definitely written as an evil guy.
Yeah, though I previously called out in this thread that the Mirror Universe Lesbians being the only direct homosexual representation in the pre-2009 franchise as an act of hostility (IE, they only show homosexuality in the place where everything is evil and wrong) I will concede at the time the episode was made that likely wasn't the intent. Granted, the actual intent was to fetishize lesbians, which isn't much of a defense, nor is it much better than if they actually were trying to say homosexuality is evil and wrong. But there we are.
I do want to remind all that it's easy for us to play Monday Morning quarterback 30 years later, in an era where the Supreme Court has blown away the anti-sodomy laws and enshrined marriage rights, following an impressively coordinated campaign by the media to win the public over. Much of Berman era Trek took place in an era where a double digit number of states would literally throw you in jail for dating a member of your own sex. It was a different reality then, and the powers that be were working to survive within it. Maybe Trek wasn't as enlightened as we would like... but it managed to preserve the franchise's existence.
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