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Gay Crew members

^Couldn't just be that this thread was of interest to me, could it ?

Don't worry, though, I won't be reading what you post for much longer. I think I read everything you've got to say years ago.
 
Be honest. What Arpy wrote was uncannily similar to your complaint about the lack of honest male role models in modern science fiction series. Are you leaving or something?
 
Be honest. What Arpy wrote was uncannily similar to your complaint about the lack of honest male role models in modern science fiction series. Are you leaving or something?

Leaving ? No. Doing something that might earn me a warning if I told you about it, sure.

If you have a specific criticism of Arpy's opinion then take it up with him, and yes I agree with him. The fact that his opinion is similar to that of a poster you don't get along with is not a valid criticism of that opinion, but that's between you and him.

If you have anything valid to add to the discussion, I'm sure Arpy will be happy to discuss it with you, otherwise we're done here.
 
Deckerd and Hermiod, please knock it off so others can discuss the topic.

What's the point? Even counting the abomination, there are 737 episodes and movies of Star Trek to date. And in those 737 episodes and movies, not once have we had one gay character.

That's pathetic. What started as a trail-blazing series in the 60s is now barely limping along, following the pack.

Babylon 5, with its micro budget, showed one of its series leads in a committed same-sex relationship. And no one blinked. Even that SGU series has at least one out gay character.

Why couldn't Star Trek? In its quest to boldly go where everyone had already gone before, it forgot how to lead by example.

For a franchise that had the first interracial kiss on television, that's a sad, pathetic state of affairs.
 
I wonder if part of the reason you don't see gay folks in popular science-fiction isn't the popular sci-fi fans themselves. We "geeks"...funny how that's "cool" now...gorgeous actresses proclaiming they were nerds in high school...uh-huh. But we "geeks" carry baggage with us from growing up. Many of us weren't on a varsity team and were alienated from our peers for being brighter or whatever. Regardless how well we have/haven't turned out that old pain or the lessons from it are still with us, and though we're today more open in some ways (sure you're blue and antennaed, so?) we're not as much in others - anything that reminds us of our own past inadequacies. It's especially galling when a party so way less normal than you were are all of a sudden in with the in crowd. They don't even procreate properly! That's science!

I've been thinking about this recently and I think it's the same reason the tough guy or good looking guy in a cast isn't too tough or too good looking, and if he is, he's got something going against him. Worf's a Klingon, Jane's kind of stupid and held in check by Mal, Ronin's an outsider, Apollo's walked all over by Starbuck and has a genteelness about him, the guy on SG-Universe has a golly-gee likability about him.

Homosexuals have a harder time being accepted in minorities as well - I'm thinking among blacks specifically. It's easy to look beyond differences when you're the party in power - you can afford to be magnanimous, to show largess, not to care, to be and let be. But if you need all the numbers you can get, you expect your own to be with you in all ways. And the ways you've known you hold to all the more during these tough times.

I think this is part of why Trek's never had a gay character. The other part being that when every other show and it's neighbor were cutting that edge, Trek was too busy in a temporal causality loop imploding in on it's uncreative self. At this point I cringe what 1996 way they'll begin broaching the subject. Christ, I'd almost rather see Khan in the next movie. Strike that - I would definitely. Better to be repetitive than antiquated.
Uh... wow... and I thought we gays were stereotyped!!! While I think your intentions are well-meant, your conclusions seem way off base. It seems as if this post hit every stereotype across the board.
My responses to the underlined/bold statements above:

1- I do not think men in general have to be 'metrosexual' to be popular or well liked on television, as your post seems to conclude. As society has seen its 'chosen heroes' fall to infidelity, crime, racism, bribery, etc. Writers have chosen to make their characters more identifiable by making them 'less than perfect'. Real heroes are hard to come by.
"Worf's a Klingon"... that is a handicap?!

2- Obviously you know nothing about "blacks specifically". My own godson, who is black, struggled with his being gay since before age 12. The issues he has struggled with have nothing to do with the ones you mention. In fact, his issues are the same as those I faced at his age... and I am a white male. It was not any better accepted in my white "majority" than in his black "minority". In fact, because he is a generation behind me, he has had more acceptance than I. He only knows I am gay, because I shared it with him during his own struggle.

3- This is the one issue where we agree. TOS was cutting edge for the 1960s. I disagree with those who think TOS did not do enough... I am amazed they got away with as much as they did in those days. The B & B years saw Trek attempt to become more mainstream, therefore they took fewer risks. TOS worked to get things past the censors, while later Trek tried to fit in, IMO. I would like to see Star Trek take more risks, including gay characters IF it is done tastefully.:techman:
 
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Star Trek has already had a gay character. Hoshi Sato. Prove to me that she was not a lesbian.

Hoshi and her husband ;) are among the colonists who are killed by Kodos the Executioner on Tarsus IV. So says Hoshi's Starfleet biography as viewed on the Defiant's computer in IAMD.
 
if for no other reason than to refute Wil Wheaton's ill-considered comment about homosexuality being cured by TNG's timeframe (that's the rumor I heard and I can only hope it's either untrue or the actor has since reconsidered).

IIRC, he was a young man throwing out possibilities. He wasn't being homophobic. It's also just as possible that there is no stigma about gender preference among humans in the 24th century at all - or perhaps almost everyone is bisexual?

After all, we see inter-species couples (humans with aliens of who knows how many sexes?) and hybrid offspring quite often. No one would accuse a human having sexual relations with a Caitian or an Antican as bestiality, would they?
 
if for no other reason than to refute Wil Wheaton's ill-considered comment about homosexuality being cured by TNG's timeframe (that's the rumor I heard and I can only hope it's either untrue or the actor has since reconsidered).

IIRC, he was a young man throwing out possibilities. He wasn't being homophobic. It's also just as possible that there is no stigma about gender preference among humans in the 24th century at all - or perhaps almost everyone is bisexual?

After all, we see inter-species couples (humans with aliens of who knows how many sexes?) and hybrid offspring quite often. No one would accuse a human having sexual relations with a Caitian or an Antican as bestiality, would they?
And yet, no gays are shown in Star Trek. Interesting, no?
 
Like I said, at best the statement was ill-considered. At worst the statement actually was homophobic. I'm not aware of his current, much less past, views on the subject.
 
Star Trek has already had a gay character. Hoshi Sato. Prove to me that she was not a lesbian.

Hoshi and her husband ;) are among the colonists who are killed by Kodos the Executioner on Tarsus IV. So says Hoshi's Starfleet biography as viewed on the Defiant's computer in IAMD.
In A Mirror Darkly came out over five years ago, so I hope you don't mind terribly if I break your spoiler cover.

It is not uncommon in long term lesbian relationships for one of the two to be referred to as "The Husband" in the relationship. This is how they are introduced in social situations.
 
It is not uncommon in long term lesbian relationships for one of the two to be referred to as "The Husband" in the relationship. This is how they are introduced in social situations.

Which this, in fact, was not.

And it even gave his name.

In any case, aren't we just casting at straws here?
 
As a reference to George Takei, I think they should make nuSulu gay (hey, Chekov was born in a different year in the alternate reality, so why shouldn't Sulu have a different sexual orientation? :p ).

Since a movie has only two hours of runtime, I wonder if a low-key approach would be best though... Sulu briefly mentioning his husband in a conversation or something like that.

Personally, I'd prefer the nuWho/Torchwood approach: Everbody's omnisexual in the future. (Trek shouldn't adopt early Torchwood's quantity of sex though, which was a bit too much and came across as infantile... but this applied as much to the heterosexual sex as it did to the homosexual kind.)
 
Personally, I'd prefer the nuWho/Torchwood approach: Everbody's omnisexual in the future.

:guffaw: Good one. ;)

seriously though, I hate it when characters from the future love to point out how primitive and backward people in the 'present' are. Maybe Jack Harkness will fuck anything that moves, but that doesn't mean everyone else will. (Then again, Jack is an arrogant jerk anyway, so maybe he's just got issues. :p )
 
I don't think they should have the new Sulu be gay in the movie. As much as I would like to see a gay character in the movie, I think Sulu is a bad choice. Just because the original actor to play Sulu came out, doesn't mean that the character has to be gay. Similar to the fact that just because a actor is straight, doesn't mean he can't play a gay role.

In several movies they have introduced new characters in lower positions in the ship, but played important parts of the story. Examples are LT Savik, LT Hawk, EN Prim, LT Ilia, Kirks son David. They could have a lower ranked character introduced to the new movie, that is gay, but plays an important part of the story, and their homosexuality is just a small point to the character to develop him. That way he's not just a random face and name.
 
Star Trek has already had a gay character. Hoshi Sato. Prove to me that she was not a lesbian.

Hoshi and her husband ;) are among the colonists who are killed by Kodos the Executioner on Tarsus IV. So says Hoshi's Starfleet biography as viewed on the Defiant's computer in IAMD.
In A Mirror Darkly came out over five years ago, so I hope you don't mind terribly if I break your spoiler cover.

It is not uncommon in long term lesbian relationships for one of the two to be referred to as "The Husband" in the relationship. This is how they are introduced in social situations.

She also slept with a dude in Two Days and Two Nights.
 
Jarok, I always get a kick out of your avatar. So good to see it again.

Will someone direct me to Hermiod’s post on this subject? I’m curious what his thoughts are. I’m so bad with putting names to views on these boards. Everyone sort of blends in together.

Uh... wow... and I thought we gays were stereotyped!!!
I guess not even we're perfect. Plus is it wrong to attempt to find threads that run through populations? Isn't that what sociologists do?

While I think your intentions are well-meant…
Thanks. Really. :)
…your conclusions seem way off base.

It seems as if this post hit every stereotype across the board.
Well that's never good to hear.

1- I do not think men in general have to be 'metrosexual' to be popular or well liked on television, as your post seems to conclude.
No, I don't mean metrosexual. I mean just "really, really, ridiculously good looking," to quote Eric Zoolander. …One of those CW Network types, or models-turned-actors. Don't forget the tough guys - they can't be too tough without some vulnerability a not tough guy can find some comfort in. Again, not an absolute rule, but a convention I've noticed.

Casting agents don't look for the same guy to appeal to a straight male demographic as they do a straight female one. Don't you think they break down the straight male audiences further than that and search to what appeals to some more than others?

"Worf's a Klingon"... that is a handicap?!
Please don't make me break down every point. They played up his nasty look and personality and outsider status, and he was often therefore used for comic-relief or as an example of kneejerk thinking.
2- Obviously you know nothing about "blacks specifically".
I don't pretend I do, much. I mean only that that was the specific minority I was going to talk about.

And looking at the next quote may I remind you that using words like majority and minority is not wrong and I won't not because too many who do are assholes.
My own godson, who is black, struggled with his being gay since before age 12. The issues he has struggled with have nothing to do with the ones you mention. In fact, his issues are the same as those I faced at his age... and I am a white male. It was not any better accepted in my white "majority" than in his black "minority". In fact, because he is a generation behind me, he has had more acceptance than I. He only knows I am gay, because I shared it with him during his own struggle.
Again, I don't pretend to know the details of your life or that of your godson. Thank you for sharing it though, and I will keep it in mind as I do the surprising views of a 70+ year old black woman who’s one of the most bigoted people I know yet thinks of gays as just another of subsection of all those people out there.

Thank you for your reply. I was so glad to read someone thoughtfully comment on what I thoughtfully wrote. :)
 
Since a movie has only two hours of runtime, I wonder if a low-key approach would be best though... Sulu briefly mentioning his husband in a conversation or something like that.

Full on m/m sex act:

"Too much, too much."

Brief m/m peck on cheek, or mention of same-sex partner:

"Not enough, not enough. What are the writers scared of?"

Kobayashi Maru.
 
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