Is Star Trek homophobic?

[Agenda]

Braga tries to explain why they didn't have any gay characters.

But I can't help but look at the hundreds and hundreds of episodes and wonder in disgust at how Star Trek has failed to provide significant LGBT representation or positive LGBT role models.

 

[DonIago]

I just think it's a genuine shame that a show once considered as progressive as Star Trek so completely dropped the ball on such an obvious issue.

As for addressing the issue metaphorically, an argument could be made that in some ways that's more cowardly than not addressing the issue at all. "Oh, we'll talk about this, but only if we do it in a coy manner so as not to risk seriously upsetting anyone." And I'm not sure any of those metaphors necessarily put things in the most positive of lights.

I didn't read the full interview, but that excerpt certainly didn't tell me anything I didn't already know.

I still remember -hearing- that Wil Wheaton had once claimed that he thought there weren't any gay people in TNG because homosexuality had been "cured" by the 24th century. I emphasize "hearing" because I hope to hell that wasn't accurate.

 

[-Brett-]

I wouldn't say it's homophobia. More like homo-apathy.

 

[BlobVanDam]

There are many social issues that were not addressed in Trek, and I don't know why homosexuality always gets singled out as a huge deal.
Plenty of shows back then didn't have gay characters. While it would have been great for them to do it, I don't have any strong response to what they DIDN'T have. Even if Star Trek wanted to do it outright, there are other issues such as the networks and response of conservative families.

BUT I will say that it is a huge shame that their few allegorical attempts at homosexuality were pretty clumsy and obvious, but I never got the impression there was any homophobia. That seems like an overreaction to too many factors to blame Trek.

Hopefully they can have a new series where they can deal with it properly, the way everyone wants. Have a gay character on the main cast to balance it out.

 

[Takeru]

I just think it's a genuine shame that a show once considered as progressive as Star Trek so completely dropped the ball on such an obvious issue.

But was Star Trek ever really progressive? Maybe a little bit during TOS (but not as much as some people inclusing Roddenberry liked to claim), but starting with TNG it was pretty safe, there was nothing progessive about it.

 

[C_Miller]

I still remember -hearing- that Wil Wheaton had once claimed that he thought there weren't any gay people in TNG because homosexuality had been "cured" by the 24th century. I emphasize "hearing" because I hope to hell that wasn't accurate.

You may have misheard or it may have been tongue-in-cheek, but that doesn't sound like a statement from someone who wrote this:

http://www.wilwheaton.net/mt/archives/001544.php

 

[Deckerd]

Trek wasn't homophobic, it was sexophobic. There wasn't any sex in Trek, let's face it.

 

[F. King Daniel]

FWIW, there have been gay characters in the Star Trek novels for ages.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I just think it's a genuine shame that a show once considered as progressive as Star Trek so completely dropped the ball on such an obvious issue.

But was Star Trek ever really progressive? Maybe a little bit during TOS (but not as much as some people inclusing Roddenberry liked to claim), but starting with TNG it was pretty safe, there was nothing progessive about it.

Yeah. TOS was progressive in the sense that white men weren't going to be the only ones in space, but that was about it. Otherwise, everything else about Trek being this or that came more from the fans and not the ones actually making it...

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

Star Trek is not homphobic per se. But they went to great lenghts not to piss off the homophobes among their viewership (or among the Paramount executives, who knows ). And that's what it is all about, I guess. The real question is this though: Had Berman, Braga & Co. (who were obviously playing it "safe") been in charge during the 60s, had there ever been an Uhura?

And as a sidenote, one of the few things Caprica did right was Sam Adama as an how-it-should-be-done example of a gay character in SF.

 

[JarodRussell]

Are you homophobephobic?

People are just disappointed that they never got to see hot lesbian sex scenes between 7-of-9 and Torres.

 

[Forbin]

You know the moment when it would have been absolutely perfect to use homosexuality as a simple but effective plot point?

When Geordi was telling Leah Brahms (the flesh and blood one) how he felt, and she told him she was.... married. Even as she was uttering the sentence for the first time, I was hoping against hope the writers had taken that one little extra step away from convention, buuuuut..... No.

Then again, she didn't say she was married to a man, did she?

 

[ChristopherPike]

I don't think Star Trek is. The trouble is Gene Roddenberry's underlying message that people's differences are no big deal and are accepted to the point where there's absolutely no need to say anything. That sort of goes against what it is to be homosexual in the 20th/21st Centuries. TV and film is largely full of attention seeking gay characteratures who fall into common stereotypes - largely femine bitchy types, obsessed with musical-theatre, in many cases promoting promiscuity and unable to have lasting relationships because society frowns on same sex marriages. Producers pander to those worst aspects and rarely create any positive role models, to counteract the homophobia out there.

I don't know so much about American TV, but judging by British programming I don't have much confidence a gay character on Star Trek would escape falling into that trap. Having to meet audience expectations of what gay and lesbian people are like... which unless you work in showbusiness, I presume doesn't bear too much relation to those out there living ordinary lives.

If Star Trek had moved with the times and for instance, during Enterprise had given us a gay crew person... I'm happy to admit as a hetrosexual fella that wouldn't have changed a thing for me. I'd have still have watched it week after week and been disappointed when they cancelled it. I think the character who mostly likely would have fitted this would be Malcolm Reed. That could have worked without alienating what was (correct me if I'm wrong) a core male audience. Specifically a character with a macho interest, his role as Armoury/Tactical Officer and he wouldn't have been obvious, until the occasional storyline discussed it... Plus with T’Pol, Hoshi (straight guy interest), Archer, Trip, Mayweather (straight female interest) it probably wouldn’t have changed the dynamic between the cast. As it turned out, the writing didn't go there with Reed (or any other characters) for whatever reasons and he was written with straight romantic interests... mainly that 'Shuttlepod One' fantasy involving T'Pol and to make him occasionally uncomfortable around her and Trip.

 

[BillJ]

I still don't get the 'progressive' label that is often associated with Star Trek.

 

[Deckerd]

I still don't get the 'progressive' label that is often associated with Star Trek.

The original series had a black woman, a Russian and an alien in the bridge crew. In the 1960's ideas like that were unheard of.

 

[siskokid888]

Braga tries to explain why they didn't have any gay characters.

But I can't help but look at the hundreds and hundreds of episodes and wonder in disgust at how Star Trek has failed to provide significant LGBT representation or positive LGBT role models.

Trek isn't, America is. If you want to be successful on TV or in the Movies here, you have to make believe that gays don't exist. Unless you're christian, then you just want to wipe them out. You know, like Jesus would do.

 

[Deckerd]

Trek isn't, America is. If you want to be successful on TV or in the Movies here, you have to make believe that gays don't exist. Unless you're christian, then you just want to wipe them out. You know, like Jesus would do.

How d'you explain the success of 6 Feet Under? Or Will and Grace?

 

[BillJ]

I still don't get the 'progressive' label that is often associated with Star Trek.

The original series had a black woman, a Russian and an alien in the bridge crew. In the 1960's ideas like that were unheard of.

Well... we know that at some point Roddenberry was bangin' Nichols and with what we know about Takei, Roddenberry may have been bangin' him too. Then Chekov was added to appeal to a younger demographic.

Not sure being 'progressive' drove any decision regarding Star Trek, it was more likely that Roddenberry's libido did.

 

[Deckerd]

I still don't get the 'progressive' label that is often associated with Star Trek.

The original series had a black woman, a Russian and an alien in the bridge crew. In the 1960's ideas like that were unheard of.

Well... we know that at some point Roddenberry was bangin' Nichols and with what we know about Takei, Roddenberry may have been bangin' him too. Then Chekov was added to appeal to a younger demographic.

Not sure being 'progressive' drove any decision regarding Star Trek, it was more likely that Roddenberry's libido did.

Whether or not that's true is immaterial. To the television watching public of 1960s USA it was a revelation.

 

[BillJ]

The original series had a black woman, a Russian and an alien in the bridge crew. In the 1960's ideas like that were unheard of.

Well... we know that at some point Roddenberry was bangin' Nichols and with what we know about Takei, Roddenberry may have been bangin' him too. Then Chekov was added to appeal to a younger demographic.

Not sure being 'progressive' drove any decision regarding Star Trek, it was more likely that Roddenberry's libido did.

Whether or not that's true is immaterial. To the television watching public of 1960s USA it was a revelation.

But when you put the reasons for their appearance in their proper context... it clearly explains why Modern Trek was pretty much a paint-by-numbers experience.

If a man like Roddenberry was such a progressive why do we always hear about him wanting to have a 'three-breasted' Troi yet he never came within a country mile of having a gay character on his watch? And Star Trek: The Next Generation represented a true opportunity for him to exercise his social conscious as he had no network superiors to report to.