I've considered that the Ocampa might experience time differently than most species, also that they don't need to sleep. By the time Kes was two Earth years of age, she had already personally experienced mentally eighteen years of life. This presupposes that all Humans have some kind of connection and we can collectively realize when there's a population problem, at which time a increased percentage of Humanity would be genetically gay at the time of conception. An interesting idea, but I don't think that's what's happening.
You have every right to feel insulted, but the statement was "I, I, I" and not "You, you, you." I can't speak for anyone else. But on the whole, yes. I do see television as mostly "just dumb entertainment."
Maybe not easy for to have the lead be gay. But TV was dealing with gay characters and situations for quite a while by the time TNG came on the air. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_1980s_American_television_episodes_with_LGBT_themes For a series that was suppose to be progressive, TNG and the rest of the spinoffs look absolutely archaic in comparison.
One of the reasons that Picard (as written) might have made for a better choice for a gay character in 1987 is that Picard actually wasn't very sexually active. So while he would have been established from the beginning as openly gay, the information wouldn't have been a part of every episode, it would have been overt in perhaps one episode per season. In the seven years of TNG we only saw Picard kiss two or three women, and we saw him in bed with someone only once, and that was with Q.
Most of the stories we wrote were about social justice. Really? In that case where did "most" of these stories go? Here's the first fifteen episodes. Encounter At Farpoint The Naked Now Code of Honor The Last Outpost Where No One Has Gone Before Lonely Among Us Justice The Battle Hide & Q Haven The Big Goodbye Datalore Angel One 11001001 Too Short A Season Episodes about the crew getting drunk, playing on the holodeck, a meaningless Q story, intro the Ferengi, intro the Traveler. There are a few "message" episodes in the mix, but hardly most.
Oh dear. I should have been clearer. The above quoted comment was about Star Trek rather than The Next Generation. My bad. Apologies for the easy confusion.
This is still a good example about how Trek is perceived to be about human improvement in the 24th century. There are always those interviews, articles, documentaries and such. I still think there's not much excuse not to know what Trek is about, as far as content. On the issue of featuring gay characters in TNG; "In universe", they had the green light. But "out of universe" they could never do it. Trek just seemed to be too weary of offending certain elements. A show that is about human progress in the 24th century but avoids featuring gay characters. Strange, because there were shows from the 80's that boldly and not so boldly had gay normal characters. And there have been sci fi shoes that showed women in authority (captains) way before Voyager appeared. So why would Trek, of all shows, have these extremist fans and elements?
Strange, because while Gerrold submitted a half dozen story ideas to the original Star Trek, he only worked on a single script, The Trouble with Tribbles. This would seem to make his statement of "Most of the stories we wrote were about social justice," sound (again) strange. Gerrold never wrote stories in the plural. And from reading his book, he didn't have much interaction with Roddenberry, but rather with Gene Coon. Gerrold was on the staff creating TNG, and just from the sound of it the quote would seem to be referring to that show, and not TOS.
He also has an uncredited rewrite of "I, Mudd" and the story credit for "The Cloud Minders". Then he has two credits on the animated series: "BEM" and "More Tribbles, More Troubles". http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0314775/
The "social justice" line is a lovely piece of myth-building. However, it's largely not borne out. That multinational crew? Not Roddenberry's idea. It was added at the behest of the network. The evil network. Look at the way fandom treats Uhura. You would imagine her to be a torch-bearer, a character who broke the mold. It's great that she inspired people like Whoopi Goldberg and Mae Jameson, and Nichelle Nichols deserves credit for that. However, Uhura was not groundbreaking or trend-setting. Actual African-American lead characters existed in shows like I, Spy or Julia. I, Spy even beat Star Trek to the punch when it comes to interracial kissing. In contrast, Uhura's biggest character moments in the series come in The Changeling, where Nomad completely wipes her mind. There, the show seems to literally suggest that Uhura doesn't need personal memories; there's no loss of a person when Nomad wipes her mind. Instead, Uhura simply needs to relearn technical information so she can continue to function as part of the crew. The novels did much better work with the character afterwards. And that's before getting into the whole "lack of homosexual characters" thing. The writers may have wanted it, but that isn't enough on its own. Gerrold, to be fair, at least wrote a script. Producers rushed down to the set on The Offspring to prevent Jonathan Frakes from shooting a same-sex couple holding hands. This "social justice" narrative is a nice one, but it is a piece of retroactive mythologising by a lot of those involved in the show.
You don't see any abusive undertones in the way that Neelix treats Kes in episodes like The Phage or Twisted? Where he is incredibly emotionally manipulative and controlling, not to mention passive-aggressive, which becomes extra creepy when you factor in the difference in age between them, the fact that he is the one with his own space ship and the fact she'd never been into space before? (That is what makes the relationship creepy when coupled with their respective ages, and why Ezri/Jadzia and Worf/Bashir is less problematic. If Jadzia was as controlling as Worf, it might have been an issue.) And then there's the fact that Kes was apparently happy enough not to be dating Neelix, but wasn't able to break up with him herself. An evil alien warlord breaks them up while in Kes's body, and then they stay broken up. There is no way to present that as a functioning relationship. Kes doesn't need to be arriving in Sickbay with two black eyes for it to an abusive relationship. A large part of the toxic dynamic is Kes' age. Source: http://www.salon.com/2001/06/30/gay_trek/
Neelix may be overly possessive and paranoid, but that doesn't change the fact that Kes was not a child (by any definition of the term) at the time. There is no connection between the two. When they met, Kes was 2 years old, which by Ocampa standards IS ADULTHOOD.
Well, if two break up and stay broken up, then, yeah, that's pretty much the definition of a non-functional relationship. But that's got nothing whatsoever to do with whether Kes was a child while she and Neelix were together, which was the actual point in contention. Calling their relationship "creepy" doesn't carry any weight. Neelix never abused Kes, she never abused him (at least when she wasn't being possessed), Neelix never bullied Kes to remain with him. So, get over it already. She was an adult. And when she exercised her prerogative not to date Neelix, he respected that. Can we get back to discussing David Gerrold yet? Anyway, that's all I have to say about this. It just gets rather tiresome whenever it comes up, and it does so repeatedly, that's all.