Rosalind Chao was also considered for Tasha at one point.
Not sure what would have become of Keiko O’Brien, but an interesting point to think about
Keeping Tasha
- Thread starter Laura Cynthia Chambers
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Rosalind Chao was also considered for Tasha at one point.
Not sure what would have become of Keiko O’Brien, but an interesting point to think about
Actually, the two reasons why TNG was saved was because it was syndicated, and that everyone was excited that Star Trek was back on TV. It could have been a heaping pile of dog shit, and it still would have survived under those circumstances.
Fun fact: Vasquez was played by a Jewish actress, who had her skin and hair darkened to look Latino. She also played John Connor's foster mom in Terminator 2.
At this point, I have to ask: "Who wasn't?"
Roddenberry & company as well as Paramount should be glad that creating Macha Hernandez never got off of the ground, because all that would've happened would've been a lawsuit from SLM Entertainment and 20th Century Fox, over infringement.
A tough latin woman seems to me a such generic concept that I don't know if there really would have been a risk of lawsuit...
Tasha was... Vasquezish.
They share many of the same traits, they're just in a different environment. The only two real big differences are ethnicity, which should be irrelevant, and the kind of wise-cracking type attitude of Vasquez, which doesn't really fit in TNG.
Uhmm, I don't see much resemblance. Vasquez was the classic sterotype of the hot-headed soldier, ready to shoot first and then ask questions. The peculiarity (for the 80s) was that she was a woman. Tasha just seems to me to be a very thorough person in her work, maybe a little too dedicated. But her work also requires a minimum of diplomatic skills that I don't think Vasquez had. Also, Vasquez seems like a stereotypical butch to me. Tasha if she wanted she could also be feminine.
I'm also reading on Wikipedia that many believed she was a lesbian at the time, because she had all the right "signs".
Wow. The 80s were truly a bizarre decade. A haircut was enough to understand a person's sexual orientation. What would they have done if they had seen, I don't know, Portia Rossi with her long, flowing hair and who is an open lesbian? Would their brains explode?
By the way, Denise Crosby also wears short hair in everyday life and last time I checked she appears to be heterosexual (not that there's anything wrong with that!).
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Saw Tasha on a Dexter Rerun last night.
It's not a direct parallel, but neither are the settings. I think Vasquez and Yar share alot of personality traits, that are expressed differently due to their environment.
Both are strong women in a traditionally male role, who aren't afraid to get down and dirty just like the men. Neither are the "damsel in distress", instead being warriors themselves. They both won't tolerate disrespect, ESPECIALLY based on their gender.
They're just in different environments. Yar is an officer in a Navy-ish organization that has a culture based around peace and diplomacy, Vasquez is an enlisted Marine in a military.
I think if you swapped both of their circumstances, you would end up with similar people.
EDIT -
I've heard for a long time that many (not just 80's "ew gays" types) think that Tasha was queer coded. I personally don't agree... I don't really see lesbian in her at all, she's just... professional.
Although even back in the 80's, people would have called someone like Portia a "lipstick lesbian". I don't think people's heads would explode, it was (and to some extent, for alot of people still is) easier to accept a feminine lady who happens to be attracted to women over a woman who takes on masculine traits. But let's be real though, there are certainly cultural and style indicators. If I see a masculineish women pull up in a Subaru with a short cropped hair cut, a mens flannel shirt and Doc Martens... my brain is going to think "lesbian". That's ok... being lesbian is ok... or not... but there are certain things that might trigger such a thought.
It works in reverse... an effeminate man will still largely be labelled "gay" regardless of it's true or not, while a blue-collar looking construction worker type who is attracted to men doesn't really register on the "gaydar".
I personally hate when people go out of their way to try to find some kind of sexuality related thing. It's largely irrelevant. I don't really care if a character is gay or straight. On a slight tangent though, one thing I truly despise is how, especially nowadays, seemingly any time two men are portrayed as having a close relationship, it's expected to be gay. Men can't just have close friendships anymore?
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And let's be frank: we all know that at least in TNG there are no LBGTQI+ people: all humans are perfect cis-gender. The writers probably thought that any sexual or gender orientation that deviated from the "norm" was cured at an early age by genetic engineering. Your average 80s sitcom was more progressive in its portrayal of non-straight people than TNG.
Up until fairly recently, homosexuality was considered to be a mental illness, and Star Trek showed a future where most mental illness had been cured... so by mainstream 80's standards, yeah. They had cured the gay. That was considered a good thing.
We might be remembering the 80's a bit differently though. TNG just didn't really broach the topic at all. Alot of other TV may have... to mixed results. There some good portrayals, but there were also alot of just... terrible ones.
I like to think that in the 24th century, nobody cares. Nobody cares about your gender or sexuality. In a good way. It's not important. Nobody needs to remind you they are gay. Trans people are probably less... common, if only because medical tech has progressed to the point that transitioning should be an almost effortless undertaking. It's like, an afternoon outpatient procedure.
Also just consider that especially at the time, the percentage of the gay population was something like... 3%? Trans was less than 1%. Given that, it's statistically unlikely would you encounter a gay person, just on straight (no pun intended) odds. It's ESPECIALLY unlikely that one of the like what, 6 people we encounter on a per-episode basis would be. Also knock one off for being an android, and thus having no sexuality.
EDIT -
There are some societal and cultural things along with that. There is a trend in alot of the western world towards LGBT being en vogue. It's become cool to be queer in some way. I'm curious... I truly don't know... to see how that will play out in the future. Will some of that be something of a "fad", with the heavy focus on pronouns and the like going largely out of fashion, or will it persist? I have a suspicion that it will eventually become less of a cultural hotpoint and I think without the trendiness of it all, it becomes a bit less prevalent. I can only speak anecdotally from my experience, but I personally know a few people who appear to be in it for the trend. I have a "gay" friend who is a male and... exclusively dates women. I know someone who identifies as "they/them", who seems to present as feminine at all times. Things like that.
I might be totally wrong and this is all 100% true and in no way a trend but... it does seem like it's "cool" right now, so along with the bona fide LGBT people, there are some who are attracted to it for the cool factor.
My point to that was that by the 24th century, there may well have been a cultural shift away from some of that, and the number of people identifying as LGBT may be lower than today, making it a bit less likely still to encounter someone. Hell even on Discovery, when Idira tells Stamets their pronouns, Stamets sounds almost surprised, like it's something uncommon to hear. In 2024 real world, I wouldn't even bat an eye if someone said their pronouns are "they/them" (i'm 40 years old and i'll mess it up from time to time, not out of disrespected... I just went a long time without doing that and it's a fairly recent change for me... I try, but my brain assigns gender to people and sometimes I don't catch it on the way out.)
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I can speak this as my teens have several friends who say they are a part of the population because it is cool, it is easier to be accepted. I read a sociological perspective that being straight is associated with being an oppressor and that's not what people what to be associated with. It's not cool to be a part of that group.
I would imagine there is a huge cultural shift in the later part of this century, much less 22nd, 23rd or 24th.
I've read some similar things along those lines. I don't want to derail the thread too much here, but one thing I found interesting was an idea that the population of trans women is growing partly due to something similar... being a white man can be seen as being an "oppressor" today, not something desirable. It may not be a conscious choice, but a subconscious way to "get out" from that by doing really the only thing a white man can do to get out from that group... join the outgroup of trans women.
Being gay, trans, etc. is all perfectly natural. Absolutely. BUT... cultural trends can certainly have some affect on that. Young people tend to like to rebel against the previous generation or two... we may see a generation in the next 10-20 years "rebelling" against their parents and going like, "Super Straight". It's still kind of cool to be LGBT because while much more accepted, it's still an outgroup, it's still rebelling against "the man". Once "the man" becomes 100% accepting of it, it may well lose some of it's appeal and the percentage of population identifying as such may drop.
But yeah. TNG could have, and probably should have, done... SOMETHING with gay representation, but at the end of the day its a TV show trying to make money, and the Powers That Be decided it would work against them to do so.
Even just a small thing would have been good. I'm a fan of sometimes being a bit more subtle. Rather than going full out and have a visible, physical male gay relationship... have a scene where a Rando-Crewmember Of The Week just mention his husband or something. Quick, but there.
Uh, I didn't get it. Was it sarcasm?
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