Lack of LGBT characters and the "magic bullet"

[V]

I'll keep this short to get to my point, because "LGBT issues and Trek" can launch long discussions and I have a specific point:

I saw this thing Braga said: http://www.airlockalpha.com/node/8231/brannon-braga-takes-reactive-approach-to-gay-characters.html

And while the website seemed annoyed, Ron Moore has said similar things, and I'm more responding to what RDM said:

Even assuming there were no internal studio politics, I honestly believe RDM's explanation of why Next Gen has no LGBT characters: the writers were under so much pressure to "get it right" because "this is Star Trek" that they felt no script lived up to it.

And I can understand this; they were "Star Trek, the show that preached tolerance of other races, and even females"

There was a lot of pressure that if they made an LGBT plot, it would have to be "big". And I can understand Braga's point in the link above: what were they going to do, invent a character purely to be "the gay one?" Anymore than they made Captain Sisko as "the black captain"? Or La Forge was "the black guy" on TNG? That's silly. But by that point they were under a plot of pressure, and *ANY* LGBT plot would be treated as "wow, the first time Trek did a gay character!"....only to be criticized for not going far enough.

So RDM pointed out that they'd get criticized for not doing more, and Braga points out that it would have been absurd to make a character purely to be "the gay character".

I realized: there is NO "Magic bullet" when it comes to Star Trek LGBT characters. There is never going to be one, pivotal episode, the "first LGBT Trek episode!"....because if you think about it, that isn't how they handled racial tensions or female characters.

If there's "pressure on Trek to take on LGBT issues, because it preached tolerance and equailty about black and female characters"........ask yourself: was there ONE episode, one pivotal episode, that was when Trek handled race issues? One pivotal episode about women's rights?

No.

It just passively, but persistently, displays a storyverse in which some people happened to be black or female. I like the analogy that it was like their hometown: YES, it affects who they are and the past shouldn't be ignored (Sisko shouldn't be ashamed of being black or something) but it should only really come up in conversation if it is relevant to his character development, similar to the effect growing up i his hometown had; i.e. how frequently he might mention he is from New Orleans.


So really, I'm not blaming the writers and really this is a case of fans and the media putting unfair pressure on them: that's just not how Trek handled things in the past. There isn't going to be ONE pivotal "LGBT episode".


So the way this should/will happen is pretty much as black and female characters were handled in the past: it will be a background character trait for one character but never really the focus of an entire plot.

When this happens, i.e. a new TV series has an LGBT character, fans and critics will be annoyed at first in the initial batch of episodes that it doesn't "do more"; and that "this character just happens to be gay! You wrote them like a heterosexual character and just changed the gender!"

Well, yes: ***Rome wasn't built in a day, and Trek had a learning curve in portraying black and female characters very well.

Female characters were accused of "being written like men, just with breasts, not dealing with women's issues"

Black characters didn't particularly deal with "black issues"

OVER TIME, after much trial and error, they got better at it.

I think it was only by DS9 season 7 that Sisko even mentioned in dialogue that he had opinions based on being black (he thought Vic Fontaine's holodeck program was whitewashing history because it didn't reflect the discrimination black people would face at that time).


My point is this: yes, they should just dive in and try. Yes, there will be much "error"; there will be LGBT characters that yes, seem just like heterosexual characters but with the gender names switched. But OVER TIME, they'll get better at it.

And the writers are correct to point out that many expect them at this point to get it right within a SINGLE episode, to make a SINGLE "LGBT Trek episode", when that's just now how these things develop.

 

[sbk1234]

In fact, TOS came up with one episode I can think of off the top of my mind about race relations: "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield." It was done rather symbolically with the two Cherons, one black on his left side, one black on his right side.
TNG, likewise did at least one episode dealing with sexual gender relationships: "The Outcast." Like LTBYLB, it was done symbolically. A gender neutral alien who leaned toward female.
Not necessarily the best way to approach the subject, but it was at least approached in some way. Needed to do more? Undoubtedly. But I do agree that it should have been done organically, and not just the token gay character for the sake of being gay.

 

[TheLobes]

I think part of the problem is that the Star Trek world is a pretty sexless place. They have to say things like 'jamaharon' when they went to Risa. They had to make Dax and Worf's sex into kind of a joke. I cant really remember much going on with Tom and Torres, and we only ever saw Bashir and Ezri next to each other in bed. Star Trek is usually more about larger concepts than sex; in a sense it is not really a very human sci-fi. Humans tend to embody certain values or elements of a story, far more than they try to portray realistic humans. Star Trek focuses much more on the human race than on human individuals.

Compare Star Trek to Doctor Who. In the latter, the human charcters actually do act very human, they're very like us, same with Battlestar Galactica, Asimov novels, or even Red Dwarf (can you tell Im just getting started with sci-fi). This is why a show like Doctor Who can pull off a very ostentatiously bisexual character, because sex is always acknowledged as part of the characters lives, and they react to it just as we do, even though DW is much more of a childrens show than ST.

 

[Gotham Central]

It's this silly need to make it an issue that is the problem. Writing gay characters is NOT hard. All they have to do is write theirntypical stories with the same level of interpersonal relationships that they have in every story and then when they are done, change the gender of the subject of romantic interest. It's not difficult.

The same was true of Sisko and race. Sisko was not a black captain...he was a captain who happened to be black. Janeway is a prime example of how NOT to do this. The producers obsessed over the fact that she was a female captain and thus needed to be depicted differently than the other leads. This resulted in a massively erratic character.

 

[Avon]

i think the 'magic bullet' is some kind of sex toy.

 

[T'Girl]

I think it was only by DS9 season 7 that Sisko even mentioned in dialogue that he had opinions based on being black (he thought Vic Fontaine's holodeck program was whitewashing history because it didn't reflect the discrimination black people would face at that time).

The same was true of Sisko and race. Sisko was not a black captain.

Correction, Sisko wasn't the "Black Captain" up until the fore mention episode, as soon as Sisko (who is black) said to Cassity (who is black) that they were discriminating against our people, Sisko became the black captain. He also turned into a very racist character, at least for that one episode.

 

[Maxillius]

I think it was only by DS9 season 7 that Sisko even mentioned in dialogue that he had opinions based on being black (he thought Vic Fontaine's holodeck program was whitewashing history because it didn't reflect the discrimination black people would face at that time).

The same was true of Sisko and race. Sisko was not a black captain.

Correction, Sisko wasn't the "Black Captain" up until the fore mention episode, as soon as Sisko (who is black) said to Cassity (who is black) that they were discriminating against our people, Sisko became the black captain. He also turned into a very racist character, at least for that one episode.

That one instance nearly completely turned me off Captain Sisko forever. I know, at *this* point in history, you'll still be punched in the face for telling a black man to "get over it" in terms of historical wrongs, but that was supposed to be 300 years in the future, 450 years after those wrongs began to be rectified. I sincerely believe that when people stop mentioning race or gender or sexual preference in relation to "first black/female/gay captain/whatever" that it will be the first *true* step in race/gender relations.

I long for that day when appearance truly doesn't matter.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

This is all a smokescreen for the real reason there were no gay characters. Well, male gay characters. They had no problem implying lesbianism in the Mirror Universe.

It's because they assume a certain percentage of their predominantly young male audience are homophobic, specifically in regards to male homosexuality. And they're right about that, judging from what I've read around these parts. Gay male characters wouldn't increase ratings and would definitely hurt ratings. Any other explanation is just spin.

 

[ColeMercury]

So the way this should/will happen is pretty much as black and female characters were handled in the past: it will be a background character trait for one character but never really the focus of an entire plot.

When this happens, i.e. a new TV series has an LGBT character, fans and critics will be annoyed at first in the initial batch of episodes that it doesn't "do more"; and that "this character just happens to be gay! You wrote them like a heterosexual character and just changed the gender!"

No, they won't be annoyed at all -- if anything, they'll be gratified. Look at Sam Adama in Caprica -- did anyone complain about him being "not gay enough"?

The "incidentally-they're-gay" approach is the one they should've taken right from the start. The problem is that they were too damn cowardly to do even that. They can hide behind the excuse of "well, we knew we couldn't do the issue justice" but it just doesn't wash -- maybe they couldn't do the issue justice, but some goddamn visibility would've been welcome. Just throw us a frickin' bone.

But no -- instead, every regular character either gets some action with the opposite sex on screen or talks about lusting after the opposite sex, just so we know that they are emphatically Straight As An Arrow. They wouldn't let Garak be bisexual -- he could only ever get it on with Ziyal, and otherwise it had to be kept as a "coded" trait. They couldn't let Reed be gay -- no, he just had to start lusting over T'Pol's "nice bum". And so on.

Correction, Sisko wasn't the "Black Captain" up until the fore mention episode, as soon as Sisko (who is black) said to Cassity (who is black) that they were discriminating against our people, Sisko became the black captain. He also turned into a very racist character, at least for that one episode.

Oh, give me a frickin' break. So the guy knows his heritage. He knows history. He can tell that the people in those historical records who got all that shit piled on them had the same skin tone he and Kasidy do, by virtue of having more than half a brain. And that somehow makes him "very racist"?

 

[scotpens]

Everybody knows this guy was Star Trek’s first gay character.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Garak was definitely gay. They didn't have to tell us.

That's the way to do a gay character. If you have to tell us, you're doing it wrong.

 

[T'Girl]

Correction, Sisko wasn't the "Black Captain" up until ....

Oh, give me a frickin' break. So the guy knows his heritage. He knows history. ... And that somehow makes him "very racist"?

So then I can be bigoted against Muslims because they invaded my ancestral village in southern Portugal in the eighth century?

Please, Sisko "position" on this matter is side by side with Stile's hatred of the Romulans in Balance of Terror, and at least Stine was channeling something from only one century back, not Sisko's four and a half centuries.

When exactly in Sisko's mind did caucasians become them.

 

[ngc7293]

I think the writers can write what ever they want. It is just getting past the censors. Most of them wouldn't let the navel show on "I Dream of Geany", or would insist that husband and wife sleep in separate beds.
The only way for another trek show to get on TV with what people what is to show it on HBO

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Or ABC.

 

[T'Girl]

On reflection, Malcolm Reed would have been the perfect gay character, a beautiful repressed British queer, I've seen Dominic Keating portray gays in other (well one other) productions and he does it well without resorting to playing a "queen."

And to be honest, T'Pol did have a "boy butt.".

 

[ColeMercury]

So then I can be bigoted against Muslims because they invaded my ancestral village in southern Portugal in the eighth century?

Please, Sisko "position" on this matter is side by side with Stile's hatred of the Romulans in Balance of Terror, and at least Stine was channeling something from only one century back, not Sisko's four and a half centuries.

When exactly in Sisko's mind did caucasians become them.

Well, never. I've just re-watched the scene and he says absolutely nothing which is racist towards white people. I'll transcribe it, shall I?

SISKO: You really want to know what my problem is? I'll tell you. Las Vegas, 1962 -- that's my problem. In 1962, black people weren't very welcome there. Oh, sure, they could be performers or janitors, but customers? Never!
KASIDY: Maybe that's the way it was in the real Vegas but that's not the way it is at Vic's! I have never felt uncomfortable there, and neither has Jake.
SISKO: But don't you see -- that's the lie! In 1962, the Civil Rights Movement was still in its infancy. It wasn't an easy time for our people, and I'm not going to pretend that it was!
KASIDY: Baby... I know that Vic's isn't a totally accurate representation of the way things were. But... it isn't meant to be! It shows us the way things could have been, the way they should have been.
SISKO: We cannot ignore the truth about the past.
KASIDY: Going to Vic's isn't going to make us forget who we are or where we came from! What it does is reminds us that we are no longer bound by any limitations! ...Except the ones we impose on ourselves.

Kindly point out where Sisko says the racist things which so offended you. I'm waiting.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Ok, so Kirk was the 'American' captain, Picard was the 'European' (or 'bald', whichever you prefer) captain, Sisko was the 'black' captain, Janeway was the 'female' captain, and Archer was the 'inept' captain. That was their defining characteristic at the beginning of each series. But over time they evolved and became characters in their own right. After a while I get to the point where I don't see that aspect of them anymore, and just like/dislike the character.

Their race or gender was never used at the beginning of the series (it was S6 when DS9 did "Far Beyond The Stars" and then S7 when they did "Badda Bang, Badda Bing", and aside from a few remarks from Cullah and Q nothing was made of Janeway being a woman) and if Trek ever had the guts to do a gay male character (which personnally I don't see happening for a long time), then the same should be done with them. They are an officer and a gentleman, who just happens to like other gentlemen (also not every gay man out there is stereotypically 'camp' like Glee's Kurt). Why should that be made into a big storyline? Give them the occassional romance, but avoid stories where aliens have issues with same-sex relationships, as it just sensationalises something that is completely 'normal' (which is by far my single, most hated word in the English language).

But that's just my humble opinion,
Bry

 

[T'Girl]

When exactly in Sisko's mind did caucasians become them.

... he says absolutely nothing which is racist towards white people...

Well who exactly do you think Sisko is bitching about to Kasidy? The city of Las Vegas is a inanimate object, Sisko is complaining about caucasians. Sisko's words show that he considers himself (and Kasity) to be of a group which is separate from the rest of Humanity. A separation that is racially based. And that's why I said that Sisko -- in that one episode -- is being racist.

SISKO: It wasn't an easy time for our people
KASIDY: Going to Vic's isn't going to make us forget who we are or where we came from! What it does is reminds us that we are no longer bound by any limitations!

Yes, it does sound like the two of them are talking about all of humanity regardless of race.
Gene Roddenberry would have been so proud.

things which so offended you

Me? You mean personally" Nothing about it, it's an observation, I very much doubt that my own ancestors
would have been welcome as customers in the Las Vegas of a half century ago, oh well.

 

[TheLobes]

The thing is, the important dates in Badda-Bing are not just the current Star Trek time and 1962, but also the time when it was released. I think its important for Sisko to say those things because I dont think people in the 90's should get the idea that black people were treated equally in those times.

So then I can be bigoted against Muslims because they invaded my ancestral village in southern Portugal in the eighth century?

Im sorry, but thats a pretty different situation. How about if you bought a holodeck simulation of that time, only to find that the Muslims and Portugese were all sitting around drinking tea and having a gay old time?

I think its also important to recognise that black people were pretty much seen as inferior humans back then. Whatever your opinion on Sisko, that program was whitewashing history. Personally, I think it was stupid of Sisko to kick up such a fuss, but I like that the point was made. This is DS9, after all, the darkest ST, which really did focus on the negative side of life in the Federation. If youre going to make whole episodes based on the short comings of that federation, I dont think one small exchange about holoprogram accuracy is too much to bear.

 

[TheLobes]

This is all a smokescreen for the real reason there were no gay characters. Well, male gay characters. They had no problem implying lesbianism in the Mirror Universe.

It's because they assume a certain percentage of their predominantly young male audience are homophobic, specifically in regards to male homosexuality. And they're right about that, judging from what I've read around these parts. Gay male characters wouldn't increase ratings and would definitely hurt ratings. Any other explanation is just spin.

I think this is a pretty good point.