The Outcast

[Taelon]

From what I gather, the idea of having a main character such as Riker share a kiss with a quasi-female alien would have been considered controversial if that alien was played by a male actor?

Would it have been less controversial to have a non-main cast member, either a recurring extra such as Barclay or an entirely new (male) character, in Riker's position to have a relationship with a J'naii who was played by a male?

That way they could explore the issues that the episode was apparently trying to explore but ended up effectively ignoring those supposed issues instead all the while (as I'm sure some people would see it) somehow portraying Riker's character in a "negative" light by sharing a kiss with another man - even if they were playing a female character.

At the very least, it would have pre-avoided people making a fuss about Riker being "gay" if he'd shared a kiss with a male actor, regardless of the character's gender (or lack thereof) and thus avoiding any risk in a less offensive way than simply pretending homosexuality just doesn't exist in the first place, which is quite an achievement for an episode that's apparently trying to be allegorical about homosexuality.

 

[BillJ]

They chickened out in a major way with "The Outcast".

 

[Ghrakh]

^they didn't even attempt it in TOS.

 

[BillJ]

^they didn't even attempt it in TOS.

Okay? World was a far, far different place in 1966. It would've never made it past network censors (Roddenberry seemed to have a skill about knowing what fights to pick with them). What exactly was TNG's excuse when Roddenberry and Berman supposedly had far more freedom?

 

[Ghrakh]

^they didn't even attempt it in TOS.

Okay? World was a far, far different place in 1966. It would've never made it past network censors (Roddenberry seemed to have a skill about knowing what fights to pick with them). What exactly was TNG's excuse when Roddenberry and Berman supposedly had far more freedom?

Yes it was. And the world was far different in the early 90s than it is today.

 

[BillJ]

^they didn't even attempt it in TOS.

Okay? World was a far, far different place in 1966. It would've never made it past network censors (Roddenberry seemed to have a skill about knowing what fights to pick with them). What exactly was TNG's excuse when Roddenberry and Berman supposedly had far more freedom?

Yes it was. And the world was far different in the early 90s than it is today.

What about 2001? Berman and company never had the conviction to show gay people on Star Trek. They passed on it time and again. It's one of the few axes I have to grind with the Abramsverse as well.

 

[Ghrakh]

Perhaps. So it's not specifically a TNG issue. What other episode even approached it?

 

[BillJ]

Perhaps. But it's not specifically a TNG issue.

Sure it is. Because I keep getting told that Star Trek is this progressive view of the future. But when they had a chance to be out front on something and make a statement, TNG balked.

If you watch the show, you see it become more and more conservative as it goes on. Men in skirts get eliminated, we get more and more of Picard as the human missionary on his brave trek to show everyone how great humanity is and how everyone should be like us. At least early on, they were contemplating having a gay character in the aborted episode "Blood and Fire" by David Gerrold. But after that evaporated, they never revisited the issue.

I like TNG, but it definitely feels like it lost its collective way as it went on. It became very, very safe (pretty much all of Trek did).

 

[velour]

I, too, didn't understand the reason the androgynous looking alien was played by a female actress. By having a female play the role, I thought it diminished the effectiveness of the message.

If the message was about taboo relationships, then why not actually have a male actor play the role of the alien as the love interest of Riker. There would have been no ambiguity about it.

The writers may have been too clever by half, too subtle. Or as BillJ wrote, chickened out. Instead, they probably should have been direct and blunt about it by having the alien be played by a male actor. Why not be cutting edge the way TOS was with the Kirk/Uhura kiss?

 

[BillJ]

The writers may have been too clever by half, too subtle. Or as BillJ wrote, chickened out. Instead, they probably should have been direct and blunt about it by having the alien be played by a male actor. Why not be cutting edge the way TOS was with the Kirk/Uhura kiss?

It wouldn't be up to the writers, it would be up to the executive producer: Rick Berman. And the Kirk/Uhura kiss really wasn't cutting edge.

 

[borgboy]

I agree that Trek has taken the safe route for a decades on the gay issue, and it gets progressively more insulting and pathetic the longer it continues. They're past the point where they can be groundbreaking, but at least they can stop being behind the times.
I suppose if they really did some clever they could be relevant, such as casually featuring a gay married couple. That's still pretty daring for sci fi. Actually having the gays be male and not going the safe route with attractive inoffensive lesbians would also be impressive. I'd be glad to see lesbians in Trek too, but sci fi has a history of using attractive women when they have gay characters, so they can titilate their straight male fan base while scoring points for their diversity. A gay male kiss would actually be pretty daring too - not many big budget action sci fi movies have done that - probably ever.

I always did have a problem with Riker being the lead in this episode. The story just doesn't feel right for him. Sure, Riker could have a fling with an untraditionally gendered alien, but that he fell in love so fast, and seemed ready to commit to her, that felt out of character. I find it hard to believe Riker would commit to anyone but Troi. If he couldn't commit to her for years he wouldn't get that serious that quickly with anyone else. Frakes did a great acting job, the story just didn't suit his character in my opinion.
I think Geordie would've been a good choice for this episode. Barclay would've been a great choice too.

I agree that the episode would've had more punch if they had cast a male actor to play the role. It was still a good episode, and I think the metaphor was handled well, although I've heard people completely (and I'm sure deliberately) invert the message.
Some people have chosen to interpret the episode as anti gay. Soran was after all a heterosexual female who was persecuted and ultimately converted by gay society.
Clearly that wasn't the intention, but that's what happens when you use metaphor, it's open to interpretation - much like the awful argument that still pops up about gays being wiped out in Trek since we never see any. People who ignore the novels - and obviously want to take a homophobic approach to the series - have the wiggle room to make that interpretation.
I make this rant fairly often it feels like so sorry to anybody who's heard this from me before. But the issue comes up a lot, and I feel like I have something to say on the issue. I always try to take a moment and express how appreciative I am that the novels have for many years been much better with diversity.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

^they didn't even attempt it in TOS.

Okay? World was a far, far different place in 1966. It would've never made it past network censors (Roddenberry seemed to have a skill about knowing what fights to pick with them). What exactly was TNG's excuse when Roddenberry and Berman supposedly had far more freedom?

Yes it was. And the world was far different in the early 90s than it is today.

Not that different. Other highly respected and high-profile shows on network TV prime time had had gay/lesbian characters before TNG aired its first episode.

See, for example, the characters of Eddie Gregg (five episodes in 1982 and one in 1986) and Kate McBride (three episodes in 1986 and two in 1987 all before "Farpoint") on Hill Street Blues.

We can even go back back a decade before TNG to 1977 and find the Emmy-winning episode "Cousin Liz" of All in the Family.

 

[Orphalesion]

^they didn't even attempt it in TOS.

Okay? World was a far, far different place in 1966. It would've never made it past network censors (Roddenberry seemed to have a skill about knowing what fights to pick with them). What exactly was TNG's excuse when Roddenberry and Berman supposedly had far more freedom?

Exactly! At least in Australia homosexuality was still considered a mental illness in the 1960s. Roddenberry had to fight for Kirk and Uhura kissing while under mind control, Kirk and Spock kissing would have never flown, much to the chagrin of a million fangirls.

Berman on the other hand? He seemed actively trying to avoid the issue at a time when the freaking Golden Girls dud episodes centered about a family member "coming out".
There are a lot of rumors online like that Roddenberry said prior to his death that he planned to introduce a gay character to TNG or that during Guinans explanation of what love is in "the Offspring" there was originally a same-sex couple as well as the heterosexual one, but the extras were removed at the last minute.
However fact is that in all of 24th century Trek the closest thing we got to a homosexual character was Garak flirting with Bashir, two attractive (of course), otherwise straight women kissing (and thus probably delivering a good helping of "author appeal" for Berman) and Riker falling for a genderless alien played by a woman.
Hardly progressive thinking for a show that advertises itself as progressive.

And borgboy is right, using a lesbian couple, especially one composed of attractive women (like Jadzia and the other Trill) is still a very, very safe route and kind of a cop-out, since it still catches the interest, and possible arousal, of what was their biggest audience back then; young males. Let alone Rick Berman and Brannon "Let's make it a Borg babe" Braga.

 

[borgboy]

All in the Family also had Archie being homophobic about Mike and Gloria's gay friend, only for Archie to discover a very masculine friend of his was gay too and that was a good decade before TNG.

Shortly before the Outcast came out the soap One Life to Live had a huge story about a gay teen who was facing homophobia. If daytime soaps could have a big storyline about a gay character then I think it was completely possible TNG could've had a gay character in one episode, they just chose not to.

But yes, times were still different then. Time went on and DS9 and Voyager also failed to have a gay character. When Enterprise came along with gratuitous underwear gel massage parties and yet another "hot chick" in a cat suit but still wouldn't include a gay character, there was no excuse.

The new movies have moved to the point where it's a disgrace to still avoid the issue. I'm really curious what Quinto would have to say about this issue. He only came out after he was cast, so they can't really even brag about having cast an out actor, they just had an established actor in their franchise come out.

I don't expect anyone involved now is homophobic, probably. JJ made vague statements that he wanted to have some gay inclusion but clearly nothing came of it. And considering some of the gratuitous sex and semi nudity that was on screen, there was no excuse.

 

[Ghrakh]

It's a wonder there seem to be so many gay Trek fans. Given how big an issue it is.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It's a wonder there seem to be so many gay Trek fans. Given how big an issue it is.

Say what? Why is it a wonder?

 

[Ghrakh]

It's a wonder there seem to be so many gay Trek fans. Given how big an issue it is.

Say what? Why is it a wonder?

You tell me. Is lack of something a deliberate slight?

 

[borgboy]

It's a wonder there seem to be so many gay Trek fans. Given how big an issue it is.

I fell in love with Trek from watching a marathon of TOS when I was 10 or 11 years old in around 1980 or 1981. I didn't even know what gay was (I knew I was "different" but didn't really understand how or why yet). I watched the tv series, the movies, read every Trek novel I could find..by the time I was old enough to understand about sexual orientation, LGBT diversity in media was close to zero.

As I got older, TNG teased with Trills. The Outcast came out when I was still new out of the closet, and I was overall pleased with how that went. It did capture a lot of the angst of the issues I faced.

Over time society progressed, and I hoped Trek could break new ground. The best we got was offensive pseudo bisexual evil Mirror Universe women that Nana Visitor basically apologized for later. I hoped Trek,if it was failing to break new ground, then at least it could progress with society.

Enterprise came along. Despite interviews that said there could be a gay Enterprise character, they failed me there too.

Am I disappointed? Yes. But I still have a great love for the franchise that's been with me nearly my whole life. And somehow, ridiculous as it may be, I'm still hoping Trek will finally fullfill the promise of a diverse humanity on screen with gay characters.

In the meantime, there are some great non cishet characters in the novels that are just as important to me as all the hetero characters in Trek that I still love.

It is a shame that other sci fi shows have done more with gays than Trek, although it's still usually with attractive lesbians or bisexual women. Only Torchwood has had a prominant male gay character and even he was problematic as he was an aggressively promiscuous "omnisexual" attracted to everybody and everything.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It's a wonder there seem to be so many gay Trek fans. Given how big an issue it is.

Say what? Why is it a wonder?

You tell me. Is lack of something a deliberate slight?

How can I speak for how anyone else feels?

 

[borgboy]

It's a wonder there seem to be so many gay Trek fans. Given how big an issue it is.

Say what? Why is it a wonder?

You tell me. Is lack of something a deliberate slight?

Yes, it can be. Lack of diversity is called erasure. When you have hundreds of hours of a franchise with thousands of characters, and they've never quite managed one real gay character, that's not an accident. The lack of gay characters isn't an accident, it was a choice made over and over again. The issue was brought up by every lead actor from Patrick Stewart thru Scott Bakula, scripts have been written with gay characters that were rejected, a gay couple as extras were pulled from the filming set at the last minute...all that was deliberate. Even Berman discussed the possibility of a gay regular character on Enterprise...and then didn't do it. JJ discussed wanting to have a gay character...and then didn't do it. All of that was deliberate. I don't think most of that was done intending to insult, but erasure on this scale is offensive.