The Outcast
- Thread starter Taelon
- Start date
The problem is that if Soran had looked broken then Riker would've tried to rescue her. They weren't going to let their hero leave Soran when she clearly needed rescuing.
By having the brainwashing be so complete she no longer wanted to be rescued, there wasn't much Riker could do.
I can see what you mean about the interpretation that the treatment worked. Even though the message of the story seemed to be that she already was normal as she was and didn't need treatment, a story told thru metaphors is open to interpretation.
Precisely.
I think Enterprise's Stigma does a much better job at denouncing the prejudice, for one thing the melders are not "cured", they are simply ostracized.
This episode was problematic in a lot of ways.
Berman did press where he claimed this episode would be a gay metaphor, but it didn't. He later admitted they didn't handle this well.
At the very least, it was an AIDS metaphor. AIDS does not equal gay. That was a dumb thing to assume in the 80s. By the time Enterprise was out anybody intelligent enough to write for a living should definitely know better.
On top of all that the Vulcans that were the metaphor for the oppressed people mind raped T'Pol.
Everyone is entitled to their interpretation but I do believe the episode is pushing one side of the argument. When we are seeing a trek character arguing morality against a harsh government you can be sure the episode is probably siding with the enterprise crewmember.
I don't see how you can walk away from this episode and side with the alien government unless you dislike Riker or love in general. By having a tragic ending it is trying to get a gut reaction against trying to force someone to be a gender/orientation.
I don't see how you can walk away from this episode and side with the alien government unless you dislike Riker or love in general. By having a tragic ending it is trying to get a gut reaction against trying to force someone to be a gender/orientation.
I agree that we are supposed to side with Riker.
I have heard the argument that the episode is anti gay. After all, Soran is a heterosexual woman who is oppressed and persecuted by her "queer" government, who "convert" her. I don't believe for a second that's the intended reading, but metaphors are open to interpretation.
I have heard the argument that the episode is anti gay. After all, Soran is a heterosexual woman who is oppressed and persecuted by her "queer" government, who "convert" her. I don't believe for a second that's the intended reading, but metaphors are open to interpretation.
Stigma was a terrible episode. One of the many early Enterprise episodes that contributed to my quitting of it.
In retrospect, The Outcast feels more like a transgender episode than a gay episode. She identified with a gender she wasn't born with, and Riker accepted her as that gender before her culture brainwashed her into accepting her biological gender.
There's a webcomic I read called Questionable Content. The main character, Marten, is currently in a relationship with a woman he knows to be trans. He's never once considered it a problem, he just feels natural with her. I've never seen a work of fiction treat transgender issues that way.
In retrospect, The Outcast feels more like a transgender episode than a gay episode. She identified with a gender she wasn't born with, and Riker accepted her as that gender before her culture brainwashed her into accepting her biological gender.
There's a webcomic I read called Questionable Content. The main character, Marten, is currently in a relationship with a woman he knows to be trans. He's never once considered it a problem, he just feels natural with her. I've never seen a work of fiction treat transgender issues that way.
Just the opposite, the problem Soren's society had with her is that she identified with her actual gender, the society was officially androgynous, Soren understood that she was female.
This wasn't allowed.
No I am not talking about the AIDS issue, what I am saying is that there is no talking about turning the melders into non melders, which would be the equivalent of turning a gay person into a straight one. I am afraid I didn't convey that accurately enough, sorry.
"Stigma" was definitely behind the times. In the '80s, back when AIDS was new and when it really was most associated with the gay community, it would have been cutting-edge. Twenty years later, it wasn't just "where have you been all this time," it was almost offensively outdated in the way it treated the issue.
"The Outcast" I have trouble judging as harshly. I subscribed to Communicator (or whatever the main fan club magazine was called then) at the time, and judging by the letters to the editor, there was a vehement negative reaction among more socially conservative parts of the fan. The fact that it pissed people off that much is an indicator that it did what it was supposed to do.
I don't think making Soren female instead of male was a sign of wimping out. She was paired with Riker, and let's face it, Riker likes the ladies. It would have been out of character for him to be attracted to someone identifying and presenting as male.
I do agree that it's really a gender identity story rather than a sexual orientation story, but in the '90s, public consciousness of gender identity was very low and it was generally conflated with sexual orientation in a way that it isn't anymore.
"The Outcast" I have trouble judging as harshly. I subscribed to Communicator (or whatever the main fan club magazine was called then) at the time, and judging by the letters to the editor, there was a vehement negative reaction among more socially conservative parts of the fan. The fact that it pissed people off that much is an indicator that it did what it was supposed to do.
I don't think making Soren female instead of male was a sign of wimping out. She was paired with Riker, and let's face it, Riker likes the ladies. It would have been out of character for him to be attracted to someone identifying and presenting as male.
I do agree that it's really a gender identity story rather than a sexual orientation story, but in the '90s, public consciousness of gender identity was very low and it was generally conflated with sexual orientation in a way that it isn't anymore.
That was my understanding as well.
Everything else wouldn't have made sense. Riker was heterosexual and him suddenly "becoming gay" for Soren would just have perpetuated other misconceptions about homosexuality (that it can act like a virus or that sexuality can shift easily)
Or it would have meant that Riker either always was gay or always was bisexual and in denial about it, which would have meant major consequences for his character that could not have been undone by next week, and I don't think they were willing to do that.
Though, I recently saw the episode and the conversation Will has with Deanna who tells him "nothing has changed and they will always be friends" does sound a little bit like Will was coming out to her
Everything else wouldn't have made sense. Riker was heterosexual and him suddenly "becoming gay" for Soren would just have perpetuated other misconceptions about homosexuality (that it can act like a virus or that sexuality can shift easily)
Or it would have meant that Riker either always was gay or always was bisexual and in denial about it, which would have meant major consequences for his character that could not have been undone by next week, and I don't think they were willing to do that.
Though, I recently saw the episode and the conversation Will has with Deanna who tells him "nothing has changed and they will always be friends" does sound a little bit like Will was coming out to her
However some people discover their gayness late in life, which scares the hell out of some heterosexuals btw, and it could be the case with Riker. Besides why do you dismiss the possibility that he'b be bisexual? How about a bisexual with a strong heterosexual side? That seems plausible.
Okay you're not getting it.
Soren was a female, the idea was in order to emphasize the androgynous aspect of the character the part would be cast with a male actor.
It wouldn't be a male actor playing a male part, but a male actor playing a female part. Perhaps TPTB would have cast a actor who was fairly androgynous in appearance to start with.
Someone like today's Andrej Pejic, an androgynous fashion model.
I wouldn't dismiss the possibility of any character being bisexual. Given the convenient way we never see any real gay characters, we could just as easily never see a bisexual with the same sex. But there is circumstancal evidence that Riker is straight - he talks about women a lot, not just specific women, but about women in general in such a way that a true bisexual in the utopian 24th century would be talking about men in the same breath.
A character coming out or admitting repressing gay/bi feelings at an older age is believable now. But since the utopia of 24th century Earth has eliminated all prejudice, there would be no closet. Gay/bi people would have no reason to repress their feelings. Without the closet and that repression I wouldn't find it believable for an older adult to discover gay feelings; he'd have been free to explore his sexual orientation as a teenager, just like heterosexual do. To have humans walking around with repressed same sex feelings would make everything we've ever heard about 24th century Earth having eliminated prejudice into a lie.
A character coming out or admitting repressing gay/bi feelings at an older age is believable now. But since the utopia of 24th century Earth has eliminated all prejudice, there would be no closet. Gay/bi people would have no reason to repress their feelings. Without the closet and that repression I wouldn't find it believable for an older adult to discover gay feelings; he'd have been free to explore his sexual orientation as a teenager, just like heterosexual do. To have humans walking around with repressed same sex feelings would make everything we've ever heard about 24th century Earth having eliminated prejudice into a lie.
Honey, I understood it and agreed with it, saying it would not make sense to make Riker suddenly gay as an added argument to support that, saying that a male love interest for Riker (no matter if played by a male actor, an actress or a trained poodle) would not have made sense anyway. So no need to get out the bold text, okay? (
)As to Riker being bisexual and people "discovering" their homosexuality late in life. Borgboy said it best. Often, people who "discover" it late in life have known/suspected it much longer and just repressed it, it's not an affliction you can catch. I can imagine people of earlier times/massively more restrictive societies being so oblivious to the possibility that they don't realize what their feelings/urges mean but not so much today when we have a name for it and even less in the 24th century. In general sexual desires are strong within us (again that can be individually different) especially during puberty when they first awake and not easily ignored/overlooked.
And, also as he said, Rikers bisexuality would have been displayed earlier/more prominently. Of course television back then was not above suddenly giving characters traits they had never displayed before (hey everyone, remember how Deanna suddenly turned out to be a Western Fan?) However sexuality would be a pretty big thing to just "never mention" especially with an promiscuous character like Riker.
Of course then we could go into the theory that sexuality is a spectrum rather than a "either/or" system.
Last edited:
Similar threads
