Was TNG considered a "family tv show" at the time? And anyway, what does "family tv show" mean?

[Moviefan2k4]

Here's IRA Steven Behr's take...

“I know they [Paramount Pictures] got a lot of negative feedback, which only goes to prove a point I always believed in, which is that science fiction fans and Star Trek fans are much more conservative than people want to believe, and this whole Gene Roddenberry liberal Humanistic vision is truly not shared by a significant portion of them.”

That might explain why they were hesitant to bring LGBTQ to later Treks. They tried it, they got negative feedback, they decided not to do it again. Even if you don't agree with your viewers' political position, they still pay your salary and you still have to give them what they want.

Precisely. Generally speaking, regardless of the issue, I think social progress is a good thing, so long as you're not doing it just for its own sake. Everyone wants to be fairly treated, and I get that. But in situations like writing a book, stage play, TV show, or movie, you have to bear in mind the responsibility you have to your audience. Sometimes, these situations conflict, and there's no easy answer, which is why treading carefully for both sides is so monumentally important.

 

[Greg Cox]

Coming late to the party, part of the issue here is that we're talking about a franchise that has been congratulating itself for decades on how diverse and inclusive and progressive it was ("first interracial kiss!") but which, by the 1990s, was dragging its feet compared to the average prime-time sitcom when it came to gay representation.

TNG-era Star Trek was behind the curve in this respect, not boldly leading the way, and, yes, that got increasingly embarrassing.

 

[Moviefan2k4]

Coming late to the party, part of the issue here is that we're talking about a franchise that had been congratulating itself for decades on how diverse and inclusive and progressive it was ("first interracial kiss!") but which, by the 1990s, was dragging its feet compared to the average prime-time sitcom when it came to gay representation.

TNG-era Star Trek was behind the curve in this respect, not boldly leading the way, and, yes, that got increasingly embarrassing.

As I said in my thread about "Code of Honor", this is another one of those "you're screwed either way" situations. If the writers and directors decide to include an LGBT character on one of their programs, they'll be praised by that community and despised by those who disagree with that choice. But if they make the opposite call, the reactions go the other way. No matter what happens, they can't win.

 

[Michael]

As I said in my thread about "Code of Honor", this is another one of those "you're screwed either way" situations. If the writers and directors decide to include an LGBT character on one of their programs, they'll be praised by that community and despised by those who disagree with that choice. But if they make the opposite call, the reactions go the other way. No matter what happens, they can't win.

So … the solution to the dilemma you’re presenting is to give in to the folks who don’t want LGBTQ+ characters included?

 

[Moviefan2k4]

So … the solution to the dilemma you’re presenting is to give in to the folks who don’t want LGBTQ+ characters included?

No, I'm simply saying that there's not a "one choice for all" solution. Even Kirk himself had to cheat, to win the Kobayashi Maru test...and in "TNG", Wesley Crusher was faced with a similar problem.

 

[Christopher]

Precisely. Generally speaking, regardless of the issue, I think social progress is a good thing, so long as you're not doing it just for its own sake. Everyone wants to be fairly treated, and I get that. But in situations like writing a book, stage play, TV show, or movie, you have to bear in mind the responsibility you have to your audience. Sometimes, these situations conflict, and there's no easy answer, which is why treading carefully for both sides is so monumentally important.

No, they don't conflict, because your audience includes diverse people. Your responsibility is to all of them, not just the minority of fools who feel slighted when people different from themselves are acknowledged to exist. If anyone is offended that my work features diverse ethnicities, genders, and sexualities, then I don't want them in my audience anyway. They have no right to say that other people in the audience don't deserve to see themselves represented. I want everyone to feel included in my audience, but only if they respect the right of the rest of the audience to be included, instead of wanting to monopolize it only for people like themselves.

"Both sides" rhetoric is toxic in this context. The desire to be acknowledged and the desire to deny the right of other people to be acknowledged are not equally valid personal viewpoints, because the latter is directed against other people. Nobody has the right to tell others they don't deserve to exist or be given consideration. Saying that bigots are as entitled to their point of view as everyone else is like saying that thieves have as much right to steal others' property as the owners have to possess it. No one has the right to deny or violate the rights of others.

As I said in my thread about "Code of Honor", this is another one of those "you're screwed either way" situations. If the writers and directors decide to include an LGBT character on one of their programs, they'll be praised by that community and despised by those who disagree with that choice. But if they make the opposite call, the reactions go the other way. No matter what happens, they can't win.

On the contrary. Being condemned by bigots and xenophobes is a victory, because that's how you know you're on the right side of morality and history.

 

[Oddish]

So … the solution to the dilemma you’re presenting is to give in to the folks who don’t want LGBTQ+ characters included?

Sadly, it can be argued that that might have the most prudent decision.

How many people in 1987 would have stopped watching a show if the cast was all straight? Probably an extremely small number.

How many people would have stopped watching a show if the cast had openly gay characters? Probably not that many (DS9 survived after all), but far more than the situation above.

From an idealist's perspective, the right thing to do was do the representation, accept the consequences, and sleep well in the knowledge that you had followed your conscience.

From a pragmatist's perspective, you wanted to do what kept your ledger in the black and your people out of the unemployment line. It may not be as admirable, but you're looking out for your own.

As a male who once worked in child care, I have dealt with a similar conundrum: having guys on your staff is better for the kids, but having an all-female staff is better for your profit margin. No one refuses to enroll their kid at a daycare because the staff are all women! So, of course I didn't like it when I got discriminated against... but I understood why it happened.

 

[Moviefan2k4]

No, they don't conflict, because your audience includes diverse people. Your responsibility is to all of them, not just the minority of fools who feel slighted when people different from themselves are acknowledged to exist. If anyone is offended that my work features diverse ethnicities, genders, and sexualities, then I don't want them in my audience anyway. They have no right to say that other people in the audience don't deserve to see themselves represented. I want everyone to feel included in my audience, but only if they respect the right of the rest of the audience to be included, instead of wanting to monopolize it only for people like themselves.

"Both sides" rhetoric is toxic in this context. The desire to be acknowledged and the desire to deny the right of other people to be acknowledged are not equally valid personal viewpoints, because the latter is directed against other people. Nobody has the right to tell others they don't deserve to exist or be given consideration. Saying that bigots are as entitled to their point of view as everyone else is like saying that thieves have as much right to steal others' property as the owners have to possess it. No one has the right to deny or violate the rights of others.





On the contrary. Being condemned by bigots and xenophobes is a victory, because that's how you know you're on the right side of morality and history.

How is it considered enlightened, progressive, or socially just, to mark people as "fools", "bigots", or "xenophobes", only because they disagree with you? And for the record, I never said it was right to deny or violate anyone's rights, or say they don't deserve to exist.

 

[Skipper]

Ok, I did a search on the topic of "adding gay characters is an automatically way to lose money in the 90s", since NOBODY brought up a single example.

TLTR: No network show has ever lost money just because a gay character was in it.

Where does the money for a network show come from? It's complicated, but let's say basically it's advertising space money. The more spectators a show has, the higher the price of spaces. There is also a discussion regarding the demographics of the viewers.

Well, what bad could happen (from an economic point of view) when a gay character appeared?

a) a company that bought the advertising space no longer wanted it; I have never found a single example, also because it would have been a suicidal PR move. And let's remember that on average LBGTQI+ people spend a little more than others.

b) the show loses so many viewers that the network is forced to sell advertising space at a lower price or even risk canceling the series.

Still, I haven't found a single example. A. Single. One. Of course, sometimes there were protests, obviously. But more often than not they are free publicity. And it seems that there are very few homophobes who don't tune back into the same channel just because a gay guy made a single appearance.
What remains? It may happen that the amount of protests reaches such a critical mass that the show is canceled anyway. See for example the recent relaunch of Roseanne. The show was doing well but the actress's outbursts caused it to be cancelled.

Again, I haven't found a single case related to the appearance of gay characters. And usually an event like this happens because it is linked to an act of bigotry (someone said or did something racist, homophobic, misogynistic, etc.), not because of an act of inclusion! Imagine if in the 90s a headline had appeared in the newspapers like "SERIES CANCELED DUE TO THE APPEARANCE OF A GAY CHARACTER!".

I think all the rights groups would have gone to war.

So, if someone brings back to the table "Poor Berman was between a rock and a hard place!", please bring some concrete elements, because at most the "poor Berman" would have had to face some hassles, not lose his job. The problem is that he was already facing some hassles (in one interview he more or less said that he was getting really tired of all these people asking him to include gay characters). But he chose the hassles that put him in the wrong.

 

[Christopher]

Coming late to the party, part of the issue here is that we're talking about a franchise that has been congratulating itself for decades on how diverse and inclusive and progressive it was ("first interracial kiss!") but which, by the 1990s, was dragging its feet compared to the average prime-time sitcom when it came to gay representation.

TNG-era Star Trek was behind the curve in this respect, not boldly leading the way, and, yes, that got increasingly embarrassing.

Exactly. Trek was supposed to be the show that braved the controversy, that dared to break new ground. Boldly going new places was literally its mission statement. More importantly, it was supposed to be the show that felt welcoming to underrepresented groups in the audience, that said to them, "Yes, your future will be better and you won't be excluded anymore." Trek gave that succor to women, to people of color, to people with disabilities through Geordi, even (though its makers didn't realize it) to neurodivergent people through Spock and Data. Yet it relentlessly denied that welcoming message to LGBTQ people for two decades, and that's not just negligent, it's downright cruel.

Also, I've said this already, but it bears repeating: Though part of TNG's motive for inclusion was riding on Trek's reputation, the reason TOS was inclusive was in large part because the network insisted on it. According to Inside Star Trek, demographic studies had proven that minorities had significant buying power, and the conventional wisdom that including them would hurt a show's profits was dead wrong. So the networks pushed producers to cast their shows more diversely, since that would benefit them financially. This is part of the reason NBC rejected "The Cage" -- because they asked for an ethnically diverse cast and Roddenberry failed to deliver, beyond an Asian-American extra in the transporter room. They asked him to try again, and that's how we got Sulu and Alden, and eventually Uhura.

And that was in the mid-1960s. So claiming in 2024 that inclusiveness is bad for a show's profits is disingenuous at best.

 

[Mudd]

Coming late to the party, part of the issue here is that we're talking about a franchise that has been congratulating itself for decades on how diverse and inclusive and progressive it was ("first interracial kiss!") but which, by the 1990s, was dragging its feet compared to the average prime-time sitcom when it came to gay representation.

TNG-era Star Trek was behind the curve in this respect, not boldly leading the way, and, yes, that got increasingly embarrassing.

True.

Beyond that, the degree to which TOS stood out as ahead of the cultural curve on TV in the late 60s has been mythologized and exaggerated to some degree over the decades. For example, Maurice Molyneaux and the guys at FactTrek have done a good job of running down the claims regarding Trek's racial representation in the context of that time, including the famous kiss. Justman and Solow refuted the myth that Roddenberry fought a battle against conservative corporate forces in order to cast actors of color; more generally, Trek has persisted and has an active fan movement that lionizes its importance while other shows that were similarly popular at the time and which also addressed social issues, like Judd for the Defense, are long forgotten.

 

[Tosk]

a) a company that bought the advertising space no longer wanted it; I have never found a single example, also because it would have been a suicidal PR move.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-12-22-ca-6203-story.html
This was the first hit I got.
Do not take this as me agreeing with the advertisers.

 

[Skipper]

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-12-22-ca-6203-story.html
This was the first hit I got.
Do not take this as me agreeing with the advertisers.

Interesting. Thank you.

 

[Christopher]

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-12-22-ca-6203-story.html
This was the first hit I got.
Do not take this as me agreeing with the advertisers.

That may have been true in 1990, but I doubt it was still the case by the time Enterprise came along a decade later.

Besides, the argument that "including gay people will lose homophobic viewers" is incomplete, because surely the show would also gain gay viewers, or attract new non-homophobic heterosexual viewers who were made aware of the show by the increased press attention, so it would balance out. An article from immediately after the fact wouldn't address the long-term impact, or lack thereof.

 

[Tosk]

That may have been true in 1990, but I doubt it was still the case by the time Enterprise came along a decade later.

Besides, the argument that "including gay people will lose homophobic viewers" is incomplete, because surely the show would also gain gay viewers, or attract new non-homophobic heterosexual viewers who were made aware of the show by the increased press attention, so it would balance out. An article from immediately after the fact wouldn't address the long-term impact, or lack thereof.

The link I provided was in response to one specific claim. I have zero interest in arguing the greater subject with you.

 

[Oddish]

How is it considered enlightened, progressive, or socially just, to mark people as "fools", "bigots", or "xenophobes", only because they disagree with you? And for the record, I never said it was right to deny or violate anyone's rights, or say they don't deserve to exist.

Better get used to that. I got accused of being a woman hater because I dared to say that in some ways, Chakotay was a better captain than Janeway was.

So, if someone brings back to the table "Poor Berman was between a rock and a hard place!", please bring some concrete elements, because at most the "poor Berman" would have had to face some hassles, not lose his job. The problem is that he was already facing some hassles (in one interview he more or less said that he was getting really tired of all these people asking him to include gay characters). But he chose the hassles that put him in the wrong.

I'm no Berman fan, but I try to be fair in my criticisms. If I believed he was homophobic, I would say it. If I believed he was not, I would say that. But there's insufficient evidence for either position.

Again, I haven't found a single case related to the appearance of gay characters. And usually an event like this happens because it is linked to an act of bigotry (someone said or did something racist, homophobic, misogynistic, etc.), not because of an act of inclusion! Imagine if in the 90s a headline had appeared in the newspapers like "SERIES CANCELED DUE TO THE APPEARANCE OF A GAY CHARACTER!".

I think all the rights groups would have gone to war.

You're insisting, effectively, that no person ever stopped watching a show because it featured gay characters or condoned a gay lifestyle. I can assure you that it did happen; it just didn't make the papers.

Exactly. Trek was supposed to be the show that braved the controversy, that dared to break new ground. Boldly going new places was literally its mission statement. More importantly, it was supposed to be the show that felt welcoming to underrepresented groups in the audience, that said to them, "Yes, your future will be better and you won't be excluded anymore." Trek gave that succor to women, to people of color, to people with disabilities through Geordi, even (though its makers didn't realize it) to neurodivergent people through Spock and Data.

Don't forget Barclay!

 

[Christopher]

The link I provided was in response to one specific claim. I have zero interest in arguing the greater subject with you.

I wasn't trying to argue against you, but to provide more context. As you said, you weren't agreeing with the advertisers, merely presenting the article as a piece of data for consideration.

There are multiple people involved in any BBS conversation. The fact that I happen to post a response to a specific poster's comment does not necessarily mean I'm directly addressing that poster. I'm just following the flow of the larger conversation.

 

[Oddish]

That may have been true in 1990, but I doubt it was still the case by the time Enterprise came along a decade later.

Especially once they knew the series was doomed. If saving yourself is no longer an issue, it's logical to put your final days to productive use.

Clearly, things had changed by then, given that a short time later, there didn't seem to be much of an issue with Kelvin Sulu. Aside from, ultimate irony here, George Takei.

 

[TheAdmiralty]

Okay, first off, "Kirk blatantly having sex in several episodes?" No way. Not in the 1960s -- the censors would never have allowed it. It could only be implied, and the most blatant implication they ever had was Kirk putting his boots on after being alone in his quarters with Deela in between scenes. Generally, love scenes had to be presented in such a way that you could assume the couple never went beyond first base, and any implication to the contrary had to be extremely subtle. You couldn't even talk about people having sex except in the most indirect terms. Heck, "The Mark of Gideon" acknowledging that contraception existed was startlingly bold for its day.

Second, you're forgetting the season 1 episodes like "The Naked Now," "Justice," and "Angel One" where Roddenberry took advantage of the freedom to include more skin and sexuality than he could've gotten away with in the '60s. As I've been saying all along, Roddenberry always intended Trek to be adult, and he was very much a fan of sexually themed material, but his successors on TNG dialed down the sexuality somewhat and made it more staid. It's an oversimplification to generalize about the whole seven seasons, because there was a lot of change and transition over the first two years.

In Bread and Circuses and quite a few other episodes it's pretty directly implied Kirk has sex, which isn't much more than what ever happened on TNG. Don't see how there's any more skin in those TNG episodes than some of what was on TOS with the skimpy outfits for the female guest stars and of course the miniskirts all the time. Considering TOS was on 20 years earlier it was considerably more "edgy" for its time than TNG was.

 

[Christopher]

In Bread and Circuses and quite a few other episodes it's pretty directly implied Kirk has sex

Which is exactly my point. It was only implied, which means that it was not blatant, by definition.

In TOS, they couldn't even say the word "sex" except as a synonym for gender. In TNG, DS9, etc., characters could actually talk about having sex and be acknowledged to be in what were overtly sexual relationships, or at least hookups like Data and Yar in "The Naked Now" or Riker with various women.

Considering TOS was on 20 years earlier it was considerably more "edgy" for its time than TNG was.

No doubt, as I've acknowledged many times in this thread already (with the proviso that season 1 was racier than most of what followed). But that is not the point. The point is that saying any 1960s television character "blatantly had sex" is risibly counterfactual.