Where is the autism talk at?
- Thread starter Autistoid
- Start date
Diversity isn't measured by sexuality alone. Just because one aspect is missing doesn't mean it has failed with others. Do you, hux, believe the representation and screen time of gay relationships should match, or exceed, the actual ratio of the gay population? Also, you somehow forgot Dax & Lenara. Not much, but they tried.
Finally, if advertising dollars from ratings soared because of sexual "diversity," we'd be seeing gay relationships everywhere.
Finally, if advertising dollars from ratings soared because of sexual "diversity," we'd be seeing gay relationships everywhere.
You do see quite a few. Gay people are like anyone else and they have money to spend. Advertisers know this.
Much like NBC and advertisers pushed for diversity in the original Star Trek.
I'd say the audience is already there with them. Modern Family is a monster hit and depicts an openly gay couple with an adopted child.
You'll have a few loud holdouts, just like we did when TV and sports slowly integrated in the 50's, 60's and 70's. But, at the end of the day, gay people will be looked at just like any other group in the not so distant future.
No, diversity isn't measured by sexuality alone but it's part of the wider discussion and its not the only aspect that was missing.
If we were talking about "Dallas" or "Baywatch" or countless other TV shows then you might have a point but Trek dines out on its reputation for being progressive, for representing minorities, for advocating and embracing diversity in the human future so it deserves to be more strongly criticised when it fails to live up to that reputation.
I don't need a camp character mincing about the bridge making outrageous innuendoes and criticising the Vulcan hairstyle. A simple kiss or holding hands with a couple of background characters would suffice. Just something to suggest.....yes, gay people are part of this future.
Trek shouldn't be following trends. It should simply be living up to its established convictions. If you're gonna talk about diversity and optimism regarding the future equality of all peoples then you should have the balls to follow through.
DS9 did some interesting things but Trek as a whole ought to have been at the forefront of issues of sexuality, gender and disability etc. I understand the difficulties in achieving that on American television but it should have been ballsier.
Indeterminate? Hardly, we knew Riker and Troi had a previous affair without a romantic scene (or even spoken dialog) in the first scene they were in together. Picard verbally waxed romantic about an old girlfriend, but no romance was seen. LaForge bombing repeatedly on dates established he was straight, obviously no romance or sex there.
The sexualities of the main characters was easily establish within various episodes, it would be exactly as easy establishing a gay character as gay.
Yeah but thats a bit extreme of an arguement.
Modern family deals with real life relationships, it's essentially the whole premise of the show, so of course a gay audience is gonna want to be represented in that respect.
However I don't think gay people are gonna watch trek, because some random episodic fling happens to be between two men.
I'd argue in having relationships in either orientation it causes problems.
Keeping characters asexual or sexually ambiguous allows for characters to be a draw in for your total audience.
EDIT: be clear I'm talking about a PG child friendly trek that were use to.
If Star Trek was actually made for adults that included adult details I think it would make alot of sense.
EDIT#2: I think your implying another good point, that in the future no one should care. What made Uhura progressive wasn't that she had such a powerful role, it was that her race was ignored to the extent that it made it obvious that the show represented a post racial society.
I don't think Star Trek was ever child friendly, at least not TOS. It dealt with some rather adult themes.
But, you really need to acknowledge that your audience is diverse. Trek has went around patting itself on the back for how progressive it is and the material just doesn't match. Plus, we shouldn't be afraid of our kids seeing homosexual relationships. It is part of life.
I watch Modern Family with my eight-year old son.
I've been watching star trek since I was 4 or 5, TNG was oldschool for me when I was 10. Stopped watching trek all together when I was 14.
Regardless modern family comparison is absurd.
Could you imagine seinfield or any of the type surviving without relationships.
Star trek could edit out all the relationships without missing a beat-ds9 excluded.
In fact the biggest adult issue with trek is kirks abuse of his power position.
It touched on rape, megalomania, deaths of billions, drug use, alcoholism, STD's, overpopulation and quite a few other issues. I started watching when I was four and found as I grew up that the show had layers that weren't readily apparent at that age. Probably the reason the other shows have come and gone in my life but TOS is still there.
And it does need its relationships. Relationships help define the characters.
Polar and limited thinking. Sexuality is a spectrum, and romance and commitment are not limited to two people of any specific gender. The more complex scenes about the characters' sexualities in polygamous, polyandrous and multisexual contexts simply weren't shown.
Considering Modern Family is set in the present day and has gay characters, a show set in the 24th century that doesn't seems far more absurd to me.
Besides, Trek didn't need to revolve stories around gay characters, it just needed to acknowledge that they existed at all.
Weren't shown, but were depicted. A simply scene established that Doctor Phlox was in a multiple partner marriage.
Huh?
Uhura's sub-saharan African ancestry was on display whenever we saw her. In the case of a gay characer you would need to do more than just have them physically present, you're going to need dialog or some action that informs the audience that they're gay. Otherwise they basically aren't.
Quite the opposite, when it was announce that TNG was going to do a "gay episode" (The Outcast) LGBT information sources, such as the magazine The Advocate, spread the word. Apparently there was a special effort to watch that episode by people who didn't usually watch the show.
Similarly when a episode of DS9 had Jadzia's former spouse in the storyline, the word was spread.
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I donno I think with the old style framework it'd really not work well.
It's too geared to children.
Once you open the door it's hard to not expand on the subject.
Does sex even exist on trek?
Of course it's obviously implied but you know what I mean.
I've yet to see flagship bathroom.
Do you realize how small of the population read that type of magazine 20 + years ago.
What's your point? Do you realize how little of the population 20+ years ago read a magazine like Star Trek Communicator?
You do realize that such magazines weren't the only sources of information 20 years ago, long before the internet there was social networking.
True but if you're gonna celebrate your progressive values then you ought to be willing to take some risks to fight for those values once in a while.
There were enough references on the show to say sex definitely existed but it was clearly sex between heterosexual couples. I honestly don't see why a passing reference to homosexual couples couldn't easily be done without any fuss. For example, something like....
