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Lost “Star Trek” Episode Breaches Final “Gay” FrontierCawley does a particularly good job with his “re-creation” of James T. Kirk; wisely, he doesn’t do a distracting, full-fledged imitation, choosing instead to do something that is merely reminiscent of Shatner’s portrayal (and one that is probably more understated than Shatner’s).
James Cawley as Captain Kirk Still, in another very funny bit, which is so “meta” it makes your head hurt, Peter Kirk imitates the much-mocked inflections of Captain Kirk. “It’s a deadly serious story,” Cawley says,”but David [Gerrold] wanted it to have that humor that Star Trek is famous for.” But the most refreshing aspect of the episode is definitely its long-overdue integration of gay characters into the Star Trek universe (though, sadly, gay fashion sense has declined dramatically since the 23rd century, with Peter Kirk appearing in a jumper in one scene that is almost surreally ugly). Better still, Cawley plans to make Peter an ongoing character in the online series. In addition to the two-part “Blood and Fire” episode, the character appears, with gay-related storylines, in two more episodes that have already been filmed and are currently being edited. They will also be released in 2009. "Star Trek in the 1960s wasn’t afraid to show half-naked women, different races working together, challenges to the Vietnam War,” says Cawley. “You look at those stories, they were ballsy. But Star Trek hasn’t had the guts they had in the 1960s to have a gay character. They should have been the first science fiction series to do this, but they weren’t.” Submitted by on Tue, 2008-12-16 22:32. |
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Does nobody remember
the Next Generation episode that was a metaphor for homosexuality, called The Outcast? The Enterprise comes across an androgynous race, but Riker falls in love with one member of this race who feels that she has gender--that she is a woman. On her home planet it's considered a disorder to feel a gender and those who do are brainwashed out of it, so those who wish to preserve themselves are of course forced to live in secret.
It ends with the woman Riker loves making a desperate plea to the powers that be on her planet to 'not consider the way they love a disease.' The metaphor here is of course obvious, though Jonathan Frakes (Riker) did say that the character Riker loved should have been played by a man, to better get the point across (instead, most if not all of the androgynous race were played by women).
Just making the point that, yeah, can't excuse the lack of gay characters in Star Trek as a whole, but it must be remembered that Gene Roddenberry himself was nothing if not a progressive, and he was certainly never homophobic. (I never watched the trash TV series made after he died.)
Star Trek and Homophobia
I agree, though technically,
The problem with metaphors...
Is that they are so open to interpretation. By dancing around the gay issue and trying to bury it in subtext the Trek producers may even create something anti-gay whether or not it was their intent.
The Outcast bothered me especially. A very common accusation levelled against the LGBT community by anti-gay groups like Focus on the Family is that we're trying to create a "gender neutral" society where "traditional gender roles" are derided, or even forbidden.
The alien J'naii in The Outcast could be interpreted by someone who listens to James Dobson's ranting as exactly that. They're a society that takes pride in having erradicated gender differences and maintains an absolute unisexual norm. Riker, coming from the seemingly all-heterosexual Federation, champions the idea of male/female gender roles and connects with Soren, who becomes increasingly feminine in response to a budding relationship with Riker.
To an anti-gay viewer, this could look like a case of a "politically correct" society trying to impose a gender neutral norm on people that want to have "traditional gender roles". In this regard the episode might not seem gay-friendly at all. Just the opposite, it can look like the J'naii are an example of what would happen if "militant homosexuals" controlled society.
By not addressing the issue head-on the producers leave open alternate interpretations. Of course, that may very well be their intention. Certainly the J'naii's androgyny leaned slightly more towards female than male in appearance. It could look rather like a society of "Amazons" that hate men, especially the butch, bearded Riker. It might have been better if they had used Troi or Crusher.
Actually, it would have been better if they'd just ditched the metaphor and given us real gay characters!
Trek near-misses
Actually, I do remember it. I just thought that it was a major cop out, something that might have been more worthy of the 60's but which was lame in 1992 when the episode was actually aired.
During the episode Riker makes a strong appeal regardng the benefits of male/female gender differences and how they make relationships more interesting. The subtle undertone to his relationship with the increasingly female-identifying Soren is that heterosexuality is inherently better than some gender neutral society. Sure the gay metaphor is there, but in light of the way it is used any pro-gay messages are so subliminal that many fans could just as easily see this as an endorsement of heterosexuality as of homosexuality.
The use of the Trill is generally little different. The first appearance with Crusher's short-lived romance with the Trill ambassador maybe even had a homophobic tone to it. She was, after all, very eager for the new host to arrive until she saw that it was a woman. The message was that she might have continued the relationship with the symbiont in a new male host, but a female host made that out of the question. Her facial expression was even a little hostile at the end as I recall.
Later uses of the Trill in DS9 were little better. Jadzia Dax felt a desire towards another Trill carrying the symbiont which had once occupied the former wife of Jadzia's earlier (male) host. That they made a point to hammer on the fact that the two had been husband and wife in earlier hosts kind of diminished any "lesbian" subtext. If an average straight guy found himself transferred into a female body he would probably assert that "he" would still prefer women (which is likely what most straight male viewers were thinking watching this).
That any other hints of homo- or bi- sexuality were associated with the evil "Mirror Universe" didn't help things either.
Then of course we had that awful episode of Enterprise, where they had the lame AIDS metaphor of T'Pol being infected with a telepathically-transmitted disease, something which is a major stigma since Vulcan society of her time bans mind-melding. The tortured defense of people "sharing thoughts" the way they choose was such a major cop-out and blatant refusal to give it a name.
Indeed, Star Trek's producers seem almost militantly unwilling to deal with gay issues openly. They always either do so with convoluted metaphors that can mask what is really being talked about for the sake of homophobic audiences that don't want to see the real thing. Or, as in the case of the Mirror Universe, it's depicted as a behavior symptomatic of a morally-depraved culture.
Either way they are not very gay-friendly at all!
All true, certainly.
Although, for the record, The Host was season 4 of TNG, which is the first season containing episodes made after Gene Roddenberry's death, and that season was generally so terrible that I personally tend to steer clear of it.
Really, my point is the same one I made before--Star Trek's pretty much total lack of gay visibility can't be excused (especially by the time of TNG and beyond), but Roddenberry himself should be remembered for the man he was: a man who generally always worked towards progress and breaking ground.
Yes, but Roddenberry...
...at this point oversaw only a piece of what is now a much larger franchise.
Post-Roddenberry Trek became much less activist and more conservative. The idea being that this was now a "mainstream" franchise and the goal was not to get too close to any real world issues. Instead it was all buried in metaphor that could be interpreted in a manner each audience member chose. For the most part anyway.
For example, they consciously "de-gayed" Elim Garak on DS9, despite lots of fan hopes that he would be the breakthrough gay character. There was speculation about Malcolm Reed on Enterprise but that never came to fruition either. Even the highly flamboyant Q was clearly heterosexual, despite really being an otherdimensional entity rather than a biological organism.
This was from the producers' desire to not make any waves. Obviously tackling homophobia would be a logical extension of the way they tackled racism and overt nationalism in the original Trek. Certainly some of things about TOS upset a lot of bigots.
But the fact that they avoid even indirect positive references to homosexuality is so flagrantly anti-gay that I have felt little inclination to support the franchise in a long time. I mean, they really work hard to keep us offscreen. Either we're depicted as corrupt Mirror Universe types or else we have to be described in vague metaphors that could mean other things.
Hell, in The Outcast Soren may be "brainwashed" or not, depending on the viewer's interpretation, but she expresses happiness at being "cured" and refuses Riker's offer to try and have Doctor Crusher make her as she was before! That episode left so much open to individual perspective that it could be taken any number of ways. A pro-gay interpretation is only one of the possible perspectives in which it could be viewed.
This and other lame attempts at appeasing the gay viewers while simultaneously pandering to anti-gay ones just disgusts me. Roddenberry's ideals have been prostituted to mass-market whims. They can't even provide a token gay character onscreen. It always has to be reserved for print media that won't see as large an audience (not "forcing it down anyone's throats").
The only exception might be transgender issues, which can be covered in alien contexts. Kirk gets body-swapped, the Trill symbionts take hosts of either gender, etc... But even then, it's mostly either aliens or involuntary.
But we've seen alien races with all kinds of peculiarities, including (hetero)sexual ones. Why not a humanoid race where homosexuality is the norm? Maybe they only breed in particular circumstances or times and the majority of their lives they form partnerships with their own gender? Or would even alien homosexuals be too transgressive?
How did I not know anything
gay characters on Star Trek - Blood and Fire
Gay Love on Star Trek
Yes, steamy clip but...
I have to agree
Those outfits
Star Trek fashions
I remember a funny quote that was published when they launched the Enterprise series: "It takes place 100 years earlier than the original series. A century before miniskirts and beehive hairdos came into fashion".
In fairness, the Trek folks do recognize this. In the DS9 episode Trials and Tribble-ations the crew travels back to a well-known TOS episode. Commentary about everything from the uniforms ("Women wore less!" says Dax as she poses in her miniskirt and beehive), to fan fascination with Spock (Dax finds him sexier than Kirk) and the old school Klingons (Worf: "We do not discuss that!").
It's almost disconcerting in the movies where they had higher budgets and modernized everything. The original was campy. You just gotta go with it!
The outfits
The jumpers and other outfits are actual unused outfits from the "Phase II" TV series that was planned for the 70's. The producer (guy playing Jim Kirk) won several such outfits at auction.
Roddenberry was always ahead of his time
I think that if Roddenberry had been able to maintain control over Star Trek, there would have been openly gay characters in a Star Trek episode at some point. BE it, TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, or ENT.
Perhaps we can hope for some in one of the future movies, if they make any more.
Live Long And Prosper.
Much Love, Brian
Check out my BLOGS at Bchin's Rants and Ask a Queer Questions.
Roddenberry was always ahead of his time
Well, to be fair, it was maybe the first interracial black-white kiss on American Network TV, but interethnic kisses (think Lucy and Dezi) were not uncommon. Furthermore, Star Trek was beat to the black-white kiss punch by four years by the ITV (British) series Emergency Ward 10, which had such a kiss back in 1964. There's a picture of it here, and no evil aliens were forcing the smooch.
Just to add....
Captain Kirk actually kissed an Asian woman in a previous episode called 'Elaan of Troyius;' however, it was him kissing a black woman that made headlines.
'Star Trek' was ahead of its time, but looking at it now, it needs to catch up. It leans towards the white male heterosexual even moreso these days.
In terms of sci-fi:
BSG (Battlestar Galactica) is a show that currently has a gay character, Lieutenant Gaeta. Of course, Doctor Who has Captain Jack Harness who is a bi-sexual (or omnisexual, if you will) character.
Previewed at Shore Leave
Authentic costumes, sets, and props
THANK YOU RICK!
At last, my love has come along
I can only guess that gays are intrigued by Sci-fi because they related the feelings of being an alien. While I am gay I have never been that into Sci- fi for more than a mild inquistiveness now and again. My younger, straight brother, loved Star Trek as if it were the be all end all of life. He is the only person I ever met who actually knew how to speak Klingon.
For what ever reason this has given me hope that when even mutants have gained acceptable status then we gays can sit at the table too.
That's all I am saying...
INSIDEGUY
Matthew Montgomery in Hidden Frontier episode
Matthew Montgomery's in ST:Odyssey
Matthew Montgomery is one of the main cast of Hidden Frontier spin-off series Star Trek: Odyssey. He actually had quite a prominent role in the recent season 1 finale episode, 1x05 Keepers Of The Wind.
The cast of characters on Odyssey is headed by Lt Commander Ro Nevin (who was played by Bobby Rice during Hidden Frontier's later seasons and in the pilot episode of Odyssey). Ro's husband Corey Aster is on the cast of the companion series, Star Trek: The Helena Chronicles, which will have its first season finale, 1x03 Letter Of The Law, available online very soon.
Hey AfterElton editorial staff... how about an article profiling the folks at Hidden Frontier for all the gay-inclusiveness work they've done over the years in Trek fanfilms? Besides Matthew Montgomery, the HF productions feature many other out actors and crew.
Btw, I have no affiliation to HF other than being a fan of their work.
http://www.hiddenfrontier.org
Matthew Montgomery also in season seven
Yes, he was great as Nej'ta
WHAT!! a GAY Klingon !!??
The really great part was
The really great part was Ro explaining to McCabe "Klingons are just like us... only ... ridged."
Then McCabe's (understandable) reaction of shock...