Gay Me Up, Scotty: How Star Trek Failed To Boldly Go There
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| Title: | Gay Me Up, Scotty: How Star Trek Failed To Boldly Go There |
| Creator: | Boylio |
| Date(s): | September 6, 2010 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | Gay Me Up, Scotty: How Star Trek Failed To Boldly Go There, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Gay Me Up, Scotty: How Star Trek Failed To Boldly Go There is a 2010 essay by Boylio.
The essay has a lot of external links, many of which are broken and not included here on Fanlore. See the original article for those hyperlinks.
Some Topics Discussed in the Essay and Comments
- the advocacy of Gaylaxians
- the ground-breaking moments in Star Trek: TOS
- the failure of Rick Berman
- "My Top Three Gay-But-Not-Really-Gay Moments in Star Trek"
- The Next Generation: 1. Dr. Crusher and the Trill and the episode "The Host"
- The Next Generation: 2. Whoopi’s Giant Hat of Love and the episode "The Offspring"
- The Next Generation: 3. Riker and the J’naii and the episode "The Outcast"
Excerpts from the Essay
Sci-Fi and Fantasy television shows have always offered gay viewers some very attractive futures, supernatural universes, and alternative galaxies, chock-full of tolerant peoples and adorable lesbiwitches.
So, in an age of inter-species-polygamous-holosex, one would think that a little fingerblasting would be no big deal. But despite addressing a multitude of social issues like sexism, racism, disability, evolving into squiggly lizards and having squiggly lizard babies – and being the origin of all slash fanfic in the world ever – Star Trek has yet to acknowledge the existence of LGBT people and, in my opinion, has slowly died because of it. What gives?
I know I’m not the first Star Trek fan who’s ever wondered: where are all the gays?
So if the show wasn’t afraid to address racism and representation – which was a pretty bold thing to do at that time – why shy away from homophobia? Is this another case of accepting a show’s liberalism at face value but never asking them to prove it past an initial display of interracial affection? And what does it say about how complacently we’ve been programmed to accept homo-free television even from our most inclusive franchises?
Sadly, however, Roddenberry passed away during season five [of Star Trek: The Next Generation], leaving producer Rick Berman at the helm (see what I did there?). Berman was afraid that parents would freak out about their kids watching gays on afternoon reruns and so, under his direction, TNG began what would be a long and illustrious tradition of awkwardly bumbling around gay issues but NEVER DIRECTLY MENTIONING GAY PEOPLE AT ANY COST.
Five incarnations and 600 episodes later, we are still led to believe that 300 years from now the galaxy is populated by heterosexual nuclear families. It’s no wonder that the franchise fizzled out when, sixteen years after Britain elected a female Prime Minister, the producers of Star Trek: Voyager congratulated themselves for putting a woman in command of a starship, and they nearly chickened out of that. Out of touch much?
Despite a massive cult following and a seemingly endless syndication, Star Trek has never had high ratings and the producers have always been terrified of offending their limited number of faithful viewers. They may have tried to satisfy us by including a handful of evasive homosexual metaphors in their version of the future, but that type of representation only reinforces the notion that being gay in the 21st century is soooo controversial that it can’t even be talked about – not even three centuries later.
I couldn’t help but feel cheated that in a supposedly utopian 24th century, Star Trek never managed to accomplish the things we’re achieving in the 21st. All Star Trek ever managed was “implied nudity,”making the once-great franchise guilty of the worst crime of all – being boring.
Fan Comments
[Nat Gray]:I have to agree, I am disappointed at the lack queer characters and story-lines in all star trek shows. (And if you notice almost never from humans, only from other species who “are just that way.”)
However, when I tried to think what COULD they have done, I realized I am glad they did not try (harder?) to inject some gay.
Why? Unless they really do it right, it will just join your list Gay-but-not-really moments. And I just don’t want more of those. They are disappointing.
Also, another thing TOS and TNG lack is women. All the women in TOS are nurses and people who give Kirk something to look at. I mean even uhura wasn’t all that important. TNG was better, but it wasn’t until Voyager or Deep Space Nine there was even a female in a important role on the ship.
[meagan]:Yup. As a certified Trekkie – it sucks. Big time. Not just the lack of queer characters, but women, characters of color, you name it. (And OMG, don’t even get me started on the TOS episode “Turnabout Intruder.” Feminists do NOT like TOS.)
But: also ironic since Kirk/Spock is pretty much widely acknowledged as “the mothership” of all slash fanfiction. (Seriously, there’s like, some history of fandom project that calls it that somewhere.)
[stace]: Star Trek doesn’t really owe me, gay star trek fan, anything more than what every TV show in gay ignoring heteronormative world owes me. So I respond to it with my usual strategy: fantasizing. So much mental fan fiction. So much.
[Dina]: I blame Rick Berman for everything.
[geneva]: Because the only men I fall in love with are gay men, and because I was in love with Tom Paris (Voyager) as a youth, I deduced many years ago that Tom Paris must have, in fact, been gay. Just saying, I’ve never fallen in love with a straight man, ever. It’s too bad Tom wasn’t out; Star Trek Voyager failed Tom.
[LL]: There are some actual queer characters in the (official) Star Trek books (at least in ST corps of engineers)… But yeah, I too blame Rick Berman for not having the guts to do anything “edgy” on the tv series. Lame corporate cowardice.
[Don]: “Star Trek has yet to acknowledge the existence of LGBT people and, in my opinion, has slowly died because of it.” – stupid! less than 1% of the world population is gay and Star Trek will hardly miss them if every single one of them stopped watching. What’s +-1%? I for one do not want to see two men kissing and if Star Trek started trying to please 1% of the world’s population they would alienate the majority who find the idea of two men in love unappealing. I for one would stop watching, and let them have their 1%.
[Nat Gray]:I think star trek needed more than just gay kissing, sex, ect. It needed to actually address the issue.
Even off-handed remark from picard about how humanity has gotten past their prejudice of homosexuality. There has been an off-handed comments such as this about almost all other modern human flaw: racism, money, war, stuff like that.
Why did they steer clear of ever mentioning gay people directly?
[Dina]: I would posit that a greater percentage of Trek fans are gay than the general population. Science fiction in general tends to pull in the outcasts and misfits. (Trust me, I just got back from Worldcon.)
[Xan]: I think they missed a HUGE opportunity with Seven of Nine- here you had entire episodes devoted to her trying to figure out emotions and falling in love, but yet they never even thought to have her try and date anyone but a guy? She was someone who researched things to DEATH, and it never once occurred to her ONCE while researching human sexuality “gee, there are all these stories of women falling in love with women, maybe I should try that?” Such a wasted opportunity. And don’t get me started how she somehow ended up with Captain Cardboard himself, Chakotay, in the last 2 episodes.
[Becky]:There was that one time when Seven of Nine was tweaking out becoming all of the people the collective assimilated and she tried, as some Klingon dude, to mate with Torres. But then everyone was like yeah lolz that was weird we’re going to keep you in sick bay now.
Anyway, yeah, totally agree. Seven was so badass, she could have boldly gone there.
[Sam]: The Seven of Nine/Janeway fanfic basically wrote itself. The tension between them was much more than either of them had with any other male characters. I’m just saying.
[doctormccoy]:oddly enough, the fact that homosexuality’s never really mentioned in TOS hasn’t bothered me all too much; the kirk/spock fanbase is HUGE, and honestly, they had so much on-screen chemistry that it seemed obvious enough to me. TOS was pretty out there for its time, i think, but it definitely had its share of problems with its portrayal of women, other cultures, etc. homosexuality’s one point on a long, long list.
i’ve yet to watch the later series, but i agree- at that point, i think a positive message of homosexuality could have been given without too much hassle. plenty of other sci-fi shows have done it, at any rate.
in the meantime, i’m happy to idolize bones mccoy and watch the captain & first officer flirt with each other on the bridge like there’s no tomorrow.
[Kathryn B]:A lot of the issues with the way women were portrayed in the Original Series had to do with the network demands. Roddenberry’s original pilot had Majel Barret playing Captain Pike’s first officer but the network demanded that be changed in order for the show to be picked up. I think we need to be careful to judge older shows in light of the societal standards at the time, and Roddenberry was pushing the envelope, for his era, with many of the roles he gave women in the Original Series.
Next Generation could have been more progressive, and the Rick Berman era is another matter altogether, but I’m not going to knock the Original Series.
[meagan]:Yeah, he was a trendsetter in his own way. But does that mean that the sexism in TOS should be excused? I don’t think so. When you critique a show (I believe) you’re critiquing everything involved with that show – the network, the audience, the social/historical context – so while it’s good to give props to Roddenberry and his crew (including Shatner even – have you heard the story about when they filmed the Uhura/Kirk kiss, and he deliberately overacted in all other shots so that they’d have to use the one with the kiss? Pretty awesome), that doesn’t mean that the sexism, racism, ethnocentrism, etc. that were present is okay.
Just saying “well, it was the 60s” isn’t enough for me, I guess. Not to say that TOS wasn’t awesome, but to ignore it I think is foolish as well.
[Iphis]:Garak’s actor, Andrew J. Robinson, loved Garak so much that he wrote a novel about Garak post-DS9. Garak is “omnisexual” according to Robinson, and definitely queer. He had an unreciprocated interest in Bashir and began having an interest in Ziyal only when he realized who’s daughter she was. Yes, he flirts with any Cardassian who comes his way, but you can bet that’s loneliness. According to the head writers, Garak was always envisioned as queer, if not gay, and all the characters were supposed to know it and–GASP!–like him anyway, or at least distrust him for other good reasons.
Of course Paramount was like FUCK NO and so Robinson toned back the fey a bit. Babylon 5 is even sadder…poor Ivanova. If you ever heard about B5, you know how, well, they “straightwashed” her. Worse, they made her an asexual frigid person instead of just, you know, gay. At least everyone on the cast agreed Ivanova was gay whether Paramount liked it or not.
Blame the networks, not the creators of TV sci-fi. They’ve wanted to do queer characters since the early 80s, they just get threatened with the axe. I bet you anything the next big sci-fi show will have a queer main character in the cast.
[Sally]:In a bout of cosmic alignment, I was thinking about this very subject at length recently.
While superficially it seems like just another queer visibility issue, I don’t think the importance of this one can be understated.
Think about what kind of people casually toss around the gay and faggot abuse, and make XBL and other male geek spaces the writhing pits of homophobia that they are. Yeah, they’re the demographic that probably watched TNG et al during their formative years. I truly believe that better representation could have had a huge impact.
Anyway, some good nearly-gays above, although I think the whole Janeway/Seven thing was entirely people’s projections. Ultimately it was just a minor diversion from the fact that Voyager was usually dull as fuck.
My most-wasted queer opportunity would come from DS9, coincidentally my favourite of the franchise. Not the Dax thing (although they could have explored that a whole lot more), but Odo.
He’s a shapeshifter. He can be anything he wants. So why does he choose to look like a tea-stained claymation reject with a comb-over? Why is he even a “he” at all? I know they came up with some half-arsed reason why he couldn’t shift shape so well at first, but come on, if you could change into anything – anything – would you really look like that?
No you wouldn’t. You’d change into a giant floating space-vagina and hump the port nacelle of every shuttlecraft that flew by. I have no idea what a port nacelle is, but it sounds sexy. Also, it would probably help with his disappointingly-heterosexual crush on Major Kira. Imagine:
Kira: Hey Odo, fancy looking over some security reports this evening while I bask in, yet ultimately reject, your futile advances?
Odo: Sorry, I’m out humping nacelle.
Kira: Who’s Nacelle?! *jealous glare*
While I might have let Odo off on account of him being orphaned and probs subject to some evil heteronormative upbringing by some fundamentalist space-missionaries, eventually he finds his own people, headed up by the imaginatively-titled Female Changeling.
And you know, you can really tell she’s female, because she’s shapeshifted herself as wearing a dress. That is some stunningly forward-thinking gender representation there.
Are you really telling me that in the vast, mercurial sea of shapeshifter goop, each analogue gooplet really conforms to a binary gender and sexuality identity?
The lack of visibility is merely frustrating; the crushing failure of imagination is devastating.
Queer goop, gay Klingon bears, bisexual worms living in your stomach – I think these are my minimum requirements for any future trek.
[Franklin Hummel, five years after the essay was written]:As the co-founder of The Gaylaxians and the person who lead the letter-writing campaign to have open gay crewmembers shown on the starship “Enterprise”, I don’t think I have read or heard anywhere else the name “Gaylaxians” (that was me also) was “adorable”.
Really?