varda: cimness: varda: metatheatre: CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN TO ME WHY STAR TREK MAGAZINE THINKS THERE WAS A GAY COUPLE ON DS9 AND ALSO WHY NOBODY HAS TOLD ME ABOUT THIS SERIOUSLY THERE IS A WHOLE ARTICLE ABOUT THEIR LOVE RELATIONSHIP THAT ONLY BRINGS UP THE WORD BROMANCE TO SAY THAT IT’S EXACTLY WHAT THIS ISN’T I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHO THE HELL THESE PEOPLE ARE AND I’M ALREADY SHIPPING THEM LIKE BURNING THE EVEN BIGGER QUESTION IS IF THIS IS HERE WHY ISN’T KIRK/SPOCK IT’S ONLY LOGICAL  Well… There’s a mention about Kirk/Spock in a little article lost in one page. I personally loved the article, because I’d like to see in DS9 something more than a friendship between them. Of course, it’s a matter of tastes about that. They weren’t a gay couple exactly, but there’s a subtext in their friendship. 90’s were more open minded that 60’s, but not enough. A pity, I’d like to see an like the others article about Kirk & Spock also. There was never an explicitly gay character in any of the Star Treks in spite of multiple attempts to bring one to the screen. This article on Picard/Q by Atara Stein talks about how John de Lancie added strong homosexual subtext to the relationship and quotes Patrick Stewart saying he thought that Q was gay (as well as quotes guidelines for tie-in novels explicitly saying they have no interest in gay characters). And in this really fascinating Salon.com article called “Gay Trek” from 2001 is the following anecdote about the producers nixing an attempt to put a gay couple as extras in the background: One anecdote Arnold told me about the filming of a third-season “Next Generation” episode, “The Offspring,” stands out. In that story, the android character Data decides to build an android daughter, whom he calls Lal. Data educates her as best he can, but Lal becomes confused when she sees two people kissing. In a typically “Star Trek-ky” “What is this ‘love’ you speak of?” scene that takes place in the Enterprise D’s lounge, Whoopi Goldberg, playing Guinan, teaches Lal about the birds and the bees. “According to the script, Guinan was supposed to start telling Lal, ‘When a man and a woman are in love …’ and in the background, there would be men and women sitting at tables, holding hands,” Arnold says. “But Whoopi refused to say that. She said, ‘This show is beyond that. It should be “When two people are in love.”’ And so it was decided on set that one of the tables in the background should have two men holding hands — or two women, or whatever. But someone ran to a phone and made a call to the production office and that was nixed. [Producer] David Livingston came down and made sure that didn’t happen.” But the article Sexuality in Star Trek on Wikipedia contains some quotes from post-Roddenberry producer Brannon Braga (from a very recent After Elton interview): There were people who felt very strongly that we should be showing casually, you know, just two guys together in the background in Ten Forward. At the time the decision was made not to do that and I think those same people would make a different decision now because I think, you know, that was 1989, well yeah about 89, 90, 91. I have no doubt that those same creative players wouldn’t feel so hesitant to have, you know, have been squeamish about a decision like that. Very interesting Article about the elationship between Q and Picard. But I can’t understand why a typical girls kissing scene (Jadzia and her old mate of a previous host) but NOTHING ABOUT TWO MEN INVOLVED!!!! The 90’s, yeah… I always think how would be a Star Trek TV Show in 2011. Ah, it’s a pity that all (or most of them) Star Trek Novels are non canon =/ Well, exactly. That scene was no more “gay” than Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl”, since the gayness of it was undermined in several ways. Dax is shown in a number of relationships with men and none with women throughout canon. A kiss doesn’t hold a lot of weight against those; it may represent what could be interpreted by the viewer as real desire, but it’s not much of a representation of the lives of (or existence of) gay people. Because the Dax entity isn’t exclusively female and has actually been male in the past; Sisko even calls her “Old Man”.Showing a bit of lesbian kissing or innuendo as a deviation from an established heterosexual pattern doesn’t count as representing gay people. There’s even a term for these deviations which, shockingly, tend to overwhelmingly occur during sweeps week, where it’s important to generate as much controversy=interest as possible to drive up ratings: Sweeps Lesbians. This bit of girl-on-girl kissing was allowed through in spite of the Gayness Ban because everyone knows that it’s presented for male titillation. (Hence Madonna kissing Britney and Christina onstage at the VMAs barely raised any eyebrows, but Adam Lambert kissing a male band member at the AMAs got him disinvited from Good Morning America and nearly banned from ABC.) The Star Trek tie-in novels may have a more liberal policy nowadays than when the article was written, but they are still quite strictly policed by Paramount for content. I doubt we’ll be seeing central gay relationships in them anytime soon.

varda:

cimness:

varda:

metatheatre:

CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN TO ME WHY STAR TREK MAGAZINE THINKS THERE WAS A GAY COUPLE ON DS9 AND ALSO WHY NOBODY HAS TOLD ME ABOUT THIS

SERIOUSLY THERE IS A WHOLE ARTICLE ABOUT THEIR LOVE RELATIONSHIP THAT ONLY BRINGS UP THE WORD BROMANCE TO SAY THAT IT’S EXACTLY WHAT THIS ISN’T

I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHO THE HELL THESE PEOPLE ARE AND I’M ALREADY SHIPPING THEM LIKE BURNING

THE EVEN BIGGER QUESTION IS IF THIS IS HERE WHY ISN’T KIRK/SPOCK IT’S ONLY LOGICAL

 Well… There’s a mention about Kirk/Spock in a little article lost in one page. I personally loved the article, because I’d like to see in DS9 something more than a friendship between them. Of course, it’s a matter of tastes about that. They weren’t a gay couple exactly, but there’s a subtext in their friendship. 90’s were more open minded that 60’s, but not enough. A pity, I’d like to see an like the others article about Kirk & Spock also.

There was never an explicitly gay character in any of the Star Treks in spite of multiple attempts to bring one to the screen. This article on Picard/Q by Atara Stein talks about how John de Lancie added strong homosexual subtext to the relationship and quotes Patrick Stewart saying he thought that Q was gay (as well as quotes guidelines for tie-in novels explicitly saying they have no interest in gay characters).

And in this really fascinating Salon.com article called “Gay Trek” from 2001 is the following anecdote about the producers nixing an attempt to put a gay couple as extras in the background:

One anecdote Arnold told me about the filming of a third-season “Next Generation” episode, “The Offspring,” stands out. In that story, the android character Data decides to build an android daughter, whom he calls Lal. Data educates her as best he can, but Lal becomes confused when she sees two people kissing. In a typically “Star Trek-ky” “What is this ‘love’ you speak of?” scene that takes place in the Enterprise D’s lounge, Whoopi Goldberg, playing Guinan, teaches Lal about the birds and the bees.

“According to the script, Guinan was supposed to start telling Lal, ‘When a man and a woman are in love …’ and in the background, there would be men and women sitting at tables, holding hands,” Arnold says. “But Whoopi refused to say that. She said, ‘This show is beyond that. It should be “When two people are in love.”’ And so it was decided on set that one of the tables in the background should have two men holding hands — or two women, or whatever. But someone ran to a phone and made a call to the production office and that was nixed. [Producer] David Livingston came down and made sure that didn’t happen.”

But the article Sexuality in Star Trek on Wikipedia contains some quotes from post-Roddenberry producer Brannon Braga (from a very recent After Elton interview):

There were people who felt very strongly that we should be showing casually, you know, just two guys together in the background in Ten Forward. At the time the decision was made not to do that and I think those same people would make a different decision now because I think, you know, that was 1989, well yeah about 89, 90, 91. I have no doubt that those same creative players wouldn’t feel so hesitant to have, you know, have been squeamish about a decision like that.

Very interesting Article about the elationship between Q and Picard. But I can’t understand why a typical girls kissing scene (Jadzia and her old mate of a previous host) but NOTHING ABOUT TWO MEN INVOLVED!!!! The 90’s, yeah… I always think how would be a Star Trek TV Show in 2011.

Ah, it’s a pity that all (or most of them) Star Trek Novels are non canon =/

Well, exactly. That scene was no more “gay” than Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl”, since the gayness of it was undermined in several ways.

  1. Dax is shown in a number of relationships with men and none with women throughout canon. A kiss doesn’t hold a lot of weight against those; it may represent what could be interpreted by the viewer as real desire, but it’s not much of a representation of the lives of (or existence of) gay people.
  2. Because the Dax entity isn’t exclusively female and has actually been male in the past; Sisko even calls her “Old Man”.

Showing a bit of lesbian kissing or innuendo as a deviation from an established heterosexual pattern doesn’t count as representing gay people. There’s even a term for these deviations which, shockingly, tend to overwhelmingly occur during sweeps week, where it’s important to generate as much controversy=interest as possible to drive up ratings: Sweeps Lesbians.

This bit of girl-on-girl kissing was allowed through in spite of the Gayness Ban because everyone knows that it’s presented for male titillation. (Hence Madonna kissing Britney and Christina onstage at the VMAs barely raised any eyebrows, but Adam Lambert kissing a male band member at the AMAs got him disinvited from Good Morning America and nearly banned from ABC.)

The Star Trek tie-in novels may have a more liberal policy nowadays than when the article was written, but they are still quite strictly policed by Paramount for content. I doubt we’ll be seeing central gay relationships in them anytime soon.