Trek Trek Trek Trek (run away if you're so inclined) ;)
Wow. Today's insanely-frequent-weekday-rotation of Trek has failed me. Right now, we have TOS: The Dumb Girls who Stole Spock's Brain, and TNG: Poorly Disguised Anti-Homophobia Metaphor (or: Riker Likes a Hermaphrodite). Sigh. I get deeply annoyed with such eps, like the DS9 ep where Jadzia Does Not Sleep with her former host's former wife, because you can see Trek is going "Look look we push boundaries and no one can stop us!" but you can also see the network going "Okay, but this is where you stop."
So in Classic Trek you get the first interracial kiss on network TV, but you also get "we are showing nudity with scandalous bellybuttons" where because that's so risque they have to make there be three bellybuttons, 'cause then it's alien as well as nude and therefore okay. And the Uncomfortably Close Friendship between Kirk, Spock and McCoy was explained mostly through the fact that "Spock is an Alien and Also Half-Human so He's Confused About What's Appropriate."
And in TNG we get the anti-homophobia metaphor but it's with Really Pale People in Jumpsuits Who Are Obviously Not Human So It's Not Dirty. Except when Riker kisses one, but that's Riker, anyway. I mean, Riker. Really. Only the slutty characters are allowed to have sexually ambiguous relationships, apparently. Not that we don't love him anyway. Or more. ;)
And DS9. We have lesbianism, but it's not only Alien Lesbiansim, it's Alien Lesbianism Where They Used To Be A MARRIED Hetero Couple. And then there's Garak and Bashir. Which *was* really obvious, but intentional only on the part of the actors, who were being sneaky, and even then one of them was an alien, and *then*, when the network did notice, they made them stop.
Sort of. ;)
Don't get me wrong. Trek has some big super-progressive moments. I mean, by just existing this long, it's got that. And I understand why, in the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, they had to be more careful. I guess. It pisses me off, but I understand it. I would just like to see some more of DS9's We Are Uninhibited By Barbaric 20th-Century Cultural Norms, and I would like to see it said out loud. Just once. Or twice. And I *really* hate how almost every single married female human takes her husband's name. How can they keep doing that? WHY? ARGH. It just doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense in real life, either, and in a fiction where the human race has gone uber-socialist it makes even less.
And there goes Worf saying something uncharacteristically stupid for the purposes of a plot-driving conversation. Sigh.
I swear by my geekery, one day I will make a Star Trek series. Rather, we will make a Star Trek series. Or two. Or three. Hopefully before all the actors are dead.
EDIT: proof positive that The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth
So in Classic Trek you get the first interracial kiss on network TV, but you also get "we are showing nudity with scandalous bellybuttons" where because that's so risque they have to make there be three bellybuttons, 'cause then it's alien as well as nude and therefore okay. And the Uncomfortably Close Friendship between Kirk, Spock and McCoy was explained mostly through the fact that "Spock is an Alien and Also Half-Human so He's Confused About What's Appropriate."
And in TNG we get the anti-homophobia metaphor but it's with Really Pale People in Jumpsuits Who Are Obviously Not Human So It's Not Dirty. Except when Riker kisses one, but that's Riker, anyway. I mean, Riker. Really. Only the slutty characters are allowed to have sexually ambiguous relationships, apparently. Not that we don't love him anyway. Or more. ;)
And DS9. We have lesbianism, but it's not only Alien Lesbiansim, it's Alien Lesbianism Where They Used To Be A MARRIED Hetero Couple. And then there's Garak and Bashir. Which *was* really obvious, but intentional only on the part of the actors, who were being sneaky, and even then one of them was an alien, and *then*, when the network did notice, they made them stop.
Sort of. ;)
Don't get me wrong. Trek has some big super-progressive moments. I mean, by just existing this long, it's got that. And I understand why, in the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, they had to be more careful. I guess. It pisses me off, but I understand it. I would just like to see some more of DS9's We Are Uninhibited By Barbaric 20th-Century Cultural Norms, and I would like to see it said out loud. Just once. Or twice. And I *really* hate how almost every single married female human takes her husband's name. How can they keep doing that? WHY? ARGH. It just doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense in real life, either, and in a fiction where the human race has gone uber-socialist it makes even less.
And there goes Worf saying something uncharacteristically stupid for the purposes of a plot-driving conversation. Sigh.
I swear by my geekery, one day I will make a Star Trek series. Rather, we will make a Star Trek series. Or two. Or three. Hopefully before all the actors are dead.
EDIT: proof positive that The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth