Contents:
- STAR TREK’S FIRST GAY COUPLE THAT WASN’T
- STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NE ACTOR WANTED HIS CHARACTER TO BE OPENLY GAY
- STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NE DOCUMENTARY CONFIRMS FAN FAVORE CHARACTER WAS GAY
- FOR PRI MONTH, WE CELEBRATE STAR TREK’S GAYT MOMENTS
STAR TREK’S FIRST GAY COUPLE THAT WASN’T
So why did DS9’s producers ci to take such a huge risk wh a gay uple on their new show? Creator Gene Rodnberry promised that there would be gay characters, and wrer David Gerrold even wrote a script to fulfill that promise for TNG’s first season. They axed the script wh two gay men; when Gene proposed showg same-sex upl the background, they told a wrer to ignore him.
Years later, shownner and wrer Ira Steven Behr would exprs remorse at their failure to plumb those pths, and said that he wished they’d had Garak e out as gay so they uld have explored the relatnship further. Dpe homophobic phback, Deep Space Ne gave some fantastic queer stori - even if they were never "officially" queer.
Star Trek managed to predict mobile phon, headsets, and Alexa, but uldn’t que predict gay people.
STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NE ACTOR WANTED HIS CHARACTER TO BE OPENLY GAY
Oh, and they wanted to panr to homophobic viewers.
This was somethg wrers of the time had to adapt to - gettg the gays their shows whout offendg the nservative crowd, or providg enough subtext for queer viewers to pick apart and claim as their own as a slight form of reprentatn. As a rult, media of the 1990s and 2000s is filled wh allegori for gay people, but few actual ncrete exampl of them.
STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NE DOCUMENTARY CONFIRMS FAN FAVORE CHARACTER WAS GAY
The latter optn gave the bt and worst “gay” characters media. The biggt problem here is that ’s meant to be a pro-gay story, but the ma pair are fightg to be heteronormative.
This is what you get when you have too many oks the kchen, and none of them are gay.
In the same 2001 article that quot Frak, queer fans also say that the episo giv the imprsn that the J'naii are the gay on - and they sound like somethg “right om Rh Limbgh's show”, wh “genr viants” stroyg the tradnal, heterosexual fay. So, Star Trek had already tried both the gay allegory and queer dg approach, and failed pretty goddamn badly. Deep Space Ne was, and still is, a show for the gays.
FOR PRI MONTH, WE CELEBRATE STAR TREK’S GAYT MOMENTS
The Outst was wrten to plate homophobic censorship, whereas Deep Space Ne’s queer rep phed to the lim. Perhaps bee misgenrg Dax is not treated as a big al until the last season (the pta’s nickname for her is ‘old man’), but also bee she stole the show by makg another piece of Star Trek history: the first gay kiss.
Sure, ’s not actual homophobia, but here ’s impossible to see the bad guys as the gay on. They’re obvly an allegory for homophob.
Them seeg the relatnship as “unproductive” bee nothg new will be gaed is clearly a stand- for the argument that gays shouldn’t get married bee they won’t have blogil kids. When you have homophob gettg jt as mad as the bad guys your show, you know you’ve done somethg right.