this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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Risa
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I know I might be about to ruffle some feathers, but The Orville is how you do representation right imo. The whole story arc with Topa was beautiful.
Like, something that turned me off of nu-trek was how the representation was handled. It felt pandery to an almost gross extent. Like, Jesus Christ man, it's the year 24-something-something, why are you still acting like being gay is a big deal? OoOoOoOoo oh nooooo, there's gay people WoooOoOooo. And while I don't remember there being spoken pandering in the few episodes I watched, there was something about how the scenes were constructed, the shots were lined up, etc, that felt like they were trying to draw attention to the LGBT members doing LGBT things. Again, it's 24XX, I'm supposed to believe humanity has achieved near-utopia, why am I getting the feeling that you're trying to show me how gay these dudes are purely because they're gay. You don't need to do that. It's 24XX, who the hell is still getting bent out of shape about homosexuality 400 years from now?
The Orville, on the other hand, just kinda... treated it like it was normal. Some characters are gay, some characters are straight, but the show didn't really focus on it; some guys just liked other guys more than gals and vice versa. They treated it like it was normal.
Okay, okay, but I brought up Topa, and Topa's story arc is literally all about Topa's gender problems. How does that not go against my previous complaints? Well, Topa isn't human. Topa is from a male-dominated culture that believes femininity is weakness and should be eradicated via gender reassignment. It's not a human culture, and so it doesn't clash with the idea of humanity having a near-utopia. A human utopia involves everyone being treated equally, so when you imply different treatment, whether through dialog choices or cinematography, it clashes with that idea. But the Moclans don't have a utopia, and so putting emphasis on Topa being female makes sense, especially when it comes to the human crew struggling with the clashing ideas of Moclan forced gender reassignment and the human take on sapient rights. Unlike nu-trek, there's no dissonance there.
I'm pretty lukewarm on Discovery, I've seen all of it but most episodes only once, so maybe I just don't remember it. Who got bent out of shape over Stamets and/or Culber being gay?
Tbh I might have a unique way of processing fiction, because my brain seems to process it as, "I'm watching a future documentary" or "I'm watching future reality TV" or something. Like, these people have a camera crew or something following them around, so the camera crew is part of the act if that makes sense; so when the camera crew focuses on something, my brain interprets it as being important to the fictional future-history.
As such, while I don't remember anyone actually being upset about them being gay in-universe, the fact that the camera crew seemed to like focusing on them being intimate makes my brain say, "this must be important to 23rd century humans in some way".
Then again, I'm also not super into shows that feel like they spend too much time focusing on romantic relationships, so I might also be more critical that I should be as a result. If you're gonna spend a bunch of time exploring a romantic relationship in a non-romance show, at least make it interesting. Maybe one of them is a cold-blooded lizardman and there's some conflict about the temperature of the crew quarters or something.
That's not a particularly unique perspective, many Trekkies choose to process Star Trek as "historical documents." There's a movie about it.
What I don't understand is why you've assigned this theoretical camera crew the intent of "get the camera on the gay dudes, stat" when "get the camera on the relationship between the two main characters" is a much simpler explanation. There are entire episodes dedicated to Odo & Kira, Paris & Torres or Trip & T'Pol relationship drama. Stamets & Culber screen time pales in comparison, and at least Stamets & Culber have some chemistry.
I'm not a huge fan of relationships in media to begin with (unless it's somehow tied into the plot), so it's possible I'm being more critical and skeptical than I should be. I'm not exactly cishet so I'm not sure that's really it, but as someone else pointed out it's still not super common for gay characters, especially male characters, to be shown as being romantically involved, which can be jarring when you're not used to it. Dunno, it's weird.
That's kinda interesting, do you remember what the movie is called? I might watch it at some point.
Yep, many people still struggle with it. What do you think it would take to change this?