This was written in response to White male privilege in Star Trek: no single person's responsibility, but everyone's problem, written by Neil Shyminsky.
It would be easy for die-hard fans of 'Trek to claim that nearly each of the series had an episode that covered alternate sexualities, but this reduces the argument to the series only ever having a "special" episode each, like there were on a venue called "7th Heaven": "Oh, look, this time we're doing a serious story!"
It was not until the appearance of Stargate Universe that there was an LGBT character in the primary cast.
That role was played by Ming-Na, btw, and this is even more rare, given that, AFAIK, Asian-Americans aren't very often portrayed in LGBT tv, or LGBT roles anywhere (cf. "Looking", which takes place in San Francisco, a city with a large Asian-American population).
wrt Star Trek, Deep Space Nine relied more on the extended cast of regulars, who's characters still remain the most diverse in that franchise.
So, the two short-lived seasons of Stargate Universe was everything "Star Trek: Voyager" wanted to be, but was not.
Expectig a major positively-portrayed gay character to appear in some indeterminate future timeframe as part of Star Trek's primary cast is akin to waiting for Godot.
Even if the next Star Trek movie (be it done by J.J. Abrams or some other action movie director) is to ever feature a major gay character, it's likely to be "special" again. The reason being that these directors and writers aren't just straight, but 'white privilege', so they will in all likelihood fumble it. — Ang Lee doesn't count.
I have a feeling that by the time a future Star Trek tv property will have a primary gay character, it will by then be highly irrelevant.
laupäev, 8. veebruar 2014
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