this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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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?
There was a multi episode story arc about a teenager (forgot her name, had a teenage boyfriend and got adopted by Stamets/Cullen) coming out as non binary and choosing they as their pronoun.
It was very heavy handed on drama, whereas if there was any internal consistency, there wouldn't be any "coming out" at all because "staying in the closet" wouldn't be a thing. The whole thing felt like having a Jane Austen dialogue in present Norway.
I would love to be able to say this was a one off occurrence, but pretty much all dialogue is heavy handed, with excessive drama not supported by the fiction. While TNG is rather under acted, DSC is heavily over acted. Out goes technobabble, in comes soap opera.
This never happened. The only time it ever comes up was in a single 27 second conversation with Stamets in S3 which someone else linked. It was never brought up before or after this scene. This is literally the one and only time any LGBTQ issue have ever been discussed in all four seasons of DIS. I'm utterly baffled how this scene got twisted into some lengthy after school special in at least two people's minds in this thread.
The scene that actually happened wasn't even heavy handed. Adira basically states, "I prefer to be called they. I never felt like a she." Stamets literally responds with just "okay" at which point they move on and never bring it up again. I think you need to question why your mind warped it in such an exaggerated, critical way.
Adira seemed very hesitant to tell Stamets, which I thought was silly. I might remember that wrong though.
Duly noted.