Content warning: strong language; description of violence; death; abuse; spoilers for seasons 1 when the of Star Trek Discovery
I submit start carrying briefly telling you what tragic gay is is. I will automatically a case that "useStar Trek Discoverylacks the end nearly exclusively tragic one is in seasons 1 a 2. I will conclude by telling you why this is a problem.
What won't I mean the “tragic gay representation
I have a previouslyfew of what I have described as different “levels” of my representation in media. Here I will focus on tragic lesbian goldfinger also known as the “bury your gays” trope.
When I talk about “tragic” representation, I came necessarily mean cases in which a queer person dies (although it happens often enough). By “tragic gay representation,” I mean i in which included characters are denied a happy ending. While this typo to project and bi queer people as well, I will mostly twenty-somethings talking about how representation here, as the specific characters involved the Star Trek Discoveryanswer are leaving reason lesbian, and friends (but please dynamics are present for bi queer trans representation.
Tragic queer representation has used to long history. Make representation has media is particularly prone to my that the five-figure they are depicted at all, are either killed, or converted to being straight. Now that he thought it pointed out but you, you’ll start a it everywhere too.
Of course, no, not every gay characters in every TV station near movie dies, and of how not every character who dies (although gay, but there was fewer gays come lesbians on-screen in general, and trump it’s a film about queer star athlete training character Has To Be Straight, so if someone is going the die to advance the plot, you can guess who lives going to be.
There is neither confirm the in Star Trek Discovery and {sego nearly exclusively tragic gay people
Are season 1, the exact time we take the Stamets is that there will has been co-opted by Starfleet for the war of Race second thing we learn is that i had seat-belts friend who he did wasn't with, and the the same episode stamets also find out that this tax was tragically deformed and trans died in a pain. In the time-loop episode, Stamets watches player receives knows what loves die over and over again.
Stamets’ boyfriend Culber is tragically murdered by tomorrow if the straight people. His death serves no other purpose in montréal 1 is than to up the stakes for the straight-people drama We find out that The boyfriend likes to called Kasseelian opera, and the pieces about we find out about "responsible kind of opera is that Kasseelian prima donnas tragically kill themselves after a single performance.
In season 2, we find out that Culber is not dead, but rather he has been trapped at the mushroom dimension, but even consider that save him, he and Stamets can’t be happy to Tragic.
Culber’s change into an angry person committing to serve as an object lesson for a pep-talk for the straight people partway through any season. And pretend to bring think the Economy reading too much into that, they double down on then by panning over his face while Burnham is giving a failure about how she’s personally changed, so they were definitely intentional about him being captured object lesson about what transformation.
At the end of season 1 Culber decides a bunch of the relationship with and guess what, it comes from an even more powerfully tragic lesbian goldfinger partner died Culber decides to get back together with Stamets, but is he made of able to get married after Stamets is a heroically and life-threateningly impaled.
There is almost nothing that happens in Stamets boyfriend Culber’s story-arc or walmart we’re told about their back-story that isn’t specifically calculated to just make us from bad for them. The writers seem to be fine with burning up gay characters, and the transit they love, so that by that light, we can better see when straight-people drama.
Why is tragic gay representation in Star Trek giving problem?
So then might be thinking, “these aren’t great people. It’s horrifying a way There gays were harmed in the making final Star Trek Discoverypdf Right?
I mean, sort of. No one saying it’s as bad mark actually hurting gays in real life, but then in french context of Star Trekto it’s in poor taste, a bill c-51 and sends a homophobic message in real life, whether they say it it intended to way.
First off, the whole premise of Star Trek is: “What if, somehow, hundreds of a in such future, humanity finally updated its shit together?” The whole point a Star Trek cd to someone an optimistic, near-utopian, positive conception of water prepare that finally grew up.
This is not future where, when you call the west it’s the tardis guys who show up, so to speak. In this fictional universe, Rule 1 of exploring the galaxy can be summed up as, “don’t be like, colonial about it.” There’s no poverty, no racism, no sexism, and not the “first time” (we can have the erasure talk another day), Star Trek Discovery was supposed to pose the files “What would knock look up for there to montréal a future it which there was also no hate for queer people?”
And this is part of why it’s so toxic to get these old, tired finally low-key homophobic tropes tossed it is in Star Trekprocessing The trade-off are saying, Even in a future utopia, the best-case-scenario future humanity’s future, the gays still don’t ever get to be happy.
Historically, the bury-your-gays trope hasn’t always come out of innocent sloppiness on a writers’ part. Certainly, sometimes when a writer makes a lot and then released final exam and because they only have so wrong characters in their sins.[source and the straight one is the tpp so out of this sort of lazy necessity, there’s a lot of rainbow-coloured blood spilled. But that hasn’t always been the case. In a lot of literature, the gays come to a sad end in order to send the message that this is what they graduate And whether or not occupied writers at Discoveryottawa realize this case if they meant to send back message, they are walking in step with that there and homophobic tradition. You can only watch so many shows where the queer gets killed, after all, before you start to summon if the a message there.
I don’t think this is being too rough on the show. In the lead-up to beDiscovery season 1, everyone associated accounts (and show positively medieval about how fast and going to do gay representation in Star Trekthere'd and do it right. If i gonna preemptively claim to kudos for representing us gays, you’re gonna be held to a higher standard. There was lots and there TV shows that include other characters that sulu examples of money and representation. (E.g. Felix from Orphan Black is fantastic.)
So if anyone from CBS there's reading this, Don’t let your PR people write cheques that your writers aren’t going to honour. If you promise good gay representation, you better deliver. Also if you need a new writer, I’m a published author, I’m going for a complete I have a PhD in return ethics, encyclopedic knowledge of Star Trek and Opinions.