While I still haven't watched past the Discovery pilot (hey, I *just* watched
the 2017 series of Doctor Who on Christmas Day), this thread prompted me to
skim the Vulture recap (which, of course, has spoilers) -
http://www.vulture.com/2018/01/star-trek-discovery-recap-episode-10-despite-yourself.html
That it barely got a mention bugs me, but it does imply some hand-waving to
come in subsequent episodes. Color me skeptical.
David
On Monday, January 8, 2018, 10:32:24 AM EST, David Lynch
<[email protected]> wrote:
Per lesbian-focused blog Autostraddle, there were 13 lesbian/bi/otherwise not
100% straight female TV characters who died in 2017, and this was a huge
decrease from 31 in 2016.
https://www.autostraddle.com/all-65-dead-lesbian-and-bisexual-characters-on-tv-and-how-they-died-312315/?all=1
For men, where I'm a little bit more up on the pop culture side of things, it's
a trope that dates back to when we were the go-to for "he had it coming"
deaths, either by murder or suicide brought on by the idea of how horribly
"deviant" their desires were. Then came both greater acceptance and AIDS, and
the tragic gay who had everything going for him except that he was gay and thus
doomed to die (eg, the "killing all the right people" episode of Designing
Women.) Then it was that there was one gay character and it made it easy for
the writers to write them off by killing them because they wouldn't leave
behind a grieving spouse. And so forth and so on up through now when it seems
to keep happening. It's one of those things where you can't point to any
specific instance and say "this is homophobic" but the overall pattern seems to
add up to far too many LGBTQ characters dying.
Regarding ST:D, I'm not hugely surprised when I think about the initial buzz --
which was only about the surviving half of the couple being a major character
-- versus the actual discussion of the initial episodes where the other half
was getting a lot more attention. Despite being a Trek fan, I still haven't
watched any of it yet, partly because I resent CBS's strategy in making it
streaming-only, partly because there's a glut of heavily-serialized television
in which the fate of the human race hangs in the balance and missing a moment
means missing some seemingly-minor detail that will turn out to be important
later (and some of it is even fictional) and thus the brightly-colored,
allegory-of-the-week sci-fi of The Orville feels more satisfying.
On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 11:50 PM Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote:
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One of my early podcast interviews was with a writer who was facing some
backlash online because an LGBT character on a series he had worked on had been
killed off. The community was claiming it was becoming common to basically use
gay characters as either sacrificial lambs or canaries in coal mines. I didn't
think much about it at the time, but in the months that followed I have seen --
maybe not a trend -- but certainly a regular habit of placing key LGBT
characters onto dramatic series, showcasing/promoting how inclusive the series
is, making the character quite sympathetic, then offing the character.
I'm bringing this up because, although I stopped watching Star Trek Discovery
after a few painful weeks, I can see from social media that they have just done
the same thing. And some within the LGBT community are already unhappy. Trek's
first openly gay couple has been on the cover of multiple magazines in recent
weeks (the character's lover is played by the actor who stepped forward with
the allegations that ended Kevin Spacey's career).
As I think about it, my mind drifts way back to the third season of MTV's "The
Real World," and one of the housemates, Pedro Zamora, who died not long after
the season ended due to complications of AIDS. It was big news at the time --
even then President Clinton gave a speech about it. And now I cannot help but
wonder if the producers didn't at least partly consider Pedro's potential death
during the casting process.
I'm not saying or implying a malicious attitude towards gays or gay characters,
but the reaction from the LGBT community seems to be they resent being used to
tug at viewer heartstrings in a rate that is different or abnormal. They want
to be fairly represented, and not just tokens, which is a view shared by every
minority group I'm aware of.
I'm curious how frequently this is actually happening on TV. Has anybody else
noticed this? Anybody else have any thoughts on the subject?
--
Kevin M. (RPCV)
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