In this episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Riker falls in love with Soren (seriously, this crew falls in love [and Riker usually gets jiggy with, putting even Captain Jack Harkness to shame] a new alien every episode) a member of an androgynous species without male or female gender. But there is a small population of the species that does have male or female inclinations, which their government treat as outcasts and attempt to “cure” with psychotherapy. In the end, Soren reveals her true nature to a leading group of her species:
“I am female. I was born that way. I have had those feelings, those longings, all of my life. It is not unnatural. I am not sick because I feel this way. I do not need to be helped. I do not need to be cured. What I need, and what all of those who are like me need, is your understanding. And your compassion. We have not injured you in any way. And yet we are scorned and attacked. And all because we are different. What we do is no different from what you do. We talk and laugh. We complain about work. And we wonder about growing old. We talk about our families and we worry about the future. And we cry with each other when things seem hopeless. All of the loving things that you do with each other – that is what we do. And for that we are called misfits, and deviants and criminals. What right do you have to punish us? What right do you have to change us? What makes you think you can dictate how people love each other?”
– Soren
Considering this episode aired in 1992 BE (Before Ellen) I’d say this was pretty ahead of its time. And regardless of the above quote I feel this episode handled the situation well, without beating you over the head with a baseball bat labeled Acceptance is Cool, Fucker! The quote above reads a bit preachy, but I didn’t get that impression as I was watching it, and trust me, I hate being preached to (I’m looking at you, Crash), even when it’s ideas and beliefs I agree with. It probably helped that Soren was played by a female, and the episode was more about Riker and Soren’s relationship, plus if Soren is identifying as female, then there’s nothing gay about inseminating the husk with Riker, but the general sentiment of acceptance when it comes to gender identity and sexual orientation was still there and overall played out really well.
I don’t remember that one specifically although I watched most of them back in the day I think. A good message, twenty years later still not getting through so much. Sigh.
With great pleasure I have discovered your blog. TNG is one of the few shows that can hold my attention, even in reruns. Gene Roddenberry was a master at delivering timely messages in his scripts. And certainly “The Outcast” is a timeless masterpiece. He boasted years later about slipping what was considered taboo by the network censors. TNG was a series that got better with each and every episode. The growth of the cast, storylines, costumes and set design is something to behold.
I say bravo to you for your brilliance in writing about Star Trek – The Next Generation and helping to bring it to a new generation of viewers. Without a doubt, TNG will stand the test of time to delight audiences for decades to come.
I am subscribing to your RSS feed via Google Reader and I shall look forward to each new post!
Wow, thanks for the ego boost Lane! It’s not everyday I get a “bravo”.
::evil glare at dancing monkeys for not bravoing me enough::
Glad you found me.
Hey Craig….I’ve been running your blog posts on Google Reader since I left the comment above. This is quite a body of work with exemplary writing skills. You are indeed a thoughtful and insightful young man with great abilities.
I see your talents breathing new life into series like Star Trek. Your posts should be syndicated on blogs around the web. I will drop you an email over the weekend with some ideas. I’m a PR agent and I owned an advertising agency for many years.
Now, let’s agree on one thing. You are NOT a dork! Not by a long shot! Thoughtful brilliance with a flair for nailing what flies right over the heads of many. There are thousands of blogs looking for writers with your laser beam focus and ability to gently lay your style of prose which delights readers.
So keep knocking out these great posts and let me think for a day or two how you can best market yourself.
All the best………Lane
I always wished they had explored this further. And I always wished Soren was male, not female. It would have made everything even stronger.
It’s about time someone complimented my laser beam fo…oh shiny penny!
Kari: I think it worked well enough the way it is. But then again, I’ve never been one to rock the boat, so I think the subtler the better. Plus I think it would have been too unbelievable for Riker to be attracted to Soren had she identified as male, even if she still had vaguely feminine qualities. I’ll save those stories for my Riker/Data fanfiction.
Hmmm, methinks Lane is trying to make the rest of us look bad….
Anyways, yeah, at the time, it was pretty great (and they addressed this issue later on again with Dr. Crusher….but I’ll say no more, no spoilers from me!) I would have liked it better though, had Soren been played by a male actor. But I guess even that was too much for the times.
Still, a pretty decent episode. I’m glad you’re enjoying them!
HUGS…
I remember that episode; it came out right about the same time I did. It was well done and no question what they were really talking about. Nice to see that it still has an impact.
You’re freaking amazing Craig.
I think I saw this a long time ago. I’m not sure if I picked up on the social commentary at the time.
Ryan: That’s what makes it a good social commentary I believe. If you’re not looking for it, you won’t see it and can still enjoy the episode just for the fact that it’s an interesting story.
Thanks Tam. I know. It’s just good to hear sometimes
It’s is short for it is while its is the possessive of it.
“The quote above reads a bit preachy, but I didn’t get that impression as I was watching it, and trust me, I hate being preached to (I’m looking at you, Crash), even when it’s ideas and beliefs I agree with.”
Craig: I think I may have only seen the beginning. I don’t remember the speech you quoted.
trinity67: Puntabulous Commenters’ Union work rules state that only Enrico may point out Craig’s grammatical errors.
I was going for the conjunctive, but should have said they’re instead of it’s. As in “I hate being preached to (I’m looking at you, Crash), even when they are ideas and beliefs I agree with.”
And yeah, grammar police = grumble grumble.
I’ve never seen this episode, but I have heard of it. If I recall correctly, Star Trek was a little homophobic at times, so this was a change and a nice one. I preface that with I am not a huge fan, so I very well may be misinformed about any perceived homophobia.
Lane: Welcome aboard! Thanks for making us look bad. (totally said in jest).
Tam: I think there is something on your nose.
Cupcake: This is why I love you.
Craig: You should post more seeing you have new fans who take the time to write such nice things. Just sayin’.
I loved this episode. I suppose it rang true for me for many reasons, but I found it cool that way back then, at least some people knew how to act right. That has been my foundation of my love of all thing Star Trek. The fact that they presented a future where we have all moved past our ridiculousness and just decided to act right.
So, yes, of course, I remember this episode vividly when it first came out.
And yes of course I knew exactly what they were talking about.
But even then, and honestly though it was Before Ellen, it was after a lot of other milestone gay films (An Early Frost, Longtime Companion, etc. etc.) — this wasn’t the early 80s, this was the early 90s. And I was actually kind of disappointed that even in the 24th century there didn’t seem to be a single Out gay crewmember on the Enterprise. And believe me, I grew up in an era which made any and every positive representation of gay people was a huge big deal as they happened in my lifetime, so I’m not that hard to please!
Nonetheless, it was a good episode. Though it is *VERY* frustrating that it is almost 100% impossible, no matter how much makeup you use, to make a person look androgynous. Just about the only example I’ve ever seen that worked was the aliens from Earth Final Conflict, and that only worked because they were so heavily made up that they didn’t look human.
And — Craig *is* a dork. And proud of it. It’s NOTHING TO BE ASHAMED OF!
Given the original meaning of the word “dork” and Craig’s frequent claims about a certain something, I think he takes pride in being called dorky.
That’s the original meaning of dork?! That’s total news to me. Calling someone a “dick” or a “prick” or a “Schmuck” or some similar term is tantamount to calling them an asshole. Calling someone a “nerd” or a “geek” or a “dork” is a different kind of insult, and I never thought it was schlong-related.
lol @ “inseminating the husk”. Ya, that turns me off their species right there and then. If I want to inseminate a husk, I’ll just stick to the old fashion way involving Barry White music and a brown paper bag full of corn.
Speaking of husks and inseminating them, all this talk made me wonder how many scifi novels / short-stories / movies / tv shows included details about the ways in which other species reproduce.
The Alien Nation series had their seahorse-like male pregnancies; B5 had their Centauri … tentacle things; the Puppeteers of Larry Niven’s “Known Space” novels have their three sexes (and the Kzinti have their non-sentient females — an idea Frank Herbert also had in his utterly-forgettable novel The Dosadi Experiment: I kinda think a lot of straight male scifi authors sort of wish women didn’t have the ability to speak); and the protagonist of the first novel of Piers Anthony’s Cluster series out-sluts Riker and Kirk and every other scifi manwhore by having sex with every possible species in the galaxy (the Cluster series involves transfer of characters’ “Kirlian Auras” into other bodies, so he gets to have sex IN an alien body.
The weirdest example from Cluster that I remember is the way the Polarians have sex. The Polarians are molusk-like, fat on the bottom and tapering to narrow on top; they move around on what are effectively gigantic organic ball-bearings, and they communicate with a smaller ball-bearing at the tip of their trunk (it makes noises as it rotates in the socket).
The way they reproduce involves the female dumping her big ball-bearing thing and the male inserting his into her bottom-socket. The ball-bearing rotates faster and faster until climax and then they separate. The male’s ball is ejected from the female and eventually hatches into a baby Polarian. Since the male no longer has a big ball-bearing to locomote on, the female has to give up her smaller “talking” ball to give to him to move around on (it apparently eventually grows into a normal-sized locomotion-ball). The female thus has to remain mute (non-talking females again!) until her talking ball grows back. There were several other equally bizarre reproductive processes on other planets in Cluster.
As a teenager I even read an anthology that consisted of literally nothing *BUT* stories about how aliens have sex or reproduce. It was called “Xenogenesis”. The only story I remember from it involved mankind’s first diplomatic encounter with another race. The encounter was disastrous as this other race believed it was disgusting and blasphemous to eat any meat OTHER than that of their own babies — since ingesting any other animal would corrupt the species, whereas of course human beings tend to have a tiresome disdain for baby-eating. And that wasn’t the only one. I read another anthology in college that was mostly scifi erotica (honestly I just STUMBLED across these books — I didn’t go looking for them!); I remember one story, written by a woman, where she had a male at home, named “Dave”, who was completely mute and un-sentient (though surprisingly friendly), and whom she could “use” for sex whenever she wanted. From her descriptions “Dave” was just my type, too.