Star Trek Picard's Queer Problem

Hi Jessie! I’ve been having a Patreon binge today, catching up on a few things as well as watching the new contra jkr video out today. I did want to comment on this one - I think it’s good to talk about interpretations of the symbolism in Star Trek, so please try not to worry too much when you share your views! I thought I’d share a few of my own in the comments. Firstly I’d agree that the federation does seem to have community at its heart. If I imagine a world where scarcity is very rare and most basic needs are met consistently for all people then we’d seem to have already done away with capitalism. This really makes sense to me! On the Borg, you make some interesting points! I’d always thought that the drones were more like robots, with their distinctiveness becoming a part of a collective. So in that sense, I’d always seen any Borg (with few exceptions) being under some sort of collective mind control made up of the consciousness and psychology of the beings in that collective. In this sense it meant to me that they all become part everything but in doing so lose individual subjectivity. I see the fascism metaphor because it results in such a level of mandated conformity. I did struggle to see the queer community metaphor, as to me they seem more ideological futuristic space republicans. Probably started by some neuralink type experiment gone wrong. Am I missing the point a bit here? Sorry for rambling on! 🫶 x

CrystalJade

Oh, I did not mean real hate, just was a way of say I disagree a bit ( and taken, not the best one perhaps, but english isn't my first language ^^ I love your content ). I don't think fan service is a bad thing, I love Lower Decks and if not for SNW it would be my favorite current trek show. I just keep feeling Picard doesn't have a lot to offer outside of that, sadly :( Even when it goes for representation, it feels like a small box running down the stairs, it feels like it fumbles instead of flowing :( The heart is there and its in the right place but it is still asking itself why it exists :( I don't know, sorry for the small vent... but that's the feeling I get when watching the episodes :( Cannot wait for the season review <3

Jessica Luchesi

Yes I do think the main point is fan service. Granted, really good reasons for characters showing up but still with the main intent to be fan service.

You are the best, not one of these arrogant reviewers. I've been re-reading some of the "Wild Cards" novels from the 1980s and perceiving them very differently this time around. There are things I didn't notice the first time. At least in the 1980s books, there is not so much as a single female character who is a really powerful super being who is a mover and shaker of the world. All of the female characters are either support characters, weak in power or subtle manipulators ('cause that's what women do, y'know)?. Zero trans characters and I cannot recall even a significant gay character. Yet, back then, that awareness was not there for me. It seemed very innovative, which it was at the time. In the 1980s, TNG was perceived as the new show that makes women equal, unlike the 1960s where women were still mostly love interests for men. BUT, in the 1960s, showing women on active military duty at all was a move forward. So, it's all perspective and how far our society has changed. By today's standards, we realize that TNG was an improvement but still a completely cis hetero male and mostly white perspective. In fact, I remember someone black criticizing that every time Worf's view or actions deviated from white society, he was shown to be wrong. I grant that I think there was another message there that was the intended message but still. Looking at it now, I see your point about TNG. The real concern is that what people are perceiving as the REAL Star Trek is a nostalgic return to 1980s American culture. "Make Star Trek white hetero male again". There's also the point you've made more than once about metaphor versus topical and decades old social issues that are largely accepted into our society now, at least officially, versus issues that have moved to the forefront. Back in college (late 1970s), I knew people who had no comprehension that ST tackled social issues other than the few like "Let that be your last battlefield". Some people really believe dealing with social issues is some new thing for current ST. For others, the social issues of decades ago are accepted norms now. I avoid Twitter like the plague but I suspect it's largely people responding to the more metaphorical era and social changes of the 1980s they are good with. Alas, I also suspect there's a helping of preferring that all white hetero male perspective and that ST not be seen as defending things they have bigotries against and do not perceive as being bigotries. I'm 65 now but I will say that it has been rightly said that, by and large, people don't change their opinions. That's not what's happening when majority opinions change. What's happening is that more and more of one generation is passing away and people with other opinions are still here. I can only hope those 1960s/ 1980s opinions continue to fade and be replaced (I do want to live to see more of it, though).

Why would I hate you? I agree haha that it's a lot of fan service. My review for the whole season is basically going to say that!

Jessie Earl

Don't hate me... but... Picard feels like a ton of fan service trying to coalesce into a story... it lost me a long time ago... I don't think they have any message or coding in mind... queer or not... representation or not... meanwhile I'm seating waiting for Lower Decks * just saying *

Jessica Luchesi

No laughing here. I don't think that story is over yet.

Berthulf

I was following you, mostly, until you said that jack turning to the Collective reframes them as the queer community, and I HAVE to disagree with that assertion. I got whiplash from the sudden direction change! I certainly see the parallel you're trying to draw here, but I feel you're doing it messily. Indeed, you open saying that the Collective are the fascist society, then suddenly you're discussing them as the queer allegory when they are blatantly still the former. The XB's being a queer allegory I agree with wholeheartedly, the trans allegory of Seven being known by the identity she choses is obvious, but the Collective are purely fascists. You argue that the XB's and Seven's queerness was oppressed by the Collective, so to argue the Collective are also the Queer community doesn't follow. To revisit your discussion on Picard's rejection of Jack: Picard doesn't see Jack's queerness, only the traumas he's passed on to another generation. Jack thinking this is a rejection of his queerness still reads, but his solution is to not to embrace the queerness, but reject that part of him completely. Embracing it would not lead him to the Borg, rather, his turn to the Collective is an attempt to deny his queerness; his conversion therapy. His need for connection and family in the face of his perceived rejection leads him to the oppressor. The Borg are not an allegory for the queer community, in this allegory they're the conversion therapists, offering Jack a false connection and faked family in return for 'curing' his perceived wrongness. I would love to see you do a proper video essay on this in the future, some time after we've all been able to digest the finale. I may be proved wrong, but I reckon Jack's not yet found his real family, his community, and I reckon the others will save him from the conversion therapist yet. Also, Jack having Borg DNA despite his queerness is just like how all of us can turn to fascism under bad circumstances; all of us have that potential, some of us rail against it, but others succumb. Some actively seek out their conversion, most find the conversion is only skin deep, even if the DNA for it is in the bones.

Berthulf

I thought Jack's comments about his own personality and the fact that he had Borg "DNA" would mean his "niceness" would overcome the Borg Collective. Don't laugh, please.

I never saw it like this and thank you. 💙

Aud Pod

Thank you Jessie, for putting into words some misgivings we were having with this episode in particular. When we noticed some of the same folks that participated in the Fandom Menace and harsh criticism of Discovery and other NuTrek (such as Rob Burnett) get all enthused about this season of Picard, it put us on edge and mitigated the enjoyment of the return of TNG characters and arcs. Sort of a giant “oh, oh. Watch!”

Libre Spirits Collective

This is a riveting analysis, Jessie, and I think you really should expand on it to a full length essay once we see the final episode! I fully understand your concerns with how the Far Right is basically going to interpret this narrative, but I feel like even if they had approached it a little differently, certain people were still gonna reach to have it suit their personal ideologies of "traditionalism." I agree with Jack basically representing a queer allegory, but I feel like his running off to face the current threat is more a means of proving himself to his father, not necessarily seeking out a more accepting family, like a son who joins the military, or worse, undergoes conversion therapy, simply because his father wants him to, not because he truly believes in it. Maybe even I'm reaching a bit there, but that's just how I saw it first glance this morning. I do believe Jack really wants to connect with his father and is willing to make any sacrifices he can to win him over, even though he doesn't need to.

Wes Senna

My problem with Star Trek Picard. Let’s start with the late 1960s Star Trek, aka TOS. It was a camp Liberal show that showed an enlightened human race leading a post scarcity multi-planet social collective following American ideals mixed with social awareness and forward-thinking beliefs. It also very much showed a non-Marxist version of Communism that Americans accepted into their homes completely unaware. At the same time, outside of the Human lead Federation of Planets, there were Capitalist (Orions), Marxist (Klingons), and Fascists (Romulans), each of these societies were shown flawed and at odds with the Utopian Luxury Space Communism of the Federation. All this with a very clear Homoromantic relationship between the two Male lead characters. TNG, kept that Non-Marxist Communist society and grew it. More than once Picard stated clearly emphatically statements about the Enlighted Neo-Communist changes to Human Society. Only those who lived outside the Federation had to deal with Capitalism, Greed, Hunger, Drug addiction, and the other troubles that faced the World of the 1990s. They gave us the Space yankee capitalist with the Ferengi, the Over barring failing Marxist with the Cardassians, and the troubled “3rd world” of the Klingons. DS9 showed us what life was like outside of Strict Federation control and showed us how the Federation was trying to uplift everyone to a Utopian Socialist society. Enterprise was suppose to show us how they got there from a post 3rd world war society to a Luxury Gay Space Communist Society. Sadly, they never quite got there, but at least they had the homoromantic undercurrent of Trip and Malcolm. Come Star Trek Discovery, and yes, I love they gave us a Realized Queer couple, and plenty of representation that didn’t feel tokenized after the 1st season. (Although it probably is still tokenized.) Lower Decks was brilliant, and kept the LGSC going, Prodigy was removed from the Federation, but showed a goal of getting there. But we got Picard. It’s Dark & Dirty, Capitalism, Corporate Greed on display on Earth, a Main character shown to be a drug addict, basically showing our reality through the Sci-Fi lenses. Gone is the Luxury Gay Space Communism, and here is the Post Capitalism Dystopian Federation. Where the flaws of the individuals are real, and the big bad isn’t Capitalism, isn’t Greed, and Hatred, the villain isn’t Bigotry, and the failings of humanity through a lens of what can be, but what is now. The Villain is also shown to be everything queer, communist, and looking for freedom from societal norms. Traditional Values, the Old people are the heroes, and the villains are the gay youth rejecting the capitalist feudal society.

Rachel Mary Winter

I've been looking at the past few episodes as negating season one's death of Data (though I'm slowly warming to that), and this episode as negating the movement toward peace between the UFP and the Borg. A lot of how I read this season will hinge on whether or not the peace from season two is restored, ideally through an appearance by Jurati Borg, or at least her faction. But as someone who's cishet, this reading of episode nine didn't occur to me. Thank you for your perspective on this. That said, I DEFINITELY saw the discourse from anti-LGBTQ+ people feeling vindicated because over LGBTQ+ representation is significantly muted at best compared to past seasons.

Eric Cheung