The Failures of Sci-Fi LGBTQ Allegory

Yeahhhhh agreed Robert

Jessie Earl

You're not wrong about anything here, but I do have one niggle... Seemingly taking issue with trans/intersex issues being mapped onto aliens in order to sell it to a sis audience forces me to ask you the question everyone wants to ask the toxic fans -- Have you seen Star Trek? Externalizing human issues to aliens/monsters/etc to allow people to explore the issue is kinda sci-fi's whole deal. It is part of the reason Trek could be so dramatically progressive on race and nationalism in the late 60s and still be allowed on TV. Even the Kirk/Uhura kiss was only sold to the network because it was an alien forcing them. I get when it is an issue directly about you and your lived experience it may seem like half a loaf, but this is how sci-fi gets these things into the conversation without the knee-jerk reactionaries shutting down. Now the morons you cited who just don't get it... There is a certain level of stupid you just can't fix, and they aren't people you can reach or get to introspect their own beliefs anyway.

Robert Cooper

<3

Jessie Earl

When I was younger, say, back in the '70s, I thought metaphor was great because it covered all bases. But, I later realized it left a lot of people not realizing there had ever been a social point being made. While I'm not trans I am bi, and loved any social message that seemed to speak out on the subject, such as "Metamorphosis", which seemed to defend all sorts of relationships that would have been considered outside the norm at the time. I think there's a place for both though it's scary that there are transphobes who can fail to see the Orville as addressing the issue of trans at all but see an episode of SNW, such as the Serene Squall as hammering on trans issues in an episode that said nothing about trans issues except metaphorically through Spock's nature in one scene (and could be a remark about all sorts of things) just because the actress is trans though not necessarily playing a trans character. So, I lean more towards coming right out and literally presenting the issue. Bigots will not get the metaphor. When it's literal, they'll despise the acknowledgement that certain groups even exist. So, better to reach the general public and normalize marginalized groups. It's no different than the 1960s when entertainment media was acknowledging that not everyone was a white person in a world where men worked, women cooked, and children never got into trouble. Plenty of people hated that non-white people were being normalized. Those people will probably never come around. But better, most of the time, to be literal and change people's minds and hearts who are young and open to new ideas.