my problems with nuTrek are almost exclusively with DSC. It’s the terrible writing, the retconning, and the over-the-top acting. but, specifically, with how they’ve handled LGBTQ+ characters-- horribly, imo.
Stamets and Culber
These two are often the target of being brutally treated, aka, the Bury Your Gays trope. Death/near-death constantly surround them, and it’s often tied to some function of their sexuality and/or relationship as gay men. Rarely are they seen as just crewmembers or Starfleet officers aside from them being gay, and i can’t help but see this as the showrunners and the writers, lacking all subtlety and nuance, saying, “LOOK AT HOW WE HAVE GAY CHARACTERS NOW!! LOOOOOOOKKKKK!!!” They’re props, objects to make Trek look good, and i don’t care for LGBTQ+ people being used that way.
In the shiny, bright future of Trek, nobody would care. It would be so normalized that nobody would notice and nobody would think differently of anyone for being gay, and having it constantly pointed out would be weird. So, when it’s done on the show, over and over, it’s weird and discordant, and out-of-character-- just like in the TOS episode when Lincoln called Uhura a racist term she didn’t comprehend because, as Kirk pointed out, it’s just not something people notice or think about anymore in the 23rd century.
Grey and Adira
I find this example more egregious for the same reasons. While i celebrate trans and enby inclusion in Trek (finally), what i find especially troublesome here is the tone-deaf and haphazard manner in which it was handled. First, again with the Bury Your Gays bs. We get this lovely character Grey only for them to get killed and only to exist henceforth as an f’ing ghost? That’s the only dignity this character gets? As a ghost?? And Adira doesn’t get the dignity of even existing without having to declare themselves and struggling to fit in as well. I mean, i understand trying to make the character relatable to a contemporary audience, but the whole point of Trek is to, again, show a brighter better future where all people are already accepted for who and what they are, where such struggles for tolerance and acceptance are well behind us. I shouldn’t be watching Adira struggle-- I should be watching them be able to confidently walk into the Engineering compartment knowing that nobody will judge them because, in the 23rd century, those bigotries and prejudices no longer exist.
But DSC betrayed what decades of Trek had taught us before about tolerance in the 23rd and 24th centuries and shit all over it by painting a picture of hostility, uncertainly, and doubt for LGBTQ+ people and how, apparently, we’re the target of a great deal of mysterious deaths and near-deaths. The future really isn’t too bright for us in the nuTrek future, and our struggles still abound 200 years hence.
There is never or rarely any positive aspect of the LGBTQ+ characters attributes being celebrated. It’s always some weakness to be exploited as a plot point, highlighted as something that will make them miserable, sad, and/or alone, something that sets them apart and makes them different. it’s always regarded as some type of survivorship. LGBTQ+ folx in Trek are not represented nor regarded as normal or regular people as they should be. They’re regarded as objects of pity, cudgels for plot points, set pieces, and fucking ghosts, but never with the dignity and respect that any other crew member receives, and that’s just fucked up.