Tuesday 17 October 2017

Jason Isaacs' mean, alt-right trolling machine


(Spoilers for Star Trek: Discovery in general and Monday's episode Choose Your Pain in particular. Also trigger warning for discussion of sexual abuse survival).

I am rapidly coming to adore Star Trek: Discovery. I love the look of the show; the plot is interesting; there are some great actors and fantastic character interactions; and, to be petty about it, the show is doing things that annoy people I hate.

Also, there are gay people in the show now and they aren't there for one episode epic tragedy storylines. They're an actual couple who both have names and speaking roles jjust living their lives and being in space. Up to now the best representation of LGBTQ+ people in Star Trek was Sulu's silent husband in Beyond and before that we only existed to facilitate the aforementioned epic tragedies about how we faced ostracism and horrible consequences.

Which, don't get me wrong, were important stories to tell but there comes a point where it just wears you down only seeing yourself in terms of your oppression.

And let's also address some other interesting aspects of representation: we have a male sexual abuse survivor in Lt. Ash Tyler. I know we're all meant to crow about how subversive Cadet Tilly saying “fuck” was but this is so important. Hopefully it will be dealt with sensitively but even where we are now, with the huge cathartic moment of Tyler getting to beat on his abuser in what he thinks is the last moments of his life, has some significance.

Also, not going to lie, the f-bomb moment was actually pretty funny and shocked me and both my housemates into silence. 

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