Garak was initially intended by actor Andrew Robinson to be omnisexual. Indeed, Garak’s first encounter with Bashir is very clearly sexually charged, which Robinson has stated was intentional. Though the pair would eventually become good friends, his primary interest in Bashir at the outset was sexual. That aspect of the character was eventually dropped for some disappointingly cowardly reasons.
The idea of a queer character on a Star Trek show was routinely vetoed by executive producer Rick Berman. Berman believed any hint of non-heterosexuality on Star Trek would have alienated a significant portion of the franchise’s fan base across America in the '90s. It’s an unsurprisingly reductive point of view, especially for a franchise as famous for its progressive politics and social messaging as Star Trek. It also flies in the face of the views of Star Trek franchise creator Gene Roddenberry, who was advocating for LGBT representation by the early days of Star Trek: The Next Generation in the late '80s.
The Garak -> Bashir -> O’Brien -> Keiko -> Worf -> Jadzia -> Kira -> Odo -> Changeling Orgy love polygon (polyline? graph?). Truly a classic. Everybody is doing it and nobody is happy.
Because… approving of romances between two men from the way they reacted to each other on the screen is bigotry? Because I thought it was recognizing two people clearly attracted to each other when I see it?
Seems to me that the bigoted position would be assuming two characters did not have an attraction to each other just because it wasn’t stated overtly. The assumption that every character in Star Trek is 100% heterosexual unless otherwise stated is not exactly a position that accepts queer people as being common in the future.
Assuming two guys that hangout are secretly in a relationship is homophobic. I dont understand how you cant see that. It has to absolutely be intentional ignorance. Asserting that two dudes who have never expressed physical desire toward one another are gay simply because they are close friends is homophobia.
As a gay man, my head canon with Garak and Bashir has always been that Garak was some form of bi/pan/Omni/what have you, and that Bashir was the clueless straight guy that teaches every gay man the valuable lesson that “he’s not into you, you’re just so totally unaccustomed to men being nice and decent”
However, your comments in this thread have convinced me that Garak bangs Bashir nightly.*
Secretly? I never said it was secret. Just because you don’t see them kissing or whatever on screen doesn’t mean it was secret.
Again, assuming every character is heterosexual just because you don’t see them do anything physical with someone except in a heterosexual way while the episode is being shown doesn’t mean they aren’t doing it when you don’t see them or that everyone isn’t aware of it.
For all we know, they were together for at least a year and threw a big one year anniversary party. Why just assume such a thing never happened? We don’t see what happens to anyone on any Star Trek show for more than a total of around 45 minutes at a time, sometimes spread out over weeks.
And, as I said, I know what two people being attracted to each other looks like.
Fuck Rick Berman for a lot of reasons, but I think some people who weren’t alive then don’t realize how deeply unpopular homosexuality was around that time. Still room to grow, but the fact even that homophobia just isn’t the accepted norm now… It’s amazing how much progress we’ve made in my lifetime. Sad and still a coward, but back then Rick was probably 100% correct.
Except ds9 literally rolled during the Queer renaissance, when we got back all the ground we lost due to AIDS. Ffs, Beverley Hills 90210 had more LGBTQ chars than trek.
I don’t agree. Firstly because Roddenberry himself wanted queer representation on TNG in the 80s, but also because there was a lot of precedent with queer characters becoming more normalized on TV going all the way back to the 70s when Billy Crystal played a decent, caring gay man on Soap with toned-down stereotypical mannerisms.
But also, Garak was introduced in 1993. Look how many queer-themed TV episodes had happened in the 90s by then on mainstream shows like Roseanne and L.A. Law. Even gay recurring characters were on TV by then. Roy’s gay son on Wings showed up multiple times and did not fit any gay stereotypes, which was kind of the point of the character. The, again not stereotypical, gay couple that opened the bed and breakfast in Cicely in Northern Exposure debuted in 1991 (the town’s founders were also revealed to be a lesbian couple that year). I already mentioned Roseanne above. Sandra Bernhard’s character, a member of the main cast, came out as gay in 1992.
No disagreements on Rick Berman being a bigot, he was pretty shitty for a lot of other additional reasons too, don’t have to limit to being a homophobe, but… LGBT themes doesn’t mean openly LGBT characters. We did definitely have some, but a lot of those characters lived in the realm of plausible deniability to let them have mass appeal. Publicly, they could just be ‘two roommates’. If you were a rare character who got to be openly gay, you tended to fall victim to the ‘bury your gays’ trope and probably were not long for this world.
Ellen came out in 97, on her show and then in real life, and they responded by slapping a parental advisory warning on her very family friendly show and then cancelling it as soon as they could. It may have made Will & Grace more acceptable though in 98… I feel like that was one of the first shows where they were okay having gay men regularly on US TV, but even then only as long as it was for comedy.
I know we like to put that black and white filter on it and pretend it was a long time ago, but it was a rough time, and a lot more recent than any of us like. Gay sex was technically illegal in over a dozen states until 2003 and a few of the less progressive states hadn’t even had those laws that long. A full 28 states went out of their way to explicitly ban gay marriage, most of them did so in the early 2000s. DS9 had it’s last episode in 1999.
No offense to Stamets and Culber, but the award for best gay couple in Star Trek definitely goes to Bashir and Garak.
Please stop with this nonsense that anytime two guys are good friends they are gay for each other.
It’s not nonsense:
https://screenrant.com/star-trek-ds9-garak-queer-rick-berman-veto/
And I choose to headcanon that we just didn’t see any of the physical affection on screen.
The novel (written by Andrew Robinson) A Stitch in Time also confirms this physical attraction, if not specific examples of physical affection.
The Garak -> Bashir -> O’Brien -> Keiko -> Worf -> Jadzia -> Kira -> Odo -> Changeling Orgy love polygon (polyline? graph?). Truly a classic. Everybody is doing it and nobody is happy.
Wait, Bashir liked O’Brien?
I thought nobody liked O’Brien, not even his wife. That is why he was in the jeffreys tubes and teleporter rooms so often.
Well O’Brien did say he preferred Julian to Keiko
That’s unfair. But yes, Bashir was absolutely Mile’s bromate.
Whatever you need to tell yourself to excuse your bigotry and homophobia.
Sorry… how is it either bigoted or homophobic to go against Berman’s “no gay people on Star Trek” edict and agree with the actor who played the role?
Garak can absolutely be a gay character. Insisting that there was a sexual romance between the two is homophobic and bigoted.
Because… approving of romances between two men from the way they reacted to each other on the screen is bigotry? Because I thought it was recognizing two people clearly attracted to each other when I see it?
Seems to me that the bigoted position would be assuming two characters did not have an attraction to each other just because it wasn’t stated overtly. The assumption that every character in Star Trek is 100% heterosexual unless otherwise stated is not exactly a position that accepts queer people as being common in the future.
Assuming two guys that hangout are secretly in a relationship is homophobic. I dont understand how you cant see that. It has to absolutely be intentional ignorance. Asserting that two dudes who have never expressed physical desire toward one another are gay simply because they are close friends is homophobia.
As a gay man, my head canon with Garak and Bashir has always been that Garak was some form of bi/pan/Omni/what have you, and that Bashir was the clueless straight guy that teaches every gay man the valuable lesson that “he’s not into you, you’re just so totally unaccustomed to men being nice and decent”
However, your comments in this thread have convinced me that Garak bangs Bashir nightly.*
Homophobic indeed. What bullshit.
Edited to reword slightly
Secretly? I never said it was secret. Just because you don’t see them kissing or whatever on screen doesn’t mean it was secret.
Again, assuming every character is heterosexual just because you don’t see them do anything physical with someone except in a heterosexual way while the episode is being shown doesn’t mean they aren’t doing it when you don’t see them or that everyone isn’t aware of it.
For all we know, they were together for at least a year and threw a big one year anniversary party. Why just assume such a thing never happened? We don’t see what happens to anyone on any Star Trek show for more than a total of around 45 minutes at a time, sometimes spread out over weeks.
And, as I said, I know what two people being attracted to each other looks like.
Fuck Rick Berman for a lot of reasons, but I think some people who weren’t alive then don’t realize how deeply unpopular homosexuality was around that time. Still room to grow, but the fact even that homophobia just isn’t the accepted norm now… It’s amazing how much progress we’ve made in my lifetime. Sad and still a coward, but back then Rick was probably 100% correct.
Except ds9 literally rolled during the Queer renaissance, when we got back all the ground we lost due to AIDS. Ffs, Beverley Hills 90210 had more LGBTQ chars than trek.
I don’t agree. Firstly because Roddenberry himself wanted queer representation on TNG in the 80s, but also because there was a lot of precedent with queer characters becoming more normalized on TV going all the way back to the 70s when Billy Crystal played a decent, caring gay man on Soap with toned-down stereotypical mannerisms.
But also, Garak was introduced in 1993. Look how many queer-themed TV episodes had happened in the 90s by then on mainstream shows like Roseanne and L.A. Law. Even gay recurring characters were on TV by then. Roy’s gay son on Wings showed up multiple times and did not fit any gay stereotypes, which was kind of the point of the character. The, again not stereotypical, gay couple that opened the bed and breakfast in Cicely in Northern Exposure debuted in 1991 (the town’s founders were also revealed to be a lesbian couple that year). I already mentioned Roseanne above. Sandra Bernhard’s character, a member of the main cast, came out as gay in 1992.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_1990s_American_television_episodes_with_LGBT_themes
Berman was just a bigot.
No disagreements on Rick Berman being a bigot, he was pretty shitty for a lot of other additional reasons too, don’t have to limit to being a homophobe, but… LGBT themes doesn’t mean openly LGBT characters. We did definitely have some, but a lot of those characters lived in the realm of plausible deniability to let them have mass appeal. Publicly, they could just be ‘two roommates’. If you were a rare character who got to be openly gay, you tended to fall victim to the ‘bury your gays’ trope and probably were not long for this world.
Ellen came out in 97, on her show and then in real life, and they responded by slapping a parental advisory warning on her very family friendly show and then cancelling it as soon as they could. It may have made Will & Grace more acceptable though in 98… I feel like that was one of the first shows where they were okay having gay men regularly on US TV, but even then only as long as it was for comedy.
I know we like to put that black and white filter on it and pretend it was a long time ago, but it was a rough time, and a lot more recent than any of us like. Gay sex was technically illegal in over a dozen states until 2003 and a few of the less progressive states hadn’t even had those laws that long. A full 28 states went out of their way to explicitly ban gay marriage, most of them did so in the early 2000s. DS9 had it’s last episode in 1999.
I don’t know what to tell you. I gave you a bunch of examples that predate Garak’s debut on DS9 and a link that had a lot more.