“I love her, Benjamin!”
“I know you do.”
Ever since the original series, Star Trek has been on the cutting edge of making out.
From one of the first interracial kisses on television to one of the first same-sex kisses,
Trek’s sci-fi setting lets the show predict where humanity is heading.
But there’s a downside to it as well: in the future, queer people can kiss… they
just can’t talk about what that means.
All aboard and welcome to another episode of Matt Baume’s Culture Cruise, where we
take a look at LGBTQ themes in shows, movies, books, games, and more.
On today’s voyage, we’re heading into space -- deep space, with the 1995 episode
of DS9 entitled “Rejoined.”
The episode features television’s first same-sex space kiss, a clever indictment of
the closet, and a magic egg.
[gasp]
The cruise is made possible through the support of folks like Gary Cannon who pledge a dollar
or more a month on Patreon -- click the link in the description or visit Patreon.com/mattbaume
to help support the show.
When it aired in the mid-90s, Deep Space Nine was the queerest installment in the Star Trek
franchise to date.
But for most of its run, the show had only occasional flashes of queer subtext, never
actually addressing same-sex romance.
There was the time Garak cruised Bashir.
"I have a clothing shop nearby.
So if you should require any apparel or simply wish as I do for a bit of enjoyable company
now and then, I’m at your disposal doctor."
Garak’s flirtatiousness is pretty clear in this scene, and the actor Andrew Robinson
said that he wanted to play Garak as pansexual, but the writers just wouldn’t go along with
it.
So his relationship with the doctor remained permanently stuck in a sort of adorable high
school flirtation.
“These are for you.”
“Delavian chocolates!”
Then there’s the episode where a Ferengi woman poses as a man and Dax momentarily thinks
she’s gay.
And the time Mirror-universe Kira got to kiss a girl.
These are only brief glimpses of anything beyond heterosexuality.
But then, smack dab in the middle of season 4, we get the episode “Rejoined,” focusing
entirely on a same-sex romance that culminates in a lesbian kiss, and also a very intense
gaze by some very intense gays.
Here’s the setup: Jadzia Dax is an alien called a Trill, which means that when her
body dies, her consciousness can pass to a new host body.
In this way, she’s able to live for multiple lifetimes and in multiple bodies, thanks to
a giant slug that lives in her belly.
“Quite disgusting, actually.”
Most of the time, that’s no big deal.
“I’ve never let my past lives interfere with my job and I’m not going to start now.”
But that all changes when she has an awkward encounter with an ex.
“You know her?”
“She used to be my wife.”
Dax’s former wife, Lenara Kahn, is also a Trill.
Several lifetimes and several bodies ago, they were married to each other -- back then,
Kahn was in a woman’s body and Dax was in a man’s.
Dax was in a shuttle accident, the host body died, and they lost contact when Dax’s slug
was moved into someone new.
So now that they’ve found each other again, they should be able to pick up from where
they left off, right?
Well, no, that’s against the rules.
“Well it’s more of a taboo.”
Trill society prohibits them from having romantic relationships with partners from past lives.
“And the Trill feel very strongly that it’s unnatural.”
“Unnatural?
How could it be unnatural about a married couple to resume their marriage?”
The punishment for re-associating with a former spouse is steep.
If Dax and Kahn get back together, they’ll be exiled from Trill society, cut off from
family and friends.
They’ll also be prevented from moving to a new host body, so the next time they die,
they’re dead for good.
This is a pretty explicit reference to homosexuality -- a social stigma centered on forbidden love.
Social taboos that force lovers to keep themselves secret.
The threat of being ostracized and sentenced to death because of the person you love.
At first, Dax and Kahn tell each other that they can control their feelings, in a conversation
that should be familiar to any queer person who’s tried to not be queer.
“We’re both mature adults and we can handle this.”
Ah, but can they?
No force in the universe can stand against an intense gaze as we cut to commercial.
Before long, they’re making dates, exchanging jewelry in tight close-ups, and holding hands
while the patriarchy looks on in disapproval.
Things get even steamier out in space, where Kahn’s research into wormholes appears to
produce a sort of intergalactic Georgia O’Keeffe painting.
While all this is going on, there are several almost-kiss teases between the two women.
And it’s important to note what was going on in culture when this episode aired in October
of 1995.
It was smack dab in the middle of a lesbian chic minute that occurred in the mid-90s.
That’s when Ellen was preparing to come out, when Subaru was aggressively marketing
to lesbians, Cindy Crawford gave k.d. lang a shave, Xena premiered… culturally, Americans
were intrigued by lesbians -- not enough to actually give them equal rights, but enough
to tolerate them on the cover of magazines.
And then there was the TV trope known as the “lesbian kiss episode.”
Lesbian kiss episodes were a ploy to inflate ratings by having one-off makeout sessions
between female characters.
Sometimes it was a huge success, like on Roseanne, on LA Law. and sometimes it wasn’t enough
to save a show, like on Relativity.
The lesbian kisses on those episodes usually involved at least one character who wasn’t
actually into it.
And invariably, nothing ever came of the kisses, with the characters never again expressing
any same-sex interest after that one ratings-grabby episode.
They were just a controversial trick to get viewers to tune in during sweeps week, when
ratings determined ad rates for the rest of the year.
So on one hand, these tropes are super-exploitative.
But on the other, they DID provide an opportunity to provide SOME visibility for same-sex couples.
And they laid the groundwork for more substantial representation that would come a decade later,
like Willow and Tara on Buffy.
But in 1995, the maximum lesbianism that TV could tolerate was a little awkward fumbling:
[kissing]
Congratulations to the happy couple!
Except, oh right, the whole taboo thing.
“I want you to think about what will happen if you pursue this.”
Because it’s the 90s, DS9 can’t talk about homosexuality.
So it does the next best thing: creates a metaphor, in the form of their weird slug-based
social taboo.
They’re talking about Trill rules about re-association, but behind their words is
a conversation about two women in love.
“I love her Benjamin.”
“If I were in your position I would probably be just as ready to throw away everything
for the person I love.”
Dax knows how she feels.
She knows what she wants.
She’s ready to back her space U-Haul up to Kahn’s place.
“The two of us together, you know what that would mean.”
“I know exactly what it means.
I think it’s worth the price.”
And remember, that price is pretty high.
On the space station, Dax’s friends are supportive.
But in Trill society, hooking up means exile.
Giving up her career, leaving her family.
And eventually, giving up quasi-immortality and confronting death together.
That’s too much for Kahn.
“I want to be with you more than anything, but I don’t think I can do this.”
This is the inevitable conclusion to lesbian kiss episodes -- a reset at the end of the
episode, with everyone going back to heterosexuality the next week.
To DS9’s credit, it didn’t go as far as other shows that tended to kill gay characters
in the last act.
There’s no conclusion that the relationship is deadly or even immoral.
Just that it’s forbidden, and the social cost is so high it forces the two lovers apart.
DS9 had an opportunity to do an episode about same-sex relationships, and they went for
it.
And because it’s a sci-fi show, they were able to go further than LA Law or Roseanne,
and actually talk about the social stigma around homosexuality.
By setting up an analogy with the Trill taboo, they could devote a whole episode to homophobia,
and how irrational it is, and the harm that it causes.
But there’s also a downside to that approach.
Once you opt for a metaphor, you’re committed.
The metaphor breaks if you say what it’s really about.
So everyone on DS9 can talk about Trill taboos, and past lives, and belly-slugs.
But they can’t say anything about how this is a relationship between two women.
Making the characters space-lesbians lets the show approach the cutting edge of queer
television, referencing homosexuality before other shows could.
But it also ties the show’s hands, preventing them from acknowledging what they’re actually
talking about.
For over 50 years, Star Trek’s been using sci-fi to tackle racism, war, slavery -- all
manner of social issues, through the lens of the future.
That DS9 could tackle a same-sex couple is particularly groundbreaking, given the time
it was made.
It’s disappointing that Dax didn’t get the romance she wanted.
But at the time, Trill society just wasn’t ready.
And neither was broadcast television.
Land ho!
We're pulling into port -- thanks for joining me, and thanks to everyone who makes the Culture
Cruise possible with your pledge of a dollar or more a month on Patreon -- folks like Cameron
Brown.
You can visit Patreon.com/mattbaume or click the link in the description to help make the
show possible.
Let me know in the YouTube comments what culture you'd like to visit on future episodes.
Or tweet at me @mattbaume -- I read all the comments and I love hearing your thoughts.
Now if you'll excuse me, I just got a woof from Worf.