Discovery Trailer

[Water Bob]

I just read the novelization of Star Trek The Motion Picture, written by Gene Roddenberry, himself, an he explores the idea of Kirk and Spock being lovers. They aren't, though Roddenberry says that some suspect them. The idea is revealed in Kirk's thoughts (it's the the Admiral's preface, IIRC), and the way it's written, Kirk is not appalled by the idea. He just prefers women.

This was written in the late 70's.

 

[Hussar]

Good grief.

Culber's death is a HUGE character building moment for pretty much every character. It reverberates throughout the series. What? Because the character is gay we're not allowed to have anything bad happen to them now? No, that's crap. The character was killed, not because he was gay, but, because it was a major dramatic event for the show.

I mean, I'm suprised [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] isn't more concerned with the earlier death of the tactical officer. After all, they killed off the first female tactical officer in Star Trek. Isn't that a big deal too? And they certainly killed her off with a lot less fanfare than Culber's death.

Why is killing off a love interest in a drama a bad thing? It happens pretty darn often and it's pretty much par for the course and has been in drama for centuries. Spinning this as an automatic negative and trying to imply that the character was killed because he was gay is a complete misreading of the work and deliberately misleading.

I mean, you're not even using the trope right. The trope that you link to states that

f the said character was killed by a villain, this guarantees to become a motivation for a Revenge plot or an immediate Roaring Rampage of Revenge.

Yet, there's no revenge plot. None. Stamets isn't consumed by revenge or even anger really. Sure, he doesn't like Voq/Ash, but, he doesn't actually do more than show some pretty understandable anger.

Again, look, I get that you don't like the show, but, sheesh, you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to find justifications.

 

[Jester David]

Good grief.

Culber's death is a HUGE character building moment for pretty much every character. It reverberates throughout the series. What? Because the character is gay we're not allowed to have anything bad happen to them now? No, that's crap. The character was killed, not because he was gay, but, because it was a major dramatic event for the show.

I mean, I'm suprised [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] isn't more concerned with the earlier death of the tactical officer. After all, they killed off the first female tactical officer in Star Trek. Isn't that a big deal too? And they certainly killed her off with a lot less fanfare than Culber's death.

Why is killing off a love interest in a drama a bad thing? It happens pretty darn often and it's pretty much par for the course and has been in drama for centuries. Spinning this as an automatic negative and trying to imply that the character was killed because he was gay is a complete misreading of the work and deliberately misleading.

I mean, you're not even using the trope right. The trope that you link to states that



Yet, there's no revenge plot. None. Stamets isn't consumed by revenge or even anger really. Sure, he doesn't like Voq/Ash, but, he doesn't actually do more than show some pretty understandable anger.

Again, look, I get that you don't like the show, but, sheesh, you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to find justifications.

Culber was one of the first openly gay characters in Star Trek. (Tied with Stamets.) And they immediately killed him. So Stamets would feel bad. That's uncool. That is the definition of fridging: killing a loved one just to rouse emotion and cause drama.
Again, the murder of queer characters is endemic to TV. It shouldn’t be done lightly. It's super loaded.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/06/30/queerbaiting-bury-your-gays-tv_a_23005000/
Killing Culber shows a lack of though and absence of judgment from the producers.

As a character moment, it was irrelevant to every other character. It didn't affect Tyler whose story would have worked identically with just the attempted murder of Burnham, which he seemed much more broken up over. And the narrative would have worked just as well had Tyler bludgeoned Culber into a coma from which he eventually awoke.

I'm not alone in this criticism. (Google “Discovery bury gays”) There was so much the show runners gave interviews on the death, saying it wasn't the end. Spoilers: it was. They lied. Just like they lied when they said they were going to explain the change of Klingons.

It was just cheap shock.

Look, I get it, you like the show. But sheesh, you’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to find defenses.

 

[Hussar]

Killing a love interest character isn't automatically fridging. The point of fridging is that the character is killed in a particularly gruesome way in order to drive a revenge plotline.

Culber wasn't killed in any sort of gruesome way. Terrible yes, but, not gruesome. It's not like Voq went Hannibal Lechter on him. He broke his neck because he wanted to silence the doctor and hide his Klingon background. He had an in-character reason to kill Culber that had nothing to do with Stammets. That, right there, makes it not fridging.

And the scene with Ash in the mess hall after returning and his secret coming out had virtually nothing to do with Michael. It was about showing empathy and mercy. And it was about Culber. After all, no one on Discovery knew that Ash had tried to kill Michael. It was all hushed up. So, yes, the death of Culber had ripples all through the show. And it certainly wasn't "fridging", regardless of how you want to spin it.

I'd point out too that it wasn't done to make Stammets feel bad. Stammets doesn't go all revengy on anyone. He doesn't hate Klingons. He probably does hate Ash, but, again, doesn't do anything about it. It's a pretty believable reaction when Ash tries to apologize to Stammets.

Meh, people are just looking for stuff to bitch about. The season finale was about as solid of a Trek ending as you could possibly have. Well done them.

 

[Jester David]

Revenge is just one aspect of the Women in Refrigerator trope. The TV tropes page even tacks an “if” to the start of the sentence:
If the said character was killed by a villain, this guarantees to become a motivation for a Revenge plot or an immediate Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
Tyler wasn't a villain.

Also, the origin of the trope comes from: “a list of fictional female characters who had been "killed, maimed or depowered", in particular in ways that treated the female character as merely a device to move a male character's story arc forward, rather than as a fully developed character in her own right”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Refrigerators

Culber fills that role. His purpose in the show was to die. He was a doctor not to fill that role in the ship, but so he could be in that situation to be killed by Tyler. He was a disposable character created to serve as a motivator for Stamets.
And by choosing to also make that character gay, Culber is added to the loooooooong list of mistreated LGBTQ characters on television.

It is a pretty huge flaw in the planning of the show, and the producers downplayed and dismissed the concerns of the fans and the LGBTQ community. That is not good.

 

[Mallus]

Killing Culber shows a lack of though and absence of judgment from the producers.

There was so much the show runners gave interviews on the death, saying it wasn't the end. Spoilers: it was. They lied.

It is a pretty huge flaw in the planning of the show, and the producers downplayed and dismissed the concerns of the fans and the LGBTQ community.

A few things...

Aaron Harberts is one of Discovery's two showrunners. He is a married gay man. Bryan Fuller, who helped create and design the show is a gay man. Antony Rapp and Wilson Cruz, who play Stamets and Culber, are gay men. They are part of the LGBTQ community. You can (and should, if that's your opinion!) criticize their work as seen on screen. But to accuse them of collectively "not thinking about" issues related to gay representation sure looks like baseless & unfair criticism to me. This carries the implication they are somehow outside the community they are obviously a part of. That's a particularly nasty --and personal-- line of attack that's getting all too common in our Hot Take media culture.

As for their "lying"... we'll see what happens in season 2. As of yesterday Wilson Cruz was tweeting the story of Stamets & Culber isn't over. I see no reason to accuse an actor I've liked since My So-Called Life and don't know from Adam of lying. But hey, maybe it's the socially responsible thing to do!

Then there's simply evaluating the show outside the ready framework of a TVTropes page. There were two (or maybe three) romantic relationships in Disco season 1: Stamets/Culber and Burnham/Tyler (and kinda L'Rell/Voq). All of them were, to varying degrees, tragic. Of them, the most positive and simply sweet was Stamets/Culber. That should count for something (unless we reduce all criticism to a TVTropes entry or a meme).

To be honest, I had problems with Culber's death, too. Mainly because I like Wilson Cruz. I admit I felt ambivalence because I'm aware "Bury Your Gays" is a thing. I don't think his death was handled poorly. But I found myself thinking "what will woke Twitter think of this?" and I'm not comfortable too with that, either. Admittedly, it's tricky. I think the best we can do is focus on the work, and not cast aspersions on the creative team.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I think the best we can do is focus on the work, and not cast aspersions on the creative team.

I think the least we can do is not cast aspersions on the creative team...

 

[Mallus]

I think the least we can do is not cast aspersions on the creative team...

Thanks for saying it better than me!

 

[Jester David]

*sigh*
It's not worth discussing this show anymore. The show could have Burnham kicking puppies for an hour and its fans would still defend it. It can do no wrong. There's literally no point to continuing the discussion.

 

[Morrus]

*sigh*
It's not worth discussing this show anymore. The show could have Burnham kicking puppies for an hour and its fans would still defend it. It can do no wrong. There's literally no point to continuing the discussion.

That’s literally how those who like it feel.

Internet = broken.