fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2804 ]

[ SECRET POST #2804 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2804 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

__________________________________________________

08.

__________________________________________________

09.

__________________________________________________

10.

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 064 secrets from Secret Submission Post #401.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 2 - unrelated .gifs ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I see the whole Roddenberry and the "t'hy'la" thing as unintentional on his part, or as a wink/shout-out to all the K/S shippers. It's ridiculous to say he was 'baiting' or 'taunting' them, or that he was legitimizing the canon interpretation that Kirk and Spock could be gay. Fans read into things way too much, my god.

How…how could it be unintentional?

He'd been asked about K/S before and hadn't expressed any negativity towards it-so at the very least he was aware of its existence. And he didn't HAVE to include the definition of lover at all.

I don't think he was baiting or taunting, but I don't see why thinking that he included it to say that K/S is a valid reading of the show/films (note, not the ONLY valid reading) is reading too much into it.

Roddenberry specifically CREATED a word to describe Kirk and Spock's relationship and included "lover" as one of the definitions -- how is thinking that them as a couple is a legitimate interpretation "reading too much into it"?

Thinking of them that way is not reading too much into it, but thinking that Roddenberry purposely sat down and thought "how can I come up with a word that will validate these shippers' preferences without going 'they're totally gay'?" IS probably reading too much into it.

anon who wrote first comment

That is exactly what I mean. If Roddenberry had dropped any other hints about K/S, I might have been more apt to believe he actually was dropping hints. But I don't think he ever saw them as more than friends, and probably never really thought about them being gay, even if he was aware of the fan subculture.

This is why I try avoid the crazy shipping spaces in fandom. It all just gets too crazy and delusional.

See, I don't think he was validating the shippers, but I do think there's a good chance that he was validating K/S as an idea. The timing is just interesting to me -- the book released after Milk's assassination. The inclusion of a rainbow on the cover (which became a prominent LGBT symbol in 1978). The setting of San Francisco. Comparing Kirk and Spock's feelings to the fires of Pon Farr.

I don't think Roddenberry was throwing a bone to the shippers so much as he was saying -- yeah, these guys could very well be gay/bisexual/pansexual and it's not a big deal. They'd still be the same people at the core.

ayrt
I do think there's a good chance that he was validating K/S as an idea
Ah, well that's more of valid interpretation I can believe. I'm used to fans (like the fan who did the "Shipper's Closet" thing) who believe that it's a valid canon interpretation that K/S were gay.

I'm not sure what the difference is to be honest.

I think K/S is pretty canon-consistent and I think Roddenberry showed he had no real issues with it.

Or do you mean the people who claim that K/S was a thing the writers were pushing since day 1?

THAT I don't agree with (although I do think there were a few moments, here and there, that are kind of suspicious -- like the back rub scene given that it was written by a man who flat-out wrote LGBT characters).

I think K/S is one of those things where, if you want to see them as a romantic pair, you have an enormous wealth of evidence to back it up. But if you don't want to, you don't have to either. But I don't think the show itself was ever written with the intention of them being a couple.

I'm not sure what the difference is to be honest.
The difference is "I'm ok with you fans imagining Kirk and Spock as gay" vs "It's a total valid canon interpretation that Kirk and Spock are gay".

Well…they're not gay considering they both show interest in women but I don't see how Kirk/Spock would be against canon. I mean, it's canon-consistent. I'm not arguing it's intentional or that it's irrefutable (it's not a canon fact, like Spock being half-human half-Vulcan, is) but I do think it's a valid interpretation.

But that's like saying "two men can't have a close loving relationship without it being gay".
For the record, I do believe that homosexuality can purposely be conveyed through literature through subtext (see Wilde and something like Dorian Gray). I just don't believe that was ever the case for Kirk and Spock, and the creators of Star Trek (if you exclude original paperback writers like Della Van Hise).
I enjoy the K/S ship myself. But I can ship them without believing that it was canon. We'll have to agree to disagree.

But…I said it's only a valid *interpretation.* Moreover, seeing K/S as canon doesn't mean you see Kirk/McCoy or McCoy Spock or Kirk/Scotty or whatever else as a valid interpretation. And Kirk and McCoy's relationship is definitely close and loving as well I think you'll agree.

I don't think the TV series had PURPOSEFUL homosexuality (although I do have my doubts about Sturgeon given that he did write LGBT science fiction) but I don't think that precludes K/S from being a valid interpretation -- especially because the movies take place over so many years (up into the early 90s) and thus attitudes towards homosexuality were changing.

Note that I don't require it to be canon to ship it, but I don't think that fans who believe that Roddenberry himself eventually came to see the couple as a legitimate possibility are delusional.

Ok, I do think interpreting Spock and Kirk as romantically involved is valid, as well as any other ship(I ship them all, honestly) but I don't think you could ever say that "Kirk and Spock are an example of a gay couple in popular media because I interpret them that way". (I've always headcannoned Kirk as bisexual/pansexual, but I could never list him as an example of a fictional lgbt character.)

I think the part we disagree on is with Roddenberry seeing Kirk and Spock as a couple. Hrm.

Well, they're not canon. They're canon-compliant though, I'd say.

Although I should clarify that I don't think Roddenberry sees them as a couple. Just that he was chill with the fans who did and threw in t'hy'la to note that it was a valid interpretation but one that you didn't necessarily have to buy into.

Which is why I meant it was also likely a wink/shout-out to the K/S shippers. Sure, you can claim that it was Roddenberry giving the fans 'permission' to canonically interpret Kirk and Spock as gay, but I honestly doubt that was the case. Outside of the K/S shipping subculture thinking of Kirk and Spock as gay isn't really that big a thing.
(For the record, I like K/S, but the whole 'they are hints that they were canon!' mentality - bullshit.)

See, while I don't think that Kirk and Spock were ever written in the TOS TV series that way, I do think, with the popularity of their relationship (platonic and not) that they sort of WERE written as soul mates in films.

There are also some episodes of TOS I question -- like Amok Time and Shore Leave. Namely because Theodore Sturgeon (the writer) DID write science fiction concerning LGBT characters. One of them, The World Well Lost, features a pair pretty similar to Kirk and Spock. Then there's Bianca's Hands which, given that it ends with death by erotic asphyxiation on a wedding night (and considering how Amok Time plays out…) I can't help but feel there were intentional hints put in. In some cases at least.

They were written as soulmates - but platonic, non-romantic/sexual ones.

I can't help but feel there were intentional hints put in. In some cases at least.
Maybe, but that doesn't mean K/S was some kind of covert canon gay relationship that the creators were secretly trying to convey. I wish it was, but it wasn't.

I don't think there's anything that precludes them from being romantic/sexual soul mates though. And I've always seen the inclusion of "lover" as a recognition of that possibility. I don't think you're forced to accept it. But I don't think it's fair to characterize those who see it this way as delusional (unless they insist that you MUST see K/S as canon).

I agree with you that the creators didn't intend K/S to be a thing. With the fandom becoming as large as it did (and their awareness of the slashers), I don't think they had any issue with it or sought to invalidate it, either though.

I think it was a shout-out in a kind of tsk-tsk sort of way. As I recall, the passage that explains the definition of the word says something about how the fact that it can mean "lover" sometimes leads to mistaken interpretations. I got the impression Roddenberry wanted to tell people Kirk and Spock weren't lovers and was trying to be cute about it.

ayrt
I can actually see that. And if I recall, the book also has Kirk addressing the rumors of he and Spock being in a relationship by reaffirming his heterosexuality, and stating that he is only attracted to women. It's a shout-out to the shippers, but it didn't really seem like him giving support to it. I mean I really don't think Gene Rodennberry was as supportive and into the whole K/S thing as shippers want to give him credit for.

This is the quote:

"Editor’s note: The human concept of friend is most nearly duplicated in Vulcan thought by the term t’hy’la, which can also mean brother and lover. Spock’s recollection (from which this chapter has drawn) is that it was a most difficult moment for him since he did indeed consider Kirk to have become his brother. However, because t’hy’la can be used to mean lover, and since Kirk’s and Spock’s friendship was unusually close, this has led to some speculation over whether they had actually indeed become lovers. At our request, Admiral Kirk supplied the following comment on this subject:
“I was never aware of this lovers rumor, although I have been told that Spock encountered it several times. Apparently he had always dismissed it with his characteristic lifting of his right eyebrow which usually connoted some combination of surprise, disbelief, and/or annoyance. As for myself, although I have no moral or other objections to physical love in any of its many Earthly, alien, and mixed forms, I have always found my best gratification in that creature woman. Also, I would dislike being thought of as so foolish that I would select a love partner who came into sexual heat only once every seven years.”"

But it just seems really odd to me how it's phrased. Like the use of "best." Why not "only" if Roddenberry wanted to suggest that Kirk only liked women? Moreover, it doesn't seem as though Vulcans were written as ONLY coming into sexual heat once every seven years.

I guess I don't see why he wouldn't just have Kirk say flat-out, "No, we're not lovers." Why even bring up the concept of t'hy'la in the first place and then IN THE TEXT compare their relationship to the fires of Pon Farr and then have Kirk say that he gets "best gratification" from women. It's just baffling to me to think that he saw this as a way of dissuading the shippers.

Was Roddenberry really leaving cryptic, to-be-decoded messages to K/S shippers though?

No -- I don't think it was for K/S shippers. I think it was there to make sure that if anyone had an issue with the Kirk/Spock relationship and him making the pon farr comparisons and then including the lover thing, he could point to that and let the reader come to their own conclusion.

Granted, maybe it IS K/S shippers reading too much into it, but it just seems like a TON of work to put in to dissuade the shippers and it's SO very likely to backfire. I mean, creating a specific word to describe their relationship and then including the definition of lover? Yeah…

Plus there's other things that just strike me as…well…interesting considering the climate at the time the book was released. The use of San Francisco. The rainbow on the cover. How, in the author's preface, Roddenberry makes it a point to emphasize love as truth.

Then there's the comparisons between Kirk and Spock and Ilia and Captain Decker (their reunions…) and Ilia and Decker are definitely romantically inclined. Ilia bears striking similarities to Spock while Decker is a Captain like Kirk was and they certainly share attributes as well.

I just have a hard time believing he wrote it to dissuade K/S given how it's tied into the story and given the events surrounding the release of the book.

DA
But it just seems really odd to me how it's phrased. Like the use of "best." Why not "only" if Roddenberry wanted to suggest that Kirk only liked women? Moreover, it doesn't seem as though Vulcans were written as ONLY coming into sexual heat once every seven years.

Kirk's tone was supposed to be lighthearted and not defensive, though
like he didn't want to say something against the guys or vulcans but still reiterated that females are his passion

I guess I don't see why he wouldn't just have Kirk say flat-out, "No, we're not lovers."

some people didn't say 'I disagree with you' here but reading the thread you can tell when someone doesn't agree with every point you made.
the beauty of communication is that you can convey a concept or express an opinion beyond the 'yes' and 'no' s and get the point come across anyway.

There was queer sf in the 70s. not a lot but it was there.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2804 ]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject