ST:TNG The Offspring

[beccaelizabeth]

I have watched ten minutes of this episode and have to stop and be annoyed.

They've just created Lal, and what's its first lesson in how to be a person?

LAL: Gender female.
TROI: That's right, Lal. Just like me.
LAL: Gender male.
DATA: Correct.
LAL: I am gender neuter. Inadequate.
DATA: That is why you must choose a gender, Lal, to complete your appearance.

How many assumptions packed in to there?
They take Lal to the holodeck and choose between several thousand different appearances, from multiple species, but what is not an option? Being an android shaped neuter being. Cannot just exist, must imitate, within a binary structure where the first most important thing is gender.

And then that gender is for life?

Why?

It's terrible science fiction and deeply annoying on the level of unexamined assumptions. They have the technology to change every aspect of their appearance as often as they wish, Lal more than anyone, but they start Lal off by saying to pick one fixed appearance for life, off a set menu. Gah!



First time I watched it none of this even vaguely occurred to me. I grew up with the same 'of course' sets. It's just wrong.

Comments

[frith]

Isn't that what identity is? A fixed appearance? And is changing your appearance, like when wearing a mask, an attempt to hide or change your identity? It's easier for us to identify Lal if it has a fixed appearance. It would be antisocial, at least for humans, if only Lal knew who it was.

The whole gender thing is bogus. A sexless android should not be compelled to ape that sexist subtext.

[beccaelizabeth]

Appearance is not fixed in biological beings.

I don't look like I did five, ten, fifteen years ago. There are changes in appearance that are considered significant and changes that are not. Changes in clothes and hair are considered insignificant to identity in most circumstances, until they impact on gender or possibly race. Extensive changes to face and body shape are already possible and not necessarily considered an attempt to change identity. Which markers are significant is interesting.

Also, since I'm mostly an online person, it felt like a weird question, like asking if changing your avatar or icon means changing your identity. It can, or it could mean you're wearing someone different today.

Identity needs to be continuous to remain the same person, but not fixed. You can wear as many masks as you want and still be yourself.

[beccaelizabeth]

PS I bet you are not from Doctor Who fandom
11 bodies and counting

[frith]

Dr. Who's identity is the Tardis and his sonic screwdriver. 8^)

As for appearance altering with age and clothes, there are facial aspects which remain recognizable, even to the extent that fathers are able to recognize their own features in their infant offspring. Thus I reiterate that identity is fixed in human beings, barring extensive cosmetic surgery to the face (à la Michael Jackson).

Role playing, acting and multiple accounts with different usernames are ways that people adopt to change or mask their identity. When people comment on my journal as "Anonymous" (usually because OpenID is 'too much trouble') and they don't leave a signature, I don't know who left the comment. They know who they are, but from my perspective, "Anonymous" is some kind of androgynous collective mind. Shell accounts are not much different, which is why people go to pains to explain that 'this' account is the same person as 'that' account.

My online identity is the content of my journal and what I post in forums. As with my face, my journal is part recognizable pattern, part sanitized echo of what is really going on in my mind.

Troy and Data were telling Lal that it needed to ape the ape to achieve a self. They were telling it that a machine can only be a glorified facsimile (Data took pains to rub our noses in this the whole series through). By aping an ape, Lal becomes identifiable and predictable. In the end, Lal's identity is for our benefit, not for Lal's.

[jumpuphigh]

That never occurred to me when watching either but I haven't watched TNG in many, many, many years. Now, just reading that dialogue makes me cringe.

[baronjanus]

Classic good ol' media, pushing in the binary and the hegemony. Ugh. "Inadequate" yo mama, stupid writers.

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods*

[aurorra.livejournal.com]

And then that gender is for life?

Why?


A: So at some point it can have sex with someone to give the core audience of American men a thrill.

[beccaelizabeth]

in this episode it was so she could kiss someone for LOLs, but yeah, there's some of that.