Note: This is a cross-post of a post I made to r/DaystromInstitute on Reddit about Captain Angel in the latest ep of Strange New Worlds. I thought it’d be at home on Tumblr and would love to hear some thoughts from Tumblr Trekkies.
I saw some people opining in the recap thread form last week's episode that they were disappointed in Captain Angel and their heelturn, posing it as bad queer/non-binary representation. And on some level, I'm inclined to agree, but I think this interpretation is also sort of missing the point and skimming the surface, so I'd like to offer an alternate analysis that looks a little deeper into Captain Angel as a person and why their presence - even as a villain - is ultimately a positive for Trek and queer representation in general.
First of all, some background to explain why people take issue with this in the first place for those not as up on queer representation in media. The Queer-Coded Villain (warning: TVTropes) is a trope as old as mass media itself, and somewhat of a tired one at that. Due to the history of portrayal of "sexual deviancy" in media, particularly in Hollywood for most of the 20th century, the only way to portray any kind of queerness in mass media was to show it done by someone who ultimately suffers for it. This, in turn, produced the Queer-Coded Villain, which often plays into stereotypes or moralizes unfairly about queerness to bypass censors at best or be bigoted at worst. Despite this, because there were so few queer characters outside of the QCV, there are many beloved ones that have lingered in the collective consciousness of queer people (for some familiar, recent examples, think Ursula, who was modeled after the (in)famous drag queen Divine, or HIM from the Powerpuff Girls, though beloved queer-coded villains exist for just about any era of media). However, there are many people who believe that we've moved past this trope and that the new trend is and should be positive representation of queer people. After all, if we're always villains and ne'er-do-wells, how are we as queer people going to be seen as good people?
And to the extent that the trope is played out and needs to be changed if not perhaps done away with, I agree. But to suggest that all queer villains are bad representation is not necessarily the right way to approach it. First of all, let's consider what representation is: showing that people of a certain group exist, and showing them authentically (i.e. not as stereotypes or caricatures). While it's important, especially with a group historically maligned by society, to show the positive aspects, queer people are still people, and will still occasionally do bad things. As such, I believe it's facile to simply portray all queer people as universally good.
So let's talk about Captain Angel themself. In spite of their bad actions, are they still good representation? I'd argue yes. For one, they're a pretty well-fleshed out character (as far as a character of the week goes). We get to know something about their motivations, their life, their abilities, their desires. And, most of all, they display a key and important humanizing emotion - love. Even if they go about it in a conniving and flamboyant way, their ultimate goal is to free their lover, Sybok, who they see as being wronged by his people and unfairly imprisoned for trying to be who he wants to be. This alone is a good first step and more than a lot of other media does to portray non-binary or queer characters in general.
And what's more, Angel serves as a foil to Spock - as someone who also finds themselves living outside of a binary but who has decided to embrace it instead of choose a side, though also as someone who is in a tumultuous relationship pulled at by the tension between logic and emotions, but who has decided to side with emotions. Their weight and their relationship to Spock as a character with similar struggles but a different approach contributes to this roundedness, which are essential to good representation. Further, their decision to do bad things (from the Federation's perspective) reads to me more as a person shunned by society who fights back against it to get what they feel they deserve. You don't have to agree with their methods or their tactics, but there's something deeply human about that desire to rebel against something you don't agree with.
I do agree that it is frustrating to see queer people - non-binary people in particular - doing nasty things or betraying the heroes. NB people and gender non-conforming people in general are shown often as weird or deviant. We see this kind of thing all too often and it's maddening for a group of people to be boiled down to some stereotypes and vilified for them. But I don't think this particular character is a lazy attempt by the writers to make a villain more villainous by making them queer, as it often is. I think it was likely a conscious choice to show a complex character with a core aspect of their identity as a third choice in a false binary, which is ultimately what the episode was about thematically. Having a non-binary character - and one who is quite outwardly and confidently so - be the one to tell Spock that he shouldn't have to struggle with the false dichotomy of being Human or Vulcan and that there's another way you can choose for yourself only strengthens these themes and makes the choice of a non-binary character all the more powerful and meaningful, in my opinion.
Now, should they have associated this character with a gang of slave traders? Probably not - that was hamfistedly irresponsible at best and cuts against the character's other good traits enough to be offensive. But having a character from a group that is oppressed in our current time fight against a system and way of thinking they view to be oppressive in a world we're told is utopian is powerful and do so in a way that is deeply integrated with the show and its themes as a whole strengthens the show and shows strength and power, which NB people often lack in our universe. I think that, poor choices aside, it all goes a long way to making Captain Angel a complicated, interesting, strong and good representative of non-binary and queer people in general.
Also, one final note, particularly to the queer readers and allies who are trying their best to support LGBTQ+ Trekkies - ignore the bigots. The people who go around whining about NuTrek being "woke" and "forcing X down our throats" literally do not care about how a character is portrayed. Say what you will about it, but Discovery has given us representation in spades - all of whom are positively portrayed as moral, competent and deeply interested in advancing the ideals of the Federation. Hell, Adira, our first non-binary rep in a main cast, has been shown as intelligent, daring, curious, competent and working for good, but their mere presence on the cast has caused outrage from the complainers. No amount of glowingly unambiguous positive representation will convince the chronic whiners and bigots that non-cishet white male characters are a force for good. Forcing all possible queer characters to pass a purity test is only going to give unrealistic depictions of queer characters, which isn't good representation when it comes down to it, and makes for boring television. It's not to say we shouldn't be critical of how queer characters are portrayed because it still matters to queer and sympathetic viewers, but don't let the bigots have the final say - their opinions and desires don't matter in the long run.
