By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 22 seconds ago

Now that Starfleet Academy has been canceled, its fans have been fondly reminiscing about what they see as the show’s better qualities. Arguably, the best thing about the show was its colorful characters, whose diversity reflected the ideals of Star Trek as a whole. However, some critics felt the show went a little too far with Jay-Den, the gay, pacifist Klingon. Accordingly, this became another culture war flashpoint, with SFA superfans claiming that anyone who dislikes Jay-Den’s portrayal is just a bigot who never really understood what this franchise was about. 

The truth is, there was a problem with this character’s portrayal, but not in the way the show’s biggest fans or its biggest haters could have guessed. You see, there’s nothing wrong with Starfleet Academy prominently featuring the first gay Klingon in Star Trek history. But the writers went about Jay-Den’s characterization in such a way that the show’s most progressive character accidentally became the most offensive. 

The Accidental Caricature

Ironically enough, one of the reasons that Jay-Den became the most offensive character on Starfleet Academy is that the writers kept putting hats on top of hats to make him a uniquely progressive character. You see, he’s not just a gay Klingon, but he’s also an aspiring nurse who is a complete pacifist. Oh, and his parents are polyamorous (today was a good day for monogamy to die). 

When I first heard that the new Star Trek show would feature a gay Klingon character, I assumed it would be a more traditional, Worf-like Klingon who is simply into dudes rather than gals. Making the character an aspiring medical officer was a confusing choice, but it still made a kind of sense; after all, a warrior culture like the Klingons must have battlefield medics. But then the writers made Jay-Den a Klingon pacifist (completely unheard of in previous lore), put him in a skirt, and did the shocked Pikachu face at the fact that old-school Trek fans disliked him.

Hello, Nurse!

Starfleet Academy made Jay-Den completely different from other Klingons in every way except his face. This is, understandably, offensive to Star Trek fans who expected him to act like a Klingon rather than simply look like one. But it’s also arguably offensive to those expecting a truly progressive character because Jay-Den ended up being weirdly half-baked as a person. He was ultimately nothing more than a set of half-assed progressive signifiers that transformed him into a caricature that leaned on offensive stereotypes.

I would bet my last bar of gold-pressed latinum that the Starfleet Academy writers thought they had struck gold by making Jay-Den the 32nd-century equivalent of a nurse. However, what they failed to consider is that, to 21st-century viewers, the “gay nurse” is actually a very offensive stereotype. It’s rooted in patriarchal, old-school homophobia and assumes that caretaking is a feminine activity. Writers often perpetuate the stereotype by making nurses gay, effectively confirming the homophobic assumption that male nurses can’t be “real” (i.e., heterosexual) men.

In retrospect, I can’t help but think that making a member of Star Trek’s most famous warrior race into a gay pacifist was a decision to play things safe. A hugely muscled, highly aggressive, bloodthirsty warrior who just happened to be gay is the kind of thing that makes people very, very nervous. By making Jay-Den gay and a pacifist and a nurse, Paramount effectively reassured sponsors, execs, and traditional fans (groups comprised mostly of older, white men) that the strong Black character couldn’t hurt them.

The Diversity Is The Character (And Why That’s A Bad Thing)

As I said before, Starfleet Academy is, by certain metrics, the most progressive Star Trek show ever made. Unfortunately, the writers made a pretty crucial mistake with Jay-Den: they made his sexuality and other progressive aspects very nearly the sum total of his character.

To see what I mean, look back at Stamets and Culber, the two most prominent gay characters in Trek before Jay-Den came along. Outside of their (frankly, very cute) scenes together as a couple, you might barely know they were gay because the show largely focused on their responsibilities: one was a doctor, one was an engineer. They were defined by their competence and characterization, and not by sexuality.

Jay-Den, outside of the one episode that focused on his character (the one that sent 99% of Klingons to Hell while giving him the “my parents didn’t understand me” stock gay story), wasn’t really developed as a character. Most of what we got from him was stupid romantic drama (“ooh, will he end up with the bad boy alpha or the adorkable beta?”) or more progressive signifiers (“look, he’s wearing the skirt again!”).

Such a portrayal arguably nullifies the whole point of representing minority groups because Jay-Den doesn’t get to be a real character; he gets to be a collection of stereotypes that make the audience feel good about how progressive they are.

To Explore New Worlds Of Strange

Despite being canceled, Starfleet Academy has a second season already filmed. At this point, one of my biggest hopes for Jay-Den is that he gets better character development in Season 2. But with Jay-Den actor Karim Diané’s recent Instagram declaration that “season 2 is gay AF” and that it will be “season 1 … turned all the way up,” I’m not exactly holding my breath. 

Which is a shame because, once more for the cheap seats, there’s nothing wrong with having a gay Klingon. But the Starfleet Academy writers turned Jay-Den into a caricature rather than a character, one whose substance was buried under layers of cheap skirts and cheaper tropes.

He’s a non-threatening cipher that progressive fans can embrace to showcase their love for diversity. He’s touted as a brave new character, but Jay-Den actually reflects the cowardice of the writers. After all, if they were really ready to give us a gay Klingon, they wouldn’t have taken away everything that makes him a Klingon!

By TeeJay Small
| Published 1 minute ago

Do you recall the 2021 GameStop stock trading story that took over the media and made a bunch of broke college kids thousand-aires overnight? It’s an incredible underdog story, about how the little guys can band together to take on financial behemoths, using the very tools that the billionaire elite employ to keep us down.

If you told that story with a stacked cast including Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Nick Offerman, Sebastian Stan, Vincent D’Onofrio, and more, you might have a certifiable hit on your hands. Unfortunately, the film Dumb Money fails to deliver on any big laughs and reminds me of why movies about internet trends so often miss the mark.

The True Story Behind Dumb Money

In case you missed it, Dumb Money follows the true story of Keith Gill. Gill is a broke financial analyst living in Brockton, Massachusetts, who maintains a middling social media presence discussing low-value stocks with a small group of would-be day traders.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gill’s channels began to pick up major steam, especially as he bought up cheap shares of GameStop. As Gill reads into the financial reports, he arrives at the conclusion that the big firms are betting on Game Stop to fail, and shorting the stock with the intention of raking in billions from the business’s impending bankruptcy.

Thanks to an army of loyal Reddit users, Gill and his pals manage to fight back against Wall Street and raise the stock price of GameStop significantly. Doing so makes millions for people with pennies and takes billions from companies with hundreds of billions. If you’re not a complete sociopath, you should see it as a win-win for every party. Sure, the billionaires lose a fraction of a percent of their wealth, but they can dry their tears with lobsters on the decks of their massive yachts.

Reddit Forums Are Not Interesting

I wasn’t actively part of the GameStop stock push in 2021, but I did follow it as it took place. I was super excited to see Dumb Money when it released just a few years later, but I ultimately left the film extremely disappointed. As it turns out, it’s really hard to make a movie engaging or visually interesting when 90 percent of the action takes place on Reddit forums. The result is roughly 100 minutes of watching Paul Dano shout “holy shit” while sitting in a gamer chair, or watching America Ferrera make shocked expressions at her cell phone.

Dumb Money is also loaded with random, unnecessary, and downright obnoxious needle drops. The narrative hardly progresses for five minutes at a time without some licensed pop song stopping the action so we can watch people dance around pointlessly. Look, I’m not a monster, I enjoy Kendrick Lamar‘s “Humble” as much as anyone. But if I wanted to watch 6 music videos back-to-back, I’d be on YouTube, not Hulu. My estimate is that the team behind Dumb Money realized they didn’t have enough story to make a feature film and relied on these musical portions to pad the runtime.

Has Craig Gillespie Ever Met Another Human Being?

To further that point, it seems like director Craig Gillespie really struggled to juggle the moving parts behind this story. Sure, Keith Gill is the centerpiece of the narrative, but all the side characters feel more like cameo appearances than supporting performances. Nick Offerman’s character is meant to loom over the movie like a video game final boss, but he gets only about 5 minutes of screen time. Seth Rogen was all over the trailer for Dumb Money, but in the narrative, he has practically nothing to do. The two college girls created for the film are portrayed so obnoxiously that it makes me wonder if Craig Gillespie has ever met another human being in his entire life.

Personally, I’d skip this movie, but if you’re interested in checking it out for yourself, Dumb Money is streaming on Hulu. My best advice would be to throw it on while you’re cooking, cleaning, or looking at your phone. That way, you can soak up the interesting parts without committing to an hour and 44 minutes of Pete Davidson lip-syncing.

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 1 hour ago

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a show filled with amazing characters, and fans love to debate which one is the best. Many prefer Buffy, the natural leader who uses her abilities as a Slayer to put vamps and other supernatural baddies in their place. Others prefer Willow, the geeky girl next door who eventually embraces her own magical mojo. Other fan-favorites include Spike (the bad boy with slick hair and a slicker accent), Anya (the former demon who loves nothing more than sex and money), and Faith (the sexy Slayer who goes from being Buffy’s frenemy to being her worst nightmare).

Few fans name Cordelia, and for good reason: while she grew as a character once she joined the Angel spinoff, she spends the vast majority of Buffy as a mean girl who does nothing more than disparage the other characters we know and love. After a while, it’s easy to start asking yourself a very blunt question: “why is Cordelia even in this show?” However, the answer is deceptively simple. She’s here as a constant reminder of how much Buffy (who was basically Cordelia before becoming a Slayer) has grown as a character. 

The Softer Side Of Sneers

In those first three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cordelia is seemingly the opposite of Buffy in every way. Buffy is defined by her duty to protect others, and she often misses out on the best parts of her high school days because she is busy fighting vampires. Cordelia, meanwhile, is a spoiled little rich girl who constantly berates Buffy for being so different than pretty much everyone else in Sunnydale High School.

While she gets some fun, sarcastic lines here and there, Cordelia can often feel like a superfluous character. However, she serves a more basic function in Buffy the Vampire Slayer by being an ongoing foil for Buffy. Like all good foils, Cordelia is everything that Buffy isn’t: she’s weak instead of strong, cruel instead of kind, and cowardly instead of brave. Nonetheless, Buffy is sometimes envious of Cordelia, like when she wishes she could be more like the resident mean girl because she thinks that’s the kind of woman Angel liked when he was still a mortal.

The Yin To Buffy’s Yang

Of course, Cordelia is a foil with a very specific purpose: she’s here to highlight how much Buffy has grown as a character since becoming the Slayer. Before Buffy moved to Sunnydale and fully embraced her destiny of fighting vampires, she was a vapid valley girl in Los Angeles. She just wanted to buy cute clothes and enjoy being popular, and she was so good at this that she was eventually elected Fiesta Queen. All of this is supremely shallow, of course. But to Buffy, this was the normal life she had to sacrifice in order to become the Slayer.

The constant presence of Cordelia highlights the significance of Buffy’s sacrifice. Until her family went broke and she had to move to Los Angeles, Cordelia enjoyed all the privileges of being Sunnydale’s most popular girl. All the women want to be her, and all the men want to be with her. She gets what she wants wherever she goes, and she generally gets to rule the school with the indifference of an imperious queen.

She’s A Killer Queen

In short, she has the life that Buffy desperately wants to have. When we see Cordelia sneeringly enjoying the fruits of her popularity, it’s easier to appreciate how Buffy sets her own needs aside for the sake of others. After a while, Buffy grows into her new life, and aside from occasional relapses (like her desperate bid to get elected homecoming queen), she never seriously tries to become a vapid Valley girl again. When we look at Cordelia, we see everything that Buffy is not, which only helps us to appreciate the Slayer’s growth that much more.

Buffy fans might hate Cordelia for being endlessly cruel to their favorite characters. But she is a constant reminder that Buffy, had she never become the Slayer, would be just as bad, if not worse. Greatness was thrust upon Buffy, and she rose to the occasion so well that she ended up saving the entire world, time and time again. Without Cordelia, the fandom might (like so many Sunnydale residents) very well take Buffy’s sacrifices for granted. Thanks to Cordelia, though, we got to spend three years appreciating how Buffy left her childhood behind to save everyone’s life but her own.

If you still really hate Cordelia, though, you should start rewatching Angel. By the end of that show, you’ll realize that nobody hated Sunnydale’s snarkiest Scooby more than Joss Whedon, who proved himself the meanest girl of them all by ruining her character (and, allegedly, Cordelia actor Charisma Carpenter), one insane plot point at a time.