Geordi La Forge: Creep?
Star Trek: The Next Generation is probably my favorite show of all time. It’s at least my favorite sci-fi show. Some day I will do a larger post about what makes it special and why I love it so much. But today I want to focus on one character in particular: Geordi La Forge.
Portrayed by the incomparable Levar Burton (the Reading Rainbow guy) Geordi was one of the few Black representations in the Star Trek universe. He was also physically different from his crewmates, having been born blind. That fancy visor you see across his face allows him to see a lot more than we can with our human eyes. But relying upon a piece of technology for sight has its own set of challenges and the show explored this in many episodes. Because of this, it pains me to write this post because I don’t want to throw stones at someone who represented disabled Black people on TV. Not to mention he wasn’t some slapsticky, wise-cracking, one-line nod to diversity. He was intelligent, accomplished, and often the hero of the show. Was he the first example where his disability wasn’t used as a joke or punchline? I can’t think of one but honestly, I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night so I could be forgetting someone.
But we need to talk about his sometimes creepy behavior.
I’ve been rewatching the series again and loving pretty much every minute of it. The first two seasons, when Gene Roddenberry’s influence was more obvious, are a little… uncomfortable at times. For all his progressive thinking, Gene would often have very pervy notions of the future. The female uniforms, for instance, were not equivalent to the men’s. Beginning in the Original Series, while men got to wear pants (you know, something you might want whilst battling aliens) women wore short skirts. They were also skin-tight. To be fair, in the first two seasons of TNG, the men’s unis were also very tight. But perhaps no one felt this more than the ship’s counselor, Deanna Troi. The actress who portrayed her, Marina Sirtis, has been pretty open about how her costume being so revealing added pressure on her to stay thin, leading to an eating disorder. Gene also wanted her character to have four breasts. So yeah, pretty pervy.
One of the throughlines for the character of Geordi was that he struggled to talk to women. Not unusual for the character intended to represent the smart, nerdy guy. He struggled so much that it took an energy beam from an alien just for him to find the courage to speak to one he crushed on hard, the insanely attractive and woman who kickstarted my journey through puberty, Julie Warner.
Geordi’s creepiest incident involved the holodeck. To be fair, he was far from the creepiest user of the holodeck. That honor belongs to Lt. Reginald Barkley, who created multiple fantasy worlds where he could physically dominate the male members of the crew while sexing up the female ones. I just hoped he wiped it down when he was done.
In an episode where the Enterprise gets stuck in a booby trap and cannot move, Geordi needs the help of someone who helped create and design the ship’s engines. Enter Dr. Leah Brahms. By using a combination of her published research, public speeches, and personnel files from Star Fleet, the computer creates a simulation of her on the holodeck to make it easier for Geordi to try and solve the crisis. He does, of course. But does our man Geordi also fall in love with a simulation of this woman? You bet your warp engines he does.
A few episodes later, the real Dr. Leah Brahms comes on board and Geordi kind of loses it. He’s at turns excited and confused because the real one doesn’t act, behave, or treat him like the holodeck version. Which… duh. For a genius, he sure has a few blind spots. Maybe desperate is the better word. Geordi doesn’t help his case when he keeps acting like he knows her by recounting specific facts about her, including her favorite food. This is where the creepiness really comes to a head. In an effort to romance her and make his virtual fantasy real, he invites her to his quarters to talk about work. When she arrives, he’s made her dinner and has the lights low. He’s also got on what can best be described as sexy pajamas.
Dr. Brahms was NOT expecting this, as you can see from her uncomfortable expression. She grows suspicious of him and eventually seeks out some answers. Her search leads her to find the holodeck program Geordi made of her. It gets… a little awkward.
Yeah. And to make matters worse, Geordi gaslights her into thinking that she’s the one being unreasonable. I can’t imagine a worse holodeck violation than someone constructing a virtual copy of me and then using it as they saw fit. Aren’t there rules about this? And despite his protestations, it WAS a sexual thing for him. So to recap, he created a copy of a real woman, learned everything he could about her, then used that information to try and manipulate her into falling in love with him. And then when he got caught he reacted like every post in the r/NiceGuys thread on Reddit.
One of the things I love about ST: TNG is how much depth and complexity they give their characters. No one is perfect. They all make mistakes. And while I don’t want to excuse his behavior here, Geordi did have innocent intentions when he started down this road. It’s just that he forgot to get off before crazy town. And since it was the early 90s, the woman got blamed for being an uptight bitch and not bedding Geordi. That’s not really the character’s fault and more a reflection of why it’s always good to have a diverse writing staff. Pretty sure a woman in the room would have been like “ummm, maybe let’s not have him do this.”
So is Geordi a creep? Yeah. But he’s also a lot of other things too. We shouldn’t judge him off this one incident. And I’m pretty sure he learned his lesson. I just wish he never had to in the first place because it really does take away from what he truly represents to millions of people across the world.