#terry farrell was another actress labelled difficult when she just wanted to be treated like a human fuck you rick berman

[tuttle-did-it]

I LOVE DS9. I LOVE it. I will always love it. And I love the writers for giving me such a beautiful and intricate show, I love Terry Farrell for fighting to make Jadzia so delightful and fun and queer. But...

(deep breath... incoming rant... sorry. Get a cup of tea and come back. ☕️)

You have to understand-- as a trans person growing up, the only time I had ever seen a positive example of a queer character on television was Bugs Bunny. Every other queer character-- most especially Transgender characters, were killers in crime shows, were dead bodies, were secrets a spouse kept from their partner, were immoral, horrible, mentally ill people. And on the rare occasion they weren't that, they were the butt of the joke because hahah crossdressing is so funny, amirite?

Jadzia Dax was the first person I saw on television who spoke about her past as a man, who spoke with flexibility regarding gender and identity. She was the closest thing I had to affirmation that I was not crazy, evil or a joke as a trans youth that was not allowed to be openly trans at that time. So DS9, for me, was mind-blowing-- all of her friends happily accepted when she would switch pronouns or -- christ-- SHE HAD A WIFE!!! It was possibly the only thing that gave me solace as a little baby trans in an anti-trans world. And everyone just accepted it as a normal, cool thing. It was something that made her better, not hated. It was an HONOUR on her homeworld to be the way she was, not an excuse to send someone to conversion therapy.

This beautiful, wonderful show meant the world to me-- that gave me hope as a little trans person who wasn't allowed to be trans in the world I lived in. And they buried their first queer character. And, to this day, I am not over it. I probably will never be over that.

DS9, you were this beautiful show that had women like Kira who were allowed to be emotional and angry and raw. I'd never seen that before. You had very neuro-diverse characters like Bashir, and everyone came to accept him, despite his quirks. You had what is a very clearly gay relationship between Garak and Bashir, and then Rick Berman, of course, destroyed that. You had a Black Captain who was a wonderful father, and who was allowed to be recognised, to experience how beautiful being Black was, and the traumas of those around you not accepting you for your skin colour. You had a man who loved his wife enough to let her go on her own adventures without holding her back. You had an aro/ace non-binary autistic person trying to deal with emotions and friendship and love for the first time. You had beautiful (trans)women like Jadzia Dax who was intelligent, accepting, fun, and wise. Oh, and communist propaganda. Which was amazing.

How could I not love all of that? How could I not be moved by all of that? How could my world not be completely changed by all of that?

And then it was all set on fire because of the ego of one man.

This beautiful show that built so much also built the shark tank. They put on the water skiis, and jumped the fucking shark for no damned reason, just because a tiny horrible man with a huge ego wanted to one-up a woman who was burnt out and needed a break, and-- more importantly, she dared to report that her boss RICK BERMAN was a misogynistic pig.

Rick Berman is the reason DS9 jumped the shark, and the reason I cannot watch past the episode 'The Sound Of Her Voice.'

FUCK YOU RICK BERMAN.

Terry Farrell was another ~difficult woman (link).~ All my life, I've heard people talk about ~difficult women~ women who are labelled ~difficult~ by men because the women are confidently asking for something they already deserve. Sometimes it's equal pay, sometimes it's a bit of time off, and sometimes it's just basic fucking respect.

Example: Gillian Anderson was ~difficult~ for complaining that they offered her HALF the money David Duchovny was offered to return to The X-Files. When they did the continuation, GILLIAN was the star power, not Duchovny. Gillian was the one with all the awards (Baftas, Emmys, SAG, multiple Critics Awards) and the starring role in several movies, plays and a LOT of great tv shows like The Fall and Hannibal. Duchovny had one crappy tv show Californication and bit roles-- he had NOTHING. But HE was offered twice as much. And Gillian was ~difficult~ for asking what she deserved.

Terry Farrell was NOT difficult. She didn't demand anything absurd. She WANTED to stay on DS9. She just wanted a little time off to deal with her burn out, and to not have to deal with the misogynistic dick that was Rick Berman all the time. That's it. That's really all she was asking for, as far as I can tell. But because of this, Terry was labelled ~difficult~.

I was in Hollywood at this time. I remember hearing the rumblings-- Terry was ~difficult~ so they fired her from DS9. Terry was ~difficult~ so they fired her from Becker. Terry was ~difficult~ and should leave Hollywood, the rumblings said. The rumblings lied. How dare a woman ask for recovery time? How dare a woman report her misogynistic boss?

DS9 suffered irrevocably after they killed Jadzia Dax. As far as I'm concerned, they broke the show completely, and never did recover. It never could recover. It was a terrible shark jump-- and the moment they killed her, it wasn't just her character that died, but my love for the show. And they were to blame. They did it to themselves, they did it to Terry, and they did it to us.

Terry Farrell is going to do a watch of DS9 with Armin Shimerman and the Delta Flyer boys. And I hope Terry does not hold back about the betrayal of them killing off Star Trek's first canon queer main character, the first positive image of a gender-queer character I had ever seen on television (besides Bugs Bunny) , and a powerful, intelligent, hilarious and FUN STEM woman who was a symbol to queer and trans children in that era. I want them both to spill everything about the behind the scenes happenings.

(And I hope Armin doesn't hold back about all the times he had to fight the production, like 'Profit and Lace'-- which he demanded to be rewritten because it was even MORE transphobic and queer-phobic than the version that aired.)

Can't wait. And I hope they embarrass the hell out of Rick Berman and everyone involved in destroying Jadzia Dax.

Jadzia Dax, I love you. And Terry Farrell, thank you for being everything I needed to see. Thank you for fighting to make Jadzia so wonderful. Terry, thank you for being a ~difficult woman~, and I love you for it.

Oh. One more thing.

FUCK YOU RICK BERMAN.

You ever think about how they could have had Jadzia Dax go on a long mission deep into space for some amazing research opportunity? Have an episode of her and Worf grappling with whether she should go or not because they had JUST got married?? They finally agree she should go and you have a whole other episode of everyone else giving her a great send off (including her and Worf racking up and impressive number of sex injuries) and she gets to go off on an amazing voyage and the following episodes can include bits and bobs of Worf dealing with missing his wife and being quietly adorable over her messages to him and they send each other increasingly hilarious klingon poetry over the remaining series and like maybe near the end Jadzia comes home and they rack up enough sex injuries Bashir considers moving into their living room to be on hand.

But nah, just kill her off I guess.