Star Trek: Tuvix

Episode: "Tuvix"

Series: Star Trek: Voyager

Season 2, Episode 24

Original Air Date: May 6, 1996

via Memory Alpha

Tuvok and Neelix are merged into a single being through a transporter malfunction.  What follows is one of the most interesting moral quandaries in all of Star Trek.  That's saying something.  "Tuvix" may be the most polarizing episode in the franchise.  It's the make-or-break story determining how many fans, including my own child, feel about Captain Janeway as a character.

The merged being is his own man.  Tuvix is the best of both, the worst of both.  He shares the memories of each but the experiences from the point of merger are all his own.  He deserves to live.  There's really no question of that, is there?  His existence also means the end of the independent lives of two others.  There's no denying that either.  Thus the dilemma.

Spock: Logic clearly dictates that the needs of many outweigh the needs of the few.

Kirk: Or the one.

If there's one exchange that defines - and haunts - Trek, it's that one from the climactic scene of The Wrath of Khan.  By this argument, the needs of two outweigh the needs of one.  Tuvok's and Neelix's separate rights to exist trump Tuvix's.  

But real life is more complicated than that, isn't it?  Those we might cast as "the few" suffer needlessly all the time.  The benefits to "the many" from such suffering are often nebulous to non-existent.  There's a term for it: the tyranny of the majority.  It's not theoretical.  It's largely how the world works.

Tuvix's pleas for his own survival are both chilling and heartbreaking.  Plenty of viewers hate Janeway for the choice she makes.  Would any of those critics have chosen differently in her place?  I think it's too easy to say yes.  Either way, she's choosing death.  Either path means pain and regret.

It certainly makes for good television.  However one feels about the choice made - and a deep, emotional reaction is absolutely understandable - the question itself is exactly the sort of dilemma that has made Star Trek so compelling to watch for nearly 60 years.  If the answers were always obvious, who would care?

Acting Notes

via Criminal Minds Wiki

Tom Wright (Tuvix) was born in Englewood, New Jersey, November 29, 1952.  This episode is his first of two Trek appearances.  Films include The Brother from Another Planet, Barbershop and Barbershop 2: Back in Business.  In television, he had principal roles on Extreme, Martial Law and Granite Flats.  His other high-profile guest role was the recurring character Mr. Morgan, a Yankees front office colleague of George's on Seinfeld.

Squid Flicks: Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Title: Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Director: John Cameron Mitchell

Original Release Date: January 2001

My Overall Rating: 5 stars out of 5

via Wikipedia

John Cameron wrote, directed and starred in what I consider to be one of the most under-appreciated films around.  In my mind, I maintain a list of movies I wish more people would see.  Hedwig resides comfortably on that list.

Hedwig Robinson grew up in East Berlin, assigned male at birth.  She fell in love with Luther, an American soldier, who convinced her to get a sex change and marry him as part of a scheme to leave the country.  The operation was botched, leaving Hedwig with... unsatisfactory genitalia, thus the title of the film.

We first join the story as Hedwig, now living in Kansas, is trying to make a living as a rock musician.  Luther is long gone.  Tommy, a more recent lover, has become a star, propped up by songs we all know Hedwig co-wrote with him.  

Those are the basics of a whirlwind story.

We saw the movie at the Vermont International Film Festival's screening room.  I would be remiss if I did not point out what our child helped clarify for me: Hedwig is not a drag queen movie.  While it shares thematic material with Priscilla (last week's movie) and To Wong Foo, it is not of the same genre because Hedwig is not a drag queen.  Botched operation or not, Hedwig is a trans woman and living as such.  The wigs and the boas add to her performance. They are camp but they are not drag.

It's also better than either of those more commercially successful films.  Hedwig is adapted from Mitchell's off-Broadway musical of the same name, music by Stephen Trask.  Mitchell's on-screen performance is fearless and relentless.  The vast majority of the material - the lines, the songs, the camera shots - focuses on the one leading character, far more so than one typically sees in a movie.  The music is wonderful.  I've written about the showstopper, "Wig in a Box," before.  Hedwig was a huge hit at Sundance but disappointed in its mainstream run.  

Hedwig can be difficult to watch.  It's funny, visually dazzling and musically charming.  It's also continually heart wrenching.  What's more, Hedwig is not always a likable person, guilty of mistreating others as she has been mistreated.  Parts of the story can be uncomfortable for a cis man, that healthy kind of uncomfortable we've talked about before (here, for instance).  Lean into that discomfort and it will broaden your world concept.