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Stargate Universe Debuts With An Openly Lesbian Among The Characters

010/02/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Science Fiction and Fantasy have a long history of portraying gay and lesbian characters. Often those are seen in books and not in television or movies. From Ursula K. LeGuin’s Left Hand Of Darkness to Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar series, the issues of gender and sexuality have been part of how Sci-Fi/Fantasy has presented the world. It has taken quite some time, but television is starting to catch up with the books as Stargate Universe, the latest in the Stargate franchise, introduces an openly lesbian character.

Camille Wray, played by Ming-Na, is openly lesbian. The series begins this Friday, 2 October at 9pm. The character of Camille Wray is not the first lesbian character in a science-fiction series. The character of Susan Ivonova played by Claudia Christian in the series Babylon 5 was largely confirmed as being lesbian, but even she was likely not the first.

In a recent interview, Ming-Na compared the challenges of playing a lesbian character to those of being an Asian woman working in Hollywood; however, she felt thrilled by the challenge. “I’ve never played a gay character, and for me that was such an incredible challenge. And I said, ‘As long as you write her with absolute depth and she’s well rounded, and there’s no stereotypes, and she’s a real person — then yes, let’s go for it.’ I’m thrilled. I just think that it’s a great challenge for me as an actor,” she said.

The series itself is set around a colony of human refugees who are trapped on a rogue spaceship unable to change its course as it takes them into the far ends of the universe.

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