The Queer Cardassian: The Case for a Gay Garak.

Author's Note:

This piece was written before the premiere of "For the Cause" and before the romance between Garak and Ziyal was introduced. It was originally intended for the Official Andy Robinson Fan Club newsletter, where for various reasons it never appeared. Even though a lot of what it says is now dated, I make it available here as a testament to the potential that Paramount wasted. I have added a brief postscript that talks about later developments. Enjoy.

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All of us got into Garak for different reasons. Strange as it may seem, I think much of my affection for and interest in Garak as a character can be traced to the fact that it was over him that I entered my first full-out flame war. Someone had been suggesting various romantic/sexual pairings between the different characters on Deep Space--a common enough pastime on this particular list--and I threw my nomination into the ring, suggesting Garak and Bashir might make a cute couple. It's the memory of the response provoked by this suggestion that prompted me to write this. It wasn't so much the hostility that surprised me--I'm used to that--as the misunderstanding and general bafflement. People just could not or would not understand where I "was getting this from." How could I possibly say that either Garak or Bashir was gay? How could I say that they were attracted to each other when they were clearly just friends? Why would anyone want to believe that about their favorite character?

I'd like to try to answer those questions, because I've found out since then that a lot of Garak fans do agree with this interpretation, and a lot of other Garak fans are still baffled and offended by it, and it might be useful to get a conversation started about this in the interest of promoting mutual understanding amongst the members of our happy band. And also, I think, understanding where this reading comes from helps us understand why Garak is the fascinating, compelling character we all obviously think he is.

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I should make it clear that I can't pretend I'm speaking for all gay/lesbian people, or even all gay and lesbian Star Trek fans, and I wouldn't want to try. Gay identity means something different to everyone who claims it. These are the subjective observations of one queer fan and should not be treated as representative of what is a large and diverse community.

That said, let's get started. First off, a bit about reading. Usually this argument turns fairly quickly into a fight over whether Garak and Bashir are "really" gay or not. The assumption is that there's only one right way to read, and we need to find out what that is. And sure, if you take the position that the producers have total control over the Star Trek universe and what they say is unalterable law, then no, Garak isn't "really" gay. The Paramount/Viacom honchos would let themselves be scourged naked en masse through the streets of L.A. before they would admit they'd introduced an identifiably gay character. But I think taking that attitude limits our enjoyment of the series. Part of the fun of watching something is doing your own interpretation of it, and I don't see why a question about Star Trek should have to have one right answer, any more than anyone should argue that there's only one right way to read Hamlet. This is one way to read Garak as a character. It's not the only way. But then neither is any other.

So, where does all this come from? For me, it started with that first scene in the replimat, which Andy discussed in his interview in the second issue of Plain & Simple. It's been four years since I saw this episode and I can't discuss it in detail any more, but it was clear to me from Bashir's body language and facial expression that within minutes of meeting Garak he was in the early stages of a serious crush. Bashir watches Garak with the kind of excitement and fascination that goes with desire, and one reason their relationship is so interesting is the sense that there's a real chemistry to it that can't be explained in terms of Platonic affection alone. The fact that they are not actually having sex does not necessarily mean they don't want to be, on some level. Mulder and Scully aren't sleeping together on The X-Files either, but I don't know anyone who watches that show who doesn't believe that relationship has, as David Duchovny put it, "more sexual undercurrents than the Bermuda Triangle."

But although it was Bashir's reaction to him that first gave me the idea, what committed me to this reading was not so much their relationship as Garak himself. I watched him do that scene and thought, "This is it. He's Star Trek's first queer." In the later episodes that developed his character and his relationship not only with Bashir but with his former colleagues and homeland, the traits I recognized and reacted to in that first scene have been developed even further:

Camp. It's difficult to define, but camp is probably best described as a kind of parody--taking a cliche and playing with it until it becomes a spoof of itself. Think about drag, for instance--basically it's a parody of femininity, in which "feminine" makeup, clothes, and mannerisms are exaggerated to the point where, watching, you realize that femininity is artificial, something you can fake rather than something innate or "natural." Camp in gay culture also involves mocking or exploiting peoples' stereotypical notions of who we are by intentionally parodying the mannerisms, appearances or behaviors that gay men are "supposed" to have. This is something you can also see Garak doing from his first scene onward--parodying the different identities he tries on, exaggerating characteristics he knows he's "supposed" to have in order to keep Bashir hooked by playing on his expectations. His "man of intrigue and mystery" routine, his "plain, simple Garak" shtick, even his "charming and witty lunch date" act, are all partly camp, parodic performances he puts on for the benefit of an audience (Bashir) who has naiive and stereotypical ideas of what a spy is "supposed" to be like. Camp is that look Garak gives Bashir after he makes one of his guesses about who Garak is or what he's doing there--the look that says, "Ah, yes I am, but then again I'm not." It's looking at your identity, not as the expression of some "true" and unchangeable innermost being, but as a performance that changes depending on where you are, what you need and who you're talking to. Which leads me to the next point:
The Truth Thing. If there's one thing Garak is famous for, it's for refusing to give anyone a straight answer. That pun is not a coincidence. Garak misleads, evades, prevaricates and obfuscates because he doesn't see truth as an absolute that can be definitively established; for him, "truth" is just a name people give to whatever's convenient for them to be believing at the time, and his "lies" are no more fundamentally dishonest than anyone else's claim to be telling the truth. It's that approach to truth that allows him to tell Bashir three conflicting stories about why he was exiled in "The Wire" and then claim, "It's all true--especially the lies." The gospel according to Garak is not something fundamental, single and solid, an unalterable fact of the universe--it's constructed, built up out of multiple stories, none of which is "true" on its own but which taken together allow you to get some kind of blurry picture of what *might* have happened.

For a lot of us, this vision of the universe is frightening--the idea that you can never know what is real, and that as Garak puts it "truth is in the eye of the beholder." But in order to realize that you're gay or lesbian, you have to come to that understanding at some point, because something people told you was "true"--that men love women and women love men and that's the only way it works--turns out not to be true after all, and you find that according to these "truths" people have always claimed are natural, eternal and unchangeable, you are either sick, evil or insane. In order to accept yourself as a gay or lesbian person, you have to be willing to challenge "truth" and to let go of the mainstays that straight people can hang on to; you have be willing to consider that men can love men and women can love women, that women are not always "feminine" and men are not always "masculine," that the distinction between love and friendship is not as clear as it might be, that "natural" and "normal" are terms defined not by any outside force but only by the people that use them.

Garak's conception of truth as relative and shifting is what makes him who he is, and what makes him so interesting--his ability to improvise his own history and his own identity, to switch back and forth between different roles when he needs to, to invent alternative stories and challenge any attempt to tell him who he really is. It's also what makes him potentially queer. If he's comfortable with multiple identities, multiple histories, and mutually contradictory explanations, why should he believe that there's only one story about sexual desire? Once you realize that all "truths" are, on some level, also lies, why should you reject one kind of love just because it doesn't fit someone else's definition? Once you start making yourself up as you go along, why not decide to introduce some variations on the conventional themes?

Secrets. There's a moment in "Improbable Cause" that a lot of us talked about after we saw it--it comes right after Odo accuses Garak of having blown up his own shop and demands that he tell him the truth about what's going on. The camera closes in on Garak's face and you can see him calculating: how much do I have to reveal? how much does he already know? how much can I still keep hidden? will it be safer to tell Odo what's really going on, or to keep him in the dark? what can I trust him with? what do I need to keep back? It's a great moment for Andy as well as Garak--one of the things people kept bringing up when explaining why he's better at his job than most TV actors was how much he can do with nothing but eye contact and facial expression even while wearing a rubber mask, and this moment is a prime example. For me, it was also a moment of recognition. Gays and lesbians, especially when we're still in the closet or in the process of coming out, are constantly making those kinds of calculations. Who can we tell? Who already knows? Who do we need to keep it a secret from? How much can we say without giving ourselves away? Will we be able to keep it a secret if we want to? No matter how out you are, the fact that everyone you meet assumes you are heterosexual (even the most obvious indicators don't clue some people in, you'd be surprised) until you prove otherwise means that every time you make a connection with another person you have to go through this thought process. What can you tell them? Can you trust them with your secret? Will you have to?
Exile. Like Garak, we're forced to think that way because so many of us are exiles--queers stranded in a straight world, aliens trying to survive in a hostile environment where we are not trusted, where we are seen as freaks, or where people are openly hateful to us. Like Garak, we guard our secrets and our identities because we are in danger, because we are far from home, because in order to survive we have to know how to fool the people who have the power to hurt us just as we have to know how to recognize the people who can and will help us. Garak is the only Cardassian left on the station; I'd bet that a lot of gay and lesbian fans other than myself have had the experience of feeling like they were the one queer human in a world composed exclusively of straight people.

Now, a lot of these things would be true about anyone who felt him/herself at odds with mainstream culture. But when you consider that his most intense relationships have always been with men (Enabrin, Bashir, Odo, even Dukat), that he is the only repeating character who has not been given some kind of a romantic involvement with a member of the opposite sex (even Quark has had his share, but Garak appears to be living a life of uninterrupted celibacy), that his relationship with Enabrin Tain clearly went beyond the teacher/student parameters, that he's "a very good tailor" (as others have said, "He's male and he knows how to dress--that should be all the proof you need"), and that he finds himself at odds with a culture that puts a heavy emphasis on traditional "family values," I think we can see a profile emerging.

It makes more sense when you consider the mystery of his exile. We don't know what Garak did to get himself stranded on Bajor, because no one has ever discussed it explicitly. But we've heard about it from all kinds of sources--from Garak himself, from his former colleagues, from Enabrin. It's always presented as a betrayal, something so terrible no one can forgive him--so terrible, almost, that no one can even name it. What if it was a betrayal, not of an individual operative or of the Order per se, but of the ideologies the Order rests on, the belief that sex is something that should be kept inside the family, that marriage and children are the foundation the state is built on, that no matter how much your career may throw you in with other men and no matter how close you get to them you must never call what you feel desire and you must certainly never, ever act on it? What if the Order has a taboo against homosexuality for the same reaons the US military does--because in an organization dominated by men and which forces you to form intense relationships with your male colleagues, once you admit that one of these bonds could have a sexual element you have to face the prospect that all of them do? To me, it makes a lot of sense as an explanation not only of why the Order repudiated one of its most talented members, but of why Tain alone was willing to take him back (the mentor/protege relationship has historically had a sexual element, going all the way back to ancient Sparta and continuing into the present--consider the number of professors who marry or have affairs with their students, for instance), and of why no one is willing to say exactly what it is that he's done.

And, of course, there's Bashir.

Let's go back to that lunch table. On one side, we have Bashir, fascinated, not sure who Garak is or what he wants but somehow perfectly happy to spend most of his lunch hours trying and failing to figure it out. On the other, we have Garak doing everything he knows how--and he does know how--to keep that fascination alive. Dropping murky hints, making quasi-revelations, teasing him with just enough of the truth to keep him hungry for the rest, maintaining ambiguity and mystery while still seeming to lay his cards on the table, advancing and withdrawing, inviting him to pursue and yet hanging back in a manner that can only be described as coy. This is the dance of seduction, my friends, and the fact that it has not yet ended, and probably will not end, in actual sex does not mean the desire is not there. All it means is that Garak's creators have figured out what a lot of TV shows forgot: that once you resolve sexual tension the relationship usually becomes uninteresting. (I cite "Moonlighting" and "Cheers" as prime examples. We'll see what happens on "Friends.") It's the ambiguity that's exciting, the anticipation and the frustration. So can you prove, definitively, that it must be love? No. But neither can you prove that it isn't. And it's keeping that possibility open that gives the relationship the chemistry that it has, and makes us as interested in it as Bashir.

So. Do I think the producers intended any of this? No. Do I expect to see Paramount ever actually bring Garak and Bashir together, or give Garak a male love interest? Alas, not in my lifetime. Do I think Andy intended this reading when he created the character? I have no way of knowing. What I do think is that there's room in the text for us to read Garak as gay--and that this is something that makes watching Deep Space 9 rewarding for me, and other queer fans, in a way that it wouldn't otherwise be. We have waited so long to see ourselves in Starfleet, and it looks as if we are going to have to wait a while longer if Paramount has anything to do with it. But thanks to whatever fortuitous coincidence, we can if we are so inclined see ourselves--a distorted and distant reflection, to be sure, but still recognizable--in Garak. And after having been kept out of the future for so long, that's something that really matters to us. Anything that helps end the silence that America has tried to preserve about gay and lesbian sexuality helps us. It especially helps gay and lesbian teenagers, who are often trying to come to terms with their sexual orientation in isolation and fear, terrified that they will be alone forever because they don't know anyone else who has their desires or fears, and who make up approximately one-third of all teen suicides because they simply cannot face living with that burden alone. Deep Space 9, as a show that reaches a teenaged audience, has the potential to make a difference. I don't expect everyone to agree with me; if you don't want to read Garak as gay, don't. But for those of us who do--well--on behalf of your queer fans, thanks, Andy. We needed this.

Postscript: Several Seasons Later...

It has always been my contention that Ziyal was introduced primarily for the purpose of straightening Garak out--giving him a heterosexual love interest, since as I mention above he had never had one before her. However, the fact that Ziyal was killed off later indicates to me that the writers ultimately decided that this romance couldn't be made to work. Her death is a testament to the producers' underutilization of their female characters. As the only bi-species Cardassian/Bajoran character they introduced, Ziyal could have been given some very interesting work, but because she was pushed so early into her role as Garak's attachment she became Cardassian for all intents and purposes, and that whole avenue was closed off. Thus, once the romance fizzled, they had no further use for her.

As we now know, Tain was Garak's father, not his lover, and is now dead. I am inclined to read this as another way of shutting down the possibilities I outlined above. Tain was obviously in the patron position relative to Garak, but I don't think there was anything in those early episodes to indicate that they were actually father and son. What are we to do with that crack Garak makes in "Improbable Cause" about Tain's "once-trim figure," for instance? I haven't seen the episodes where this was revealed, so I can't comment on how convincing they made that relationship; but it was, once again, a choice that chipped away at the queerness established by those early seasons.

The most popular partner for Garak, other than Bashir, has always been Dukat...who, as I now understand, has been driven round the bend by the Dominion takeover of the Cardassian empire. It's dangerous to get too close to Garak, apparently.

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