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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Solumbran@lemmy.world to c/startrek@startrek.website

I've been watching the various Star Trek shows for a while now, and while not finished I saw most of them, I believe. And I cannot shake off the feeling that the messages given by these shows, especially (and almost exclusively) recent ones are pushing horrible morals that most people seem to not care about.

Slavery

I posted before, in the middle of my watching of Enterprise, that the show was supporting slavery because of the Cogenitor episode. Many comments disagreed, some even saying that they don't remember anything supporting slavery at all in the show. That was before I watched more. The show contains a full episode that is just about showing that:

  • Sex slaves are not only acceptable, they're "sexy" and cool and negotiating with slavers is a good thing

  • Sex trafficking of individuals groomed since they are born into being sex slaves is the fault of the victims for "seducing" men ???

How is this show not fine with human trafficking at this point? Is all that you need to avoid controversy, to paint the slaves in green? I still cannot comprehend the lack of reaction on this show. Add to that the frequent crimes of war by Archer and you have a nice cocktail of humanity's finest horror.

Section 31

This is also something that seems absurd to me. When it first appeared, it was already a gestapo/kgb-like group that ignores the concept of democracy, laws, and justice - in other words a horrible group - but its existence as a starfleet element was blurry. But with modern shows, they keep on bringing it back, and directly saying that it is supported by starfleet, and a good thing, or at least a necessary one.

The thing is that what made starfleet supposedly admirable was, if not every single individual's morals, the morality of their concept, their laws, their structure. Having section 31 be condoned by starfleet transforms starfleet from "utopian future of humanity" (which it was supposed to be) to "dictatorship that pretends to be a democracy but supports crimes of war and above-the-law groups". In other words, it destroys the concept of starfleet.

Discriminations, sexism, and other shitty ideas, morals and behaviours

Now this one is maybe more blurry and subjective, but it is scattered all across, nonstop.

Let's start chronologically

DS9

For this show, the constant misogyny is nothing hard to see. But they still went out of their way to put some nasty things here and there.

The episode with Quark "becoming" a woman was interesting. Quark discovers a different point of view, gains insight and empathy, that's nice! Until the end of the episode directly says "no nevermind, he was like that because of hormones, and was just an overly emotional woman because of that". Because after all, women are hysterical, right? .

Other than that, we have the toxic relationship between Keiko and O'Brian, the toxic relationship between Dax and Worf, the toxic relationship between Odo and Kira, the toxic relationship between Sisco and his wife, Jake who constantly shows that when a teen boy is targeted by pedophiles, the teen is both responsible for it, and liking it (one second, I need to throw up in a corner), etc.

And of course there is the rest, between Cisco crimes against humanity, Bashir (that's all I'll say, nothing else needed), and the weird pro-religious message that doesn't make sense.

Enterprise

We already talked about their view of child/human trafficking which I think gives the tone of the show.

But of course that's not enough, so let's put some sexual scenes about the women in particular, rape scenes with TPol because who doesn't like rape culture, Malcolm "PoS" Reed talking like a creep about "bums", Reed and Tucker with their "haha lol, these alien women are ugly because you can't tell if they are women or not" and other toxic masculinity scenes, etc. Oh and I almost forgot about the sex scene between teen siblings that serve no other purpose than to show teens having incestuous sex.

Picard

What do we have here, more weird sibling sexual scenes, people getting manipulated mentally and sexually to extract information, murderers who get away with it because betraying the federation and killing innocents is fine if you're a scenario character (reminds me of something else...AhemelnorAhem)...

Oh, and I almost forgot the amazing scene with a white Picard in his white British empire colonist outfit, going on the planet of the tan refugees who hate the federation, kicks everything around and tries to show that he's the boss. I guess this show regrets colonies too, huh.

Discovery

Now I didn't finish this one yet, and it's hard.

We have klingons that start off as a weird racist stereotype of africans seen by colonialists from a century ago: black skin, tribal armors, weird "foreign" language that the show intentionally refuses to translate through the UT, and when they speak english it's with a strong guttural accent. And they're barbaric, scary cannibals who fight with sticks and knives, and are a bunch of disorganised tribes, with weird magic rituals that allow them to do weird brainwashing. I'm almost surprised they don't carry voodoo dolls while dancing around a bonfire. The fact that people describe this show as "woke" is funny to me.

We have very explicit rape and gore torture scenes, for what purpose, I don't know.

We have people forgiven of murder because it wasn't their mind, but then it is and everyone is fine with it.

And then there's more section 31 shit.

There's also the vision of asylum in this show that basically says "we grant asylum whenever we want, not based on the situation but on personal preferences", with Georgiou granting asylum despite the prime directive, and then Pike refusing asylum because of it. It's surprising that starfleet would allow that, but at least it's not Archer-level, sending people to death then blaming the ones who tried to help them.

SNW

As far as I remember, nothing as bad as the rest here. The take on eugenics and "augmented" individuals is really absurd though, showing starfleet hating on Una is fine because her species is augmented (like the denobulans who are in starfleet though, no?), but the stupid security officer who has DNA augmentations from a crazy evil dictator engineered to be violent and crazy, is allowed without any issue.

All of them

One thing that I struggle understanding is the constant of racist stereotypes. They're everywhere, because all the shows use them to define their characters.

Keiko wants to eat her traditional food in a kimono, Georgiou wears a big kimono-like dress that would barely fit in a Mulan movie, Elnor is a ridiculous samurai-ninja with the fitting outfit, etc. As if in hundreds of years, after earth is united and mixed with hundreds of alien species, "cultures" would not evolve and mix but instead go back to being very split apart and caricatural.

P.S.

I'm not saying that the shows are shit, but that I am worried about the lack of discussions concerning all those subjects. Star Trek is supposed to be progressive and show a better version of humanity, one that evolved and grew, and yet morals seem to not be a consideration of the shows anymore.

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[-] ricecooker@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 year ago

The writeup on Section 31 is very good and was following along until you listed almost every couple on DS9 being in toxic relationships. Maybe you're confusing relationship conflicts with toxicity? Maybe I don't know what toxic means.

I'm pretty good at seeing different sides of an arguement, but you'll have to do a lot more convincing on Kira/Odo, Jadzia/Sorf, Sisko/Jennifer/Kassidy being in toxic relationships. These relationships work for me because they are trying to overcome cultural and professional challenges. One character might not budge on something but overall they try to work things out.

[-] atlasraven31@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

Worf in particular can be stubborn and traditional. Jadzia is anything but. It is a source of conflict in their relationship.

[-] Solumbran@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Sure, I'll explain what I meant.

With Odo and Kira, Odo spent years wanting to be with Kira and making her uncomfortable; when she finally accepts, he hurries up, cheats on her and then abandon her forever. Not very nice.

Dax basically manipulated worf into being with her by waiting for him to be psychologically weak before having sex with him despite his complete lack of interest. Klingon rules then make him "forced" to stay with her, and most if not all of their relationship shows Dax not respecting Worf and constantly forcing things on him, cheating on him with a random naked dude before their wedding, forcing him to go to Risa against his will and then being mad at him for not enjoying it, etc.

And then Ezri convinces him they can be together, and breaks up because "I saw bashir in a dream so goodbye".

Finally for Sisko and Kassidy were actually a good, relatively well written couple with challenges.. Until Sisko hears the prophets tell him to not marry her, he does it anyway, gets her pregnant because he doesn't get his shot, and when the prophets tell him to go with them, instead of telling them to fuck off he stays with them and gives up on his pregnant wife. And on top of that, he implies that he could talk to her but probably won't, or in a few decades or whatever.

[-] superb@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 year ago

It’s been a bit since I saw that last season of DS9, but Ezri and Worf were never in an actual relationship so there was nothing to “break up”. They had a few moments, but that Ezri was clearly confused and overwhelmed by their past

[-] Solumbran@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Ezri was a weird thing, most of the toxicity was with Jadzia. But Ezri still chased Worf even though he was avoiding her, started things again then stopped everything for one of the most ridiculous reasons I've ever heard. On its own it might not be toxic, but since it sort of still is Dax, it adds on top of Jadzia's crap.

[-] jmp242@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago

since it sort of still is Dax, it adds on top of Jadzia’s crap.

Is it though? Isn't that one of the things they deal with a lot with Trill - are different hosts actually "the same person"? I'd argue it's "partially at best" and is one of the interesting things about the concept of personhood over time sci-fi deals with. In a lot of ways, Ezri is at best like a 30 year time difference in the real world, but maybe even more like a sister/cousin at the more extreme side of being different.

[-] Solumbran@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Having the knowledge and memories of Jadzia should be enough for her to know better, especially after a life of a few centuries. A 300 years old trill that actually acts like a 20 years old does nothing apart from eliminating the interest of trills. If they learn nothing from one life to the other, the symbiot is meaningless and so is the concept of trills.

this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
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