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this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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Risa
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Star Trek was literally always woke.
Yes but the woke messages were embedded in good stories so it felt smart and natural. That is why fans of classic Trek embrace the way it is woke. Discovery on the other hand constantly puts the woke element in the center, points three spotlights at it and then paints it neon until there is no more room left for a good story and mature viewers feel treated like they were idiots. It is sad how younger fans seem to be unable to perceive this significant difference and accuse people who do of bigotry.
What about Discovery felt like it had a spotlight on it more than "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"? Or that TOS put a diverse cast front and center on the screen, including folks hailing from nations that were currently/recently enemies of the USA at the time? I grew up watching TNG, and the way Geordi turned the concept of what it meant to be 'disabled' on its head felt really pointed, even for child me. Likewise the dehumanization of Data.
I'm happy to gripe about worse writing, but if someone wrote a shoddy story that included a couple giraffes (because giraffes were more popular nation-wide), I wouldn't get mad about "giraffe messages" in entertainment, I'd get mad about shit writing.
um are you forgetting the extremely gratuitous scene in the first season where two men brushed their teeth SIDE BY SIDE
for real though you won't ever get an actual example from the show from these guys because it doesnt exist
I think they’re talking about that Discovery episode where they encounter a planet of Enby people and Burnham falls in love with one of them. So woke. They even kiss.
Uhm, my comment just below this one? cough cough
Also:
It´s shown as normal there are no pep talks and there is no crying but I start to think that you will never get those nuances.
You bring up some interesting points.
Yes and they had that diverse crew naturally work together as a team of professionals without loosing a word about it, instead of constantly reassuring each other and the viewer in dramatic pep talks with a lot of crying that it´s ok. That is exactly the understated wokeness I miss in NuTrek and appreciate in classic Trek.
Agreed but that worked so well because Geordi being a full member of the crew was presented as something completely normal. There are no tearful pep talks to reassure Geordi that he's a full fledged member of the crew. That would have been unnecessary, because it's shown as just natural that he was. Another example of the understated, smart wokeness in classic Trek. This is the opposite of NuTrek wokeness, which constantly gets overstated and rubbed in the viewers face, like the viewer would be a mentally challenged bigot, who could not grasp the concepts of tolerance an humanism on their own.
Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it.
I certainly agree that there's more crying than I'm used to in Trek, but I wouldn't call that wokeness (unless the crying was about a reason that was "woke", I guess?). Mostly I chalk that up to popular entertainment dripping with CW style shows (for the worse, of course). That said there was a fair amount of crying/emotional outbursts from Sisko and others on DS9, especially if we take the Maquis into account - like Sisko said, it's easy to be a saint in paradise. Doesn't jive with the perfect crews we've seen on the Enterprises, but like DS9 being a run-of-the-mill station that got swept up in religious politics and galactic war, Discovery was "just" a bleeding edge science ship that went through hell, so it does kind of make sense that people would be more than a little traumatized and outburst-y.
Totally agree that the casts being treated like it was normal is a great message to send without focusing on it, but they did touch on it occasionally. In the TNG pilot itself, Geordi and Crusher talk pretty openly about his blindness IIRC, and he says something to the effect of "I was born this way", and he rejects potential "cures", showing how comfortable he was with what others would consider a curse.
Also there most certainly episodes reassuring Data he was part of the crew. An entire episode reassuring him he was sentient, right? It was central to his (and others') growth over the series. Whether he was truly a sentient being or not definitely draws parallels to dehumanization in the real world, and was pretty blatant about it.
Plenty of folks on TNG had to talk through their problems - that was pretty much the point of Guinan, in a lot of ways, and even having a Betazoid on the bridge. Feelings and emotion were being pretty openly explored in a way that's just different to the way things are now. Mental illness has over the decades been normalized in a way that is kind of incredible. Again though, the amount of crying does irk me (that much I agree with, especially when shit is literally on fire). I just don't consider that to be wokeness in my face, just shoddy writing.
Sorry, you certainly have many good points. However, I am getting tired from replying to too many answers by too many people at this point, so I don´t have the energy to write you an adequate answer to your well written argument. Apologies.
Thank you for saying that: it's been interesting to see things from another perspective.
it would help your case if you could give a few examples of this happening
One example would be the gender identities of Adira and Grey. Instead of just presenting it as a background detail and totally natural thing that there are NB/Trans characters on the crew (as it definitely should be in a modern Star Trek setting imo), there is a huge spotlight on their gender identities in the main plot and there is even a 2020 style pronoun talk, which feels extremely unfitting for a scenario so far in the future, when there should not be a need to discuss such things.
Then there is the presentation of Stamets and Culber, which is often more focused on their gay relationship than on their professional work as crew members, which similarly to how Adira and Gray are presented, feels like cheap queer baiting.
Maybe you could refresh my memory with an episode or some more details because I don't remember it that way. I remember Adira stating their pronouns, everyone accepting that and using those pronouns and never mentioning it again. I'm pretty damn sure there wasn't some Jordan Peterson type that refused to get with the program.
I'm also pretty sure there wasn't any focus on Stamets' and Culber's "gay" relationship. Their relationship was part of several story elements but the gay aspect was not. Please remind me of any plots involving their relationship that would have to be changed if one of them was a woman.
You are the one making a big deal about these characters because you can't get over their simple existence.
And that was the end of it. Horrific, isn't it? I'm sure Nacktmull would have blocked the characters for trolling if they could.
Also, I think it's worth pointing out that Adira was from Earth, which at that point had left the Federation, and had become seemingly a much more paranoid place. So that Adira was uncomfortable and worried about what folks might think of them seems reasonable, since they weren't used to living in the Federation, where being nonbinary isn't something anyone should be worried about sharing with others.
You intentionally don´t understand the most simple arguments and just keep asking me to put in more argumentative work while all you do is dismissing my points independently of their validity. I am tired of talking to you and consider you a troll, who I will ignore from now on.
No, I'm asking for an example. Just one.
I'm not asking for any more arguments. I understand your position completely.
I just gave two examples, stop the trolling or get blocked ...
No, you made a claim. A claim that, so far, is unsupported.
I'm simply asking for one scene, outside of your own mind, where these things actually happened.
I only watched it once. I could be wrong. Please refresh my memory.
It´s not unsupported since I gave two examples. Stop trolling.
Saying something happened is not an example.
Which episode has "a 2020 style pronoun talk?"
Which episode has a plot involving Stamets and Culber that wouldn't be essentially unchanged if it was a heterosexual relationship?
I will go rewatch them now and come back and apologize if these things actually exist.
Troll
which episodes main plot is about gender identity i cant find it
I am not going to rewatch the worst NuTrek show just so I can tell you what exact episodes that were. If you want to know, rewatch that crap yourself. Also, blocked for trolling.
Dawg, if you block everyone for "trolling" (ie, disagreeing with you), it's gonna get real lonely on here for you
Conservstives were the snowflakes all along. Who knew?
I'm confused how you got to this conclusion because in my opinion, Discovery is pretty much a masterclass in treating their queer characters as normal. Stamets and Culber's relationship is core to a lot of episodes, but the fact that they are gay is not—I can only think of a single time the word "gay" is even said. They're full characters in their own right that just happen to be in a relationship. Queerbaiting would be if they hinted at a queer relationship but didn't show it, but they show it plenty. They aren't perfect either, they literally almost break up. They're whole people.
And Adira and Grey... Adira has to come out, yes. I don't know what's wrong with that. You seem to think it should just be a "normal thing" that isn't discussed, but coming out is an inevitable part of the non-binary experience. People in Star Trek aren't mind readers, and seem to still assume binary pronouns by default. So it's only natural that if someone wants other people to use they/them pronouns for them, they have to come out, even in the future. I think the fact that Adira was able to come out in a single brief scene and then it's never mentioned again is great and not unnatural at all.
And Grey's transition is alluded to as something that happened in the past, but is literally never directly mentioned in the plot. I don't think the word "transgender" is ever uttered. He seems like the perfect trans character for you, his transness has nothing to do with who he is and is never directly mentioned but he's just accepted for who he is. What's wrong with his portrayal?
Its funny too because being a trill recipient makes the allegory very "conservative friendly" . They literally gained dozens of lifetimes worth of memories where their gender and birth sex were male and female. Normal trill symbiote candidates go through training in order to better retain their sense of self after they bond and better separate the memories. Adira did not have that training and was not ready for this or even the right species for it.
Riker absolutely lost himself while he had a trill implant and became the trill. Meanwhile Adira has a few hundred or more thousand years of being a mother, being a father, giving birth, and presenting as male and female and over that kind of time span even seeing gender roles and norms change and evolve. After all that they decide you know what I dont think Im quite a girl anymore but Im not a boy. Even a gender absolutist would have to give it to them.
Straight cis presenting people are the default. The fact that you dont bitch and complain every time that is shown and only when any other manifestation of gender or sexuality is, is damning. Ultimately youd rather these people be sidelined so that you and all of the other people that they make uncomfortable by just existing can pretend they dont.