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this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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Risa
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The thing I love about this, the thing I always find funny whenever this comes up, is that these midwits are just too dumb to make the obvious argument. The argument that is "in their face" and "being shoved down their throats."
There is a rational, coherent argument to make their point. It's one I disagree with. It's one that, in my opinion, can only be made in bad faith with no purpose other than to be a concern troll, but it's there.
They always bring up Adira, Gray, Jett, Stamets, Culber, and anything else that's gone up their ass but never any of the actual social commentary because they're so thick it went over their heads and they didn't even notice it. You can see it in this thread. They mention the characters and people respond with "but they're just existing, how does that bother you?" They just bring up the characters again to a response of "yeah, we heard you the first time, what are they doing that bothers you other than existing?" And it just goes in a circle.
There was never an episode of ToS where Uhura talked about how hard it was to be a black woman as a bridge officer, because it wasn't. That's the whole point. In the future Star Trek wants us to imagine, a black female officer is completely unremarkable. Whenever they wanted to engage in social commentary about race relations in the 60s they had to invent an allegorical race, time travel, or use some other device to make their point.
The same thing is happening in the newer series. All those characters are just existing. Their sexuality and gender identity is completely unremarkable in the future Star Trek shows us. If those dipshits had two brain cells to rub together they would see the new series are full of allegories about not just tolerance, or even acceptance, but appreciation for beings with non-conforming expressions of self. If any of that did manage to trickle through their thick skulls they probably just twisted it into "yeah, people shouldn't make fun of me for having a relationship with a waifu pillow."
If they weren't so stupid they could easily give a half dozen examples and say "it's too much," "I got it the first time," "focus on something else for a change," or whatever other bullshit justification they came up with to oppose these themes. It would be a bad faith argument that I would disagree with but at least they could pretend they're not bigots, instead of their current position which seems to be "I've got no problem with these people, I just don't want to see them."
And, on the flip side, there's also their total blindness to many examples of old Trek being decidedly unsubtle. They just will not address those, because to do so would completely undermine their point—and they're not interested in the truth, really. They just want their anger.
I don't know how someone can be a Star Trek fan and not get it. It's an attitude diametrically opposed to the core spirit of the franchise. How do these people enjoy a show about exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations, but they can't stand the presence of different humans?
TBH, I initially had a strange reaction to Discovery. It seemed to me like it was virtue-signalling and pandering to an audience to increase viewership or profit. Similar to how you sometimes see fake stock-photos of a business where they contains exactly one person from every ethnicity. I think the word I'm thinking of is "tokenism." I still watched it for a couple seasons, and it was decent. I didn't really realize at the time how prevalent and dangerous bigotry still was in the U.S.. Now I think it's probably good some shows and movies over-represent minorities.
Until people stop seeing minorities as different, then these kind of labels are going to get applied just because they exist. If a cast of non-minorities doesn't raise an eyebrow, then a cast of minorities shouldn't either. Base such labels on the way the characters are written, not because they exist. Stopping bigotry requires not caring about sex, gender, or sexual orientation.
Bigotry is a worldwide issue, not just in the US. The problem is often implicit discrimination, where someone is subconsciously influenced by bigotry and isn't aware they're doing it. It never gets resolved because people get defensive when it's pointed out to them. Stopping it requires prioritizing doing the right thing over being right.
The one argument that Star Trek has gone woke I agree with is that the characters are all tripping over themselves to make make Tilly captain despite her obvious incompetence for that position. Contrast that with Barkley who everyone recognized needed self improvement to progress.
Otherwise I totally agree. Star Trek has always been progressive when it comes to race, religion, etc.
Just one example of the extremely poor writing
Interestingly, in the unaired TOS pilot Pike did in fact remark on a female officer (albeit Una rather than Uhura), saying he "can't get used to having a woman on the bridge".
Of course, being unaired, the episode's canonicity was pretty questionable. Until SNW used the exact clip of him saying that as archive footage.
(n.b. None of this is intended to negate the point you're making. It's just a strange little thing that could have been brushed aside as an artifact of the show not quite having figured out what it was yet, had not modern Trek gone and affirmed it.)
That never happened. Discovery was the only show that used a scene from The Cage but it wasn't that clip. If Memory Serves did a "last time on Star Trek Discovery" segment that used clips from that episode. It gave backstory on Talos and Pike's relationship with Vina. The clip of Pike making a sexist comment was not used, and has never been used in any other show to date.
They did? Are you sure you're not just thinking of that meme?
Good post