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My favorite thing is to have them define “woke.” When they can’t because it’s only a buzzword to them, I explain it means “waking up” to the idea that you’re not the only human being with a purpose-filled life, that there are others for whom the system is built to deal a bad hand, and that the most ironic part is that 9 times out of 10 the individual I’m speaking to is not on the list of the “system’s chosen.”
To me, woke is when identity politics issues are intentionally inserted into a piece of media not to improve the quality of the story, but to push the creators political opinions. Even when I agree with them it annoys me, because it takes me out of the story and makes me feel like I’m being preached too or I’m consuming propaganda.
Disclaimer, I don’t watch star trek. I found this post browsing c/all
So gay characters should only be in media to tell stories about gay people problems? Is that how you think the real world works, like a gay person never accomplished anything other than progressing the gay agenda. Why can’t there just be a story of a man who does a thing and then goes home to his husband. You know, like how real life works lol.
Well that’s not what it means. It means being aware of and opposed to systemic injustices in our society, that’s all it means.
I watched season 1 of Picard and discovery and they just didn’t feel like Star Trek to me. The people complaining about how “woke” it is just distract from legitimate criticism. A lot of it for me was the sets. Their design was dark, gloomy and had an air of oppression that, while present in various forms across trek, wasn’t previously baked into the design of the federation. It was all moody lighting and permenantly frowning actors. That temperament translated into the writing as well but you’ve already addressed part of that. And I’ve got a bone to pick in general with season 1 of Picard but that’s a whole other rant lol
TNG was close to having a transgender episode, “The Outcast”, but they were stuck in their time and didn’t really make any kind of statement.
TOS made several comments on religion and running into powerful beings. In particular “Who Mourns for Adonais?”, which would’ve been a great take if not for Kirk saying “Mankind has no need for gods. We find the one quite adequate”.
I thought having Riker fall in love with one of the enby people was about as close to a statement of support as they could get in the 90s.
That’s the problem with woke as a term. No one can agree on what woke actually means, a bit like fascism.
Does it mean hyper left politics shoved in existing IPs? Sure, a lot would agree with that. How about overly corporate content that has as much soul as a lug nut? What about just generally bad content, or overdone content like the current round of superheo movies? I wouldn’t call them woke, but many would.
The problem with Star Trek and wokeness is that TNG/DS9/Voy was filled with 80s/90s era wokeness. Most people can get behind that. But 2020s era wokeness is a different beast, and it doesn’t seem to fit with the older content.
Both terms are clearly defined and people choose to use them wrong, like you did with your examples.
People where always upset with the level of “wokeness” in Star Trek. The difference being that less where aware of it and if you wanted to complain you had to physically write a letter, go down to the post office, buy some stamps, and mail it in. Today you can just tweet some bullshit from your couch.
Those of us who can remember the UseNet, AOL and BBS rants against LaForge, Sisko & Janeway can vouch that it was no less toxic in the late 1980s and 90s. It was just less of a mass conversation.
The point I was making there is no set definition for woke. And I probably shouldn’t have brought up fascism as a term, because while it’s a similar issue, it’s just not an argument to make. (For the record, fascism does not refer to 1930s Italy anymore, it’s evolved overtime)
Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular meaning “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination”. Woke has been used this way for decades and anyone using it differently is using it incorrectly.
Language evolves. Just ask anyone with a they/them pronoun.
Woke didn’t evolve, it was highjacked and purposely used incorrectly to mock.
Stay woke dude!
No one can agree on what woke actually means
Truth. Word trends take some time to spread around the world, and by the time it reached me it was used mostly as a derogatory term. I could not figure out what it meant from context. Initially I thought it was related to red-pillers because it was used by the same kind of angry people.
I had to look up the definition eventually.
Kirk made out with Uhura on prime time network television. Proportional to that time, it was probably the wokest thing ever.
Or just having a black woman on the bridge as a senior officer next to the captain
Or a Russian as a helmsman
Or a Japanese asian man next them
Or a freaking Scotsman yelling nonsense from the boiler room
And then in the 1980s they made a series where the main theme was that the status quo was perfect and should never be questioned, and they didn’t allow a gay character to exist in the entire franchise until 2017. Star Trek’s been coasting on the progressiveness of the 1960s series for a long time, and it should be no surprise that a substantial portion of its modern audience has different politics.
Uh, they live in a post-scarcity society that has no money. People in the Federation ostensibly exist to better themselves, not accumulate wealth. They routinely shit on our current time period as backwards and primitive.
Also, they have several alien races with masculine women, feminine men, and asexual / agender people. Riker, being enlightened, sleeps with all of them.
I’m not sure how you got “the status quo is perfect” from that.
Don’t forget Data allowing his child to choose their own gender. That is still an issue today.
I think dude had a little bit of a point, older trek was progressive, then it was still progressive but it was much more subtle, lately its gotten less subtle again.
People who WATCH trek noticed it in the low key years, people who casually have it on sometimes missed it, so now they are like “WTF!?!” Because it wasnt quite as obvious in TNG.
TOS was utterly blatant, TNG not so much. What I’ll agree to is that DSC was way too sappy, it failed to be scifi on so many levels.
I haven’t yet finished DSC yet but I highly disagree with that last bit. Every single Star Trek has been “Star Trek but…” They all do it very differently and that’s what makes each one so incredibly interesting to watch as a group instead of just 1 long series. From what I’ve seen of DSC it’s basically just “Star Trek but… It focuses on the characters” similarly to DS9 in that way.
A lot of great SciFi stories are just characters talking but it’s in space… That’s most Asimov stories actually… so DSC is definitely sci-fi and very much so sci-fi.
I have no issue with character focus, it’s that if I wanted to watch a romantic drama I wouldn’t switch on trek. Some sprinkling, fine, but it has been front and centre, carried more by music than actual story or character development. You could plot the “ok we want to hit these emotional cues” spreadsheet that they wrote the story around, haphazardly.
SNW also has quite a romantic arc, heck, even a love triangle. I don’t mind it there, it’s actually done well and serves Spock’s character development.
I will always defend Star Trek as progressive, but it has always been only as progressive as TV would allow at the time. 1980s TV executives would never have allowed a positive gay character on Star Trek in the 80s and 90s. Ellen didn’t even come out of the closet until 1997. I would have loved, at the very least, the androgynous alien Riker falls in love with to have been played by a man, and Frakes wanted that, but it was nixed. Because it was the 80s and TV executives were from the 60s. It would never have happened.
And new Star Trek has done a lot to be LGBT±supportive, which is great.
Ah found the Clueless Trekkie!
TOS was progressive for the 60s
TNG was progressive for the 80s
they didn’t allow a gay character to exist in the entire franchise until 2017
Oh yea not until 2017, when the first new show aired since 2005’s STE went off the air. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact there weren’t any new shows for 12 years.
It was the first televised interracial kiss.
At least in the USA if not the world.
It was the second actually.
Still pretty woke though.
It was not the first internationally nor from United States.
A quick search will show you this
People being free to do as they see fit is great. People being constrained from hurting others’ feelings not so much.
I haven’t seen the new star trek so I don’t know what kind of wokeness is being referred to, but if it were a matter of an interracial relationship I doubt people would be calling it woke.
That’s what bothers me for a long time now and I’m glad I’m not alone: I like the stories but a black woman on the bridge? Really? But it’s ok, she was born in Africa so she’s not necessarily a former slave. What bothers me more is a later development: A Russian on a supposedly American ship! Even if it’s not explicitly American, there are Americans on the bridge and they sure as hell won’t serve with a Russian! What do they think? The cold war is over? But I have great hope in the planned new series. I hope the Next Generation won’t be that woke.
Just imagine what they could come up with in the future. A female captain? A black station commander? No way, Star Trek has gone down the gutter. I’m not watching TNG. They can stick their wokeness where the sun don’t shine.
Go back even further! The cage almost canceled the entire show because a woman was merely implied to be captaining the ship for a quick while 😰😰
And NBC threw a tantrum because of Uhura’s and Kirk’s kiss, which was made more ridiculous because the backlash they expected never came. I wonder how often they self-censored without any reason.
The wasn’t just implied to be anything, she was second in command. Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally for inclusion and diversity and stuff but a woman second in command is where I draw the line.
My favorite TOS episode was the one where they showed the clear superiority of the aliens with the white/black faces over the aliens with the black/white faces. The genocide part went a bit far, but in the end those black/white face guys had it coming.
You almost make it seem ridiculous by calling it black/white faces. It was the whole body! They wear gloves so you didn’t see it but it wasn’t just the face. That in mind, the white/black skinned were totally in their right. The genocide didn’t even happen, it’s just made up like most genocides are. The black/white people just prevented worse from happening.
I’m all for the idea of wokeness, but there are those that take it to an extreme. Those that would silence a black man making a honest case for color-blindness, calling him racist. Those that won’t put in any thought before declaring anyone who disagrees with them a racist/transphobe/xenophobe etc etc etc.
There is room for honest discussion and critical thinking, but there is this mob mentality ultraleft (and yea this exists in the right too) that seems incapable of critical thought and only capable of hating anything that opposes the groupthink.
Maybe just keep to the porn, eh?
Forgot to switch accounts, whoops. Easy to do when you always casually browse c/all
you can always tell when someone has said something terrible and got called a fascist/nazi for it because they say stuff like this
It couldn’t be that I watched a talk like this:
https://youtu.be/QxB3b7fxMEA?si=_HLVoBr0moJg6Mkb
And liked the ideas, but then see that it’s being used to call the speaker racist and attempts at silencing him. Plus the unwillingness to even have a conversation.
https://youtu.be/KKZlb-MdzKo?si=bohTJwhwMD9QehI-
You vilify the idea of “just asking questions” to the point that no one can ask questions. That leaves me standing here, not understanding your position, but unwilling to blindly accept everything I’m told to think.
Sure, there are people who weaponize “just asking questions”, but is the solution really just to call every person with a contrary opinion a fucking nazi?
Edit: is anyone willing to tell me how the ideas in the first video are racist and worthy of silencing the person who speaks them?
Ah yes, the alt right debate me.bro youtube pipeline. You probably think you’re having this unique experience, but all the other losers went down the exact same path.
If you say shit that people think is racist or nazi like, people are gonna call you a racist or a nazi. You won’t have a fun time here because your weirdo alt right youtube pipeline shit has already started to corrupt your brain and people are gonna keep calling the weirdo shit you say racist, sexist, transphoblic, or nazi like.
Have a fun time trying to get people not to do that they want to do that, and we are all in full support. Maybe you’ll have a better time on the weirdo alt right social medias
Let’s say you’re right, shouldn’t people try to stop other from going down that pipeline? Send a Destiny video or something.
But I don’t think you’re right, I’ve been just about at this same point for 15 years.
I love having conversations because I love deeply understanding things. I toy with ideas like little fidget toys, sometimes they end up being more interesting or useful and sometimes a friend tells me it’s dangerous and I put that idea down.
I’m curious, did you see what videos I posted? It’s a black guy advocating for class based social justice. If he’s wrong, if the ideas he’s espousing are dangerous, I’d honestly like to understand how.
… but “debate me bro” and “I’m just asking questions” means I can no longer debate or ask questions. Well, at least on the internet.
Thankfully I’ve got friends who know me, understand my intents, and also seem to enjoy having these conversations with me.
you keep the things that get you called racist, nazi and transphobe to you and your friends then
but you shouldn’t be crying outrage when you do say things and then people label you from that, you said the things, maybe use that as a moment of reflection on yourself.
Welp, I tried reflecting on my original comment and how it makes me a nazi, but I’m just coming up blank.
Guess I’m just a nazi now. Remind me, what do the nazis think of brown people?
Can you give us a good example that is exclusive to the ultra left, which doesn’t involve bigotry or “just asking questions” talking points?
Otherwise, the whole groupthink problem is a much wider issue, and why the two party system in the US is a problem.
Oh, no it is an everybody issue. It’s just what puts me off from people I otherwise frequently agree with.
buT BoTH SidEsYou know, it’s possible to be a leftist and still not agree 100% with the everything.
The response to my comment is precisely what I hate about the left. And yet, I’m still so much more aligned with the left that I could ever be with the right.
You’re not wrong, but this thread is the first time I’ve seen someone make that argument and not immediately dive into a bunch of alt-right talking points.
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So because the right is a bunch of fucking retarded donkeys, the left is infallible. Got it.
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I thought I was just matching your snarky tone.
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I’m literally punching down on an entire group of people, republicans.
Also, I don’t quite grasp all the rules of slurs. I’m not making a derogatory use of the term towards someone with a intellectual disability (also, that’s a term that’s starting to pick up the same “slur” vibes, just as retard did from originally being a medical term).
Am I allowed to use the term retard if I myself have a learning disability? What if I’m of some other demonstrably lower caste group of people in the American social order? Is that still punching down?
I’d honestly ask those questions, but then I’d be “just asking questions” so let’s just say those are rhetorical and we can just end the conversation here.
Sounds like they were never a Trekkie to begin with.
They rarely are. They’re usually just someone who watched Star Trek and thought it looked cool. When it comes to the actual ideas and equality and giving people chances? Nah. The amount of “Trekkies” I’ve met who are aggressively for the death penalty for people who they politically disagree with or who are disgustingly racist? Phenomenally high.
Speaking only for my own experience, my exposure was with TNG as a kid before streaming and everything. It was always on in syndication daytime and late night and it was more interesting to me than other choices.
I didn’t know or understand anything about the message of the series. The more recent movies didn’t really highlight it for me at all either.
Now, however, we watched all of Strange New Worlds, we’re halfway through Discovery and just finished Picard and in retrospect it’s obvious that it’s always been a core part of the show.
Without the prior exposure and context? It might seem a little heavy handed but anybody who would consider it “woke” or too PC is likely a hard-right conservative, not a Trekkie.
My only thing is I disagree with the whole “complete dictatorial police state, but it’s cool because at least they’re a benevolent dictatorial police state” thing. Like yes every government other than the federation is worse, but just you try to have your own laws and customs contrary to Federation wishes. Better hope they can show up in time to save your ass from threats foreign or federation because no planets or people on them are allowed to have weapons, for instance.
I’ll bet (without knowing for sure) Roddenberry’s idea of the Federation didnt start out as a police state. But like with currency, it is hard for many writers to imagine humanity evolving past the need for policing our own and enforcing laws.
I could see that being the case.
Roddenberry didn’t imagine a moneyless future; that was an invention of “The Voyage Home”, which Roddenberry had no involvement with.
Ronald D. Moore commented, “By the time I joined TNG, Gene had decreed that money most emphatically did NOT exist in the Federation, nor did ‘credits’ and that was that.”
“Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” - release date: 26 November 1986
“Encounter at Farpoint” - original air date: 28 September 1987
“The Bonding” - the first episode of TNG Ronald D. Moore wrote, and sold as a spec script before getting hired as part of the writing staff, original air date: 23 October 1989There is plenty of references to money in TOS, and not merely as a figure of speech.
I don’t care, I was just refuting “Roddenberry didn’t imagine a moneyless future” because it’s categorically untrue.
Damn I was hoping it was just the handful that I’ve met that are like that. I’ve been a fan along with my father since he introduced me to TNG when I was very young. Thankfully there have been relatively few like that around here.
OG startrek was probably the “wokest” thing on TV in the sixties. And a bunch of grouchy old men that no one cared about bitched about it back then too.
They had a black woman in a respected, professional position with an officer’s rank. The same with an Asian man.
They tackled race relations (in an admittedly very silly way) when no one else would touch it.
They had one of the first onscreen kisses between a white person and a black person.
Starfleet was created as a military force, but dedicated to peaceful exploration and science at the height of the Vietnam war.
Can you even imagine what today’s Republicans would say about it back then? There would be a boycott of the network the first time Uhura was onscreen and it wouldn’t have finished the season because there were only three networks.
They had a black woman in a respected, professional position with an officer’s rank. The same with an Asian man.
And a Russian in a trusted role. That was a pretty big deal during Cold War times, too.
As a rather left leaning Person I have no problem with New Trek beeing “woke” in general.
I fucking hate Discovery, to a point that I had to give up on it after season 3. Picards first 2 season where almost as bad (I like the third season, more or less).
The problem is not so much the wokeness of those series, it’s that it’s just bad storytelling.
The way how “woke” ideas are implemented just feels like pandering to the audience. Homosexualyity, Non Binary characters, enviromentalism… I approve representation for all of those and would have loved to see them integrated in a meaningfull way. But the way they were handled it felt wrong to me, as if they were forced into the story rather than emerging from it organicly.
Edit: I have since I posed this done some reading. While I still stand by this, I do see how Queer topic at least been handled with respect in Discovery. Still embeded in a badly told story, but hey, it’s something and I see how that is not nothing.
Well, as someone who’s gay, I’d say that the representation from Stamets and Culber didn’t feel forced or unnatural. If Stamets were straight and Culber were a woman then nothing would change. If Adira wasn’t non-binary then nothing would change. If Grey wasn’t trans then nothing would change. Stamets was on screen for like two episodes before you ever find out that he’s gay. Culber on for one. Adira doesn’t mention that they’re non-binary until halfway through Season 3 and the reaction is literally just “Okay” and they move on. Grey only has two throwaway lines mentioning a previous transition. Their characters are all well established without their sexuality or identity having any impact on the show. It would all be the same characters but straight. The show goes out of its way to demonstrate that being gay, trans or non-binary has literally nothing to do with the content of your character.
I am getting slightly tired though of seeing people who aren’t part of the community saying that the representation of us ‘feels forced’. Our mere existence isn’t forced. Moreover, are you really the one who gets to judge this? After people trying to kill us for decades, and then using us for marketing purposes, now y’all wanna judge whether our existence is “forced”?
A gay couple in a series today is as forced as a black woman on the bridge in the 60s. The people who complained about the latter are the same kind of people who complain about the former today and not even notice the latter. It’s also the same kind of people who won’t notice either in the future and complain about what ever. Star trek handled political topics very well from the beginning by showing it as normal and making it a topic in allegories, sometimes making it explicit like when Kirk and Bones talk about how the “cold war on earth in the 20th century never got hot” or how wrong the Vietnam war “was”.
You want your star trek before it was political? You can’t be talking about TOS, not even the first pilot. Maybe the intro?
It did bother me a little that Adira was adopted by Stamets and Culber, only because it sort of felt like “let’s keep all the LGBT+ characters together” in a way, but I love that there’s a nonbinary primary character on Star Trek.
To be fair, that trope is called ‘adopted family’ and is incredibly popular within the gay community itself, which makes sense when you think about it. It usually comes from a place that one LGBT+ person has been abandoned by everyone in their life so other LGBT+ step in to help because they know what it’s been like their whole lives. Overall it’s actually a very large part of the LGBT+ community and the primary driving force as to why people say “YOU’RE GROOMING OUR KIDS!” Someone will disown an LGBT+ youth, that youth reaches out to people similar for them for help, those people help, and then the parents get enraged.
While it is a bit of a “Let’s keep them together”, I genuinely think it was done by the LGBT+ folks themselves and just keeping to representing the community in general. That and Adira does have more in common with Stamets than anyone else on board.
That makes sense. Thanks for that perspective.
But of course. The Adira thing was actually made fun of (a little bit) by myself and a couple friends. We were all making jokes that Stamets and Culber would adopt Adira and Grey just because of how popular it is in the community. It happened to me. I’ve got a couple older gay guys who effectively adopted me when I came into the community. Happened to my trans friend. Happens a lot. So when Stamets is talking to Aurelio and outright says he has a child… We all were fucking floored. So I can totally see where you’re coming from in not liking it. It’s almost too on the nose just because of how fast it happened. It does happen quick in reality but woah.
I wonder if Anthony Rapp or Wilson Cruz had any input about it? Because I’m sure they can give a similar perspective to you… although for all I know, half the writers on Discovery are LGBT+ and don’t need the input. I am cishet, but my daughter identifies as omnisexual so I really want her to have characters she can relate to when so many decades have gone by without those characters. That’s why I appreciate Star Trek always being as progressive as TV will allow and why I appreciate that TV will finally allow those characters.
I’m not sure on if Rapp or Cruz had any input. I’m half inclined to ask Anthony myself next time I randomly talk to him. The staff on Discovery though, yeah. There’s a lot of representation behind the scenes. Like a lot. I don’t know the numbers but a good chunk of people behind all the new Treks are LGBT+ in some sort of variety. Another reason I love Discovery? One of the writers in Season 1 and 2 (and an exec producer) was Michelle Paradise. That name may or may not be familiar because she, starting with Season 3, became a co-runner of Discovery. She’s also a lesbian!
Representation up the wazoo with this show. It was one of the biggest draws for me. Let me just say that growing up without that representation on screen and without people to relate to? It felt strange. Here’s a future where everyone is loved and accepted but I’m just invisible. Still not there. Still lonely. When Stamets came on screen with Culber during the toothbrush scene… I actually cried. I knew that both the actors were gay but didn’t know that they were playing gay characters. Seeing representation for the first time in Star Trek and knowing that not only are we still there in the future but we matter and can be important? It was an enormous deal.
Trust me when I say that you looking out for your daughter on that front is going to mean the world to her on levels you won’t ever be able to fully appreciate. You are an awesome person and an amazing dad.
The relationship between Stamets and Culber felt like the single island of humanity and goodness in the four seasons I almost got through. And then they fridged Culber, only to then bring him back with mushroom trauma. Not really the woke thing to do. Adira and Gray just seemed kinda pointless from what I remember, despite the somewhat interesting backstory.
What I found forced and entirely unnecessary was Lt. Connolly in the first episode of the second season or how they handled Leeland. To me it’s just a tone-deaf, mean-spirited show overall.
Calm down.
You don’t need to go into full attack Mode here. Im happy for you, that you felt repretented. I did not feel the way they handled it felt like good representstion. I’d be happy to see more representstion in general, I just wish it would be embedded into a better told story. If you are cool with the way it’s done: Good for you.
I am getting slightly tired though of seeing people who aren’t part of the community saying that the representation of us ‘feels forced’. Our mere existence isn’t forced. Moreover, are you really the one who gets to judge this? After people trying to kill us for decades, and then using us for marketing purposes, now y’all wanna judge whether our existence is “forced”?
This is a beautiful example of heteronormativity at work. You can disagree with me on how and if Discovery did a good job of representing LGBTQI+. topic or not without assuming my sexuality or implying thst I called out for the war on gays, thank you very much.
I am calm. If I was in attack mode it would be very different.
Im happy for you, that you felt repretented. I did not feel the way they handled it felt like good representstion.
Why? You have not yet explained or elaborated that point. You’ve just went “Nah. Not good.” Meanwhile that representation has won literal awards from multiple different international organizations that are specifically devoted to LGBTQIA+ representation.
’d be happy to see more representstion in general, I just wish it would be embedded into a better told story.
There is a massive difference between “the story isn’t a good one and gay characters shouldn’t be brought down by bad writing” and “this is bad representation and feels forced”. You did not originally say that it was “embedded into a better told story” originally which is what I’m responding to.
This is a beautiful example of heteronormativity at work.
Correct. I assumed you were straight because I have yet to meet anyone from the LGBTQIA+ community who would be so self-sabotaging that they say it’s bad representation while being wildly unclear about your stance and opinion. While it’s a little on me to make an assumption, you can’t exactly blame me when for my entire life I’ve been forced to justify my simple existence to people who constantly judge me day after day by what they think the standard is. Not only that but generally I think that if someone is going to be giving the opinion on whether or not the representation is good of a particular group, they should openly be saying that they’re part of the group. Otherwise it just sounds like you’re a complete stranger looking in and judging the representation on behalf of a group that never asked for it.
Gay characters are allowed to exist. The representation was fine and probably the best representation that we’ve gotten in a while. Moreover, it’s the only representation we’ve gotten on a large scale in Star Trek at any point in history. And once again, it has won literal awards for its representation.
Edit: The amount of you who are willing to downvote me for daring to point out blatant bigotry, while upvoting that same bigotry, is absolutely disgusting. You should be utterly fucking ashamed of yourself.
I feel like often criticism of how representation is done in media is really just veiled criticism that it’s normalized in the show.
It’s like representation should only be blatant and pandering (so it can be called woke by the same people) or so far in the background it’s easy to ignore it or not catch it if you’re not who’s being represented.
I love that it’s just business as usual in these shows and the representation is organic, because that’s real life.
Exactly.
your depression is getting the better of you
I’m fine, thanks for your concern.
Can’t LGBT+ be included unless its meaningful? I dont like that “pandering” argument. It is too easy to misuse, too subjective.
I want them included in bad shows as much as in good shows. I want a random background person to be gay just as much as an important character. Best case would be if we didnt even raise an eyebrow on seeing a LGBT+ character and rather critizise their acting or plot instead of blaming “pandering”. I dont hear anyone call forcing a unecessary romantic straight subplot into a plot for “pandering”.
I dont hear anyone call forcing a unecessary romantic straight subplot into a plot for “pandering”.
That line needs to be screamed from the heavens. For every single person who claims that “Oh their sexuality or identity feels forced” they seem to have no problem with stuff like Hulk and Black Widow having a relationship, or baby t-shirts saying surprisingly sexual stuff (or at least innuendo). Or saying that their kids are dating someone else simply because their child dares to be friends with the opposite sex.
It’s exhausting. Everytime there is a gay character it has to meet some random standard that does not exist for any straight characters.
Best case would be if we didnt even raise an eyebrow on seeing a LGBT+ character
This is what I’ve liked about Discovery in particular. It feels to me like it’s just organic and normal. They don’t highlight or make a spectacle of the LGBT+ characters’ gender/identity and it’s just there, normal and regular, just like in real life.
The stories suck and neither fanservice nor wokeness save new trek from being worse than the trek from our youth.
Gloomy have you ever watched Star Trek? Like not just watched the pretty lights on the TV but ingested the story? The idea of the new episodes being more “woke” than the classic, TNG or DS9 is garbage.
I was so blinded by the ‘bad representation of homosexuality’ nonsense that I missed the environmentalism aspect. Environmentalism is too much for Star Trek?! The Voyage Home (just a single example) is explicitly about environmentalism and how hunting/pollution led to the extinction of marine life. If I spent 30 seconds on google I’d probably find another half dozen episodes that are specifically about it or the impacts of it.
Im not saying Envormentalim is too much for Star Trek. Nor am I saying Queer topic are. That’s simply not what I wrote anywhere.
I said they felt tucked on. Read my comment below got some more detail, if you want to.
But thanks anyway for your input, I have done some more reading and somewhat have to agree with you.
ST:D did indeed treat Queer topic with respect. It’s still a shitty show and I see the pandering aspect of it. I do still wish it would have been embedded in a better story (and way of telling said story). But I do stand corrected in regards to their overall handling Queer topics.
It’s been some time since I watched ST:D and it was a quite negative experience overall. I suppose that lead to me not seeing the positives in it. I did some more reading now and see where you are coming from.
Thanks again for your input.
I have, yes, since I was about 10. Ive seen all of old Trek up to DS9 multiple times. Im not saying New is more woke.
Im saying that progressiv and “woke” ideas used to be told in a orgsnic way that felt natural to the world they were told in. Modern Star Trek, to me, is badly told stories with fanservice and woke ideas glued onto them in an awkward way.
Buddy at the time Sisco being Sisco was a big deal. It was not organic and it definitely wasn’t accepted by everyone. You need more context for the times when the past series came out. You don’t feel like the past series are pushing the boundaries because those boundaries have already been pushed. All of that stuff has been normalized and accepted in part because of Star Trek.
You have the right to not like the new Star Trek series but you can’t blame it on it being progressive and woke because that’s always been Star Treks MO.
Seems like your problem is that it’s normalized in the new shows and not being made to be a spectacle.
I’d love examples of how the story of the newer shows has progressive ideas “glued onto them” and how representation could be better done.
I have spend some time reading and have to agree with you. I do stand by some of my statements and am happy to provide examples:
Environmental Issus
I refer to “Sanctuary” (ST:D S3E08) here. The underlying message of the episode is, of course, pro environmental. My main issue is, that it is so very very not subtle about it. The obvious good guy of COURSE is an “empath” and OF COURSE everybody on the planet is oh so nice to animals, to a point of asking them kindly to leave again (powered by a magical space laser), instead of forcing them out. And OF COURSE they live in complete harmony with nature, because THEY ARE THE GOOD GUYS, CAN’T YOU SEE HOW F-ING GOOD THEY ARE.
It’s tiering. It’s so so obvious who are the goodies and the badies. There is no grey here, nothing thought provoking. This is, in my opinion, pandering to the left crowd.
Which I am member of. I count myself as someone, who is very much interested in the whole topic of climate chance, systems collapse and environmental movement. It’s a topic that matters to me. Here it is not driven forward. The episode isn’t showing anything new; it’s not presenting any solutions; it’s not highlighting any problems. It doesn’t trust its audience with the ability to think for themselves. It’s like getting pre-chewed food. You don’t have to question anything, don’t have to conclude anything. It’s just plane obvious how this should be viewed. The whole episode comes down to Environmentalism = Good Anti-Enviromentalism = Bad. And I agree. But this episode is using the pro Environmental stance of the characters to drive the point home how good and nice they are.
The episode would be the same if they landed on a planet where the bad guys are threatening to kill all puppies and the good guys are the only ones defending them. It’s lazy and it’s bad writing and it reduces a very important issue of our time (I’d go so far as to say the most important issue of our time) to a mere backdrop.Let me compare that to, for example, the way how the Malon are presented in Voyager. Of course the mask appears to be the same, just from the other side (pollution = bad). But there are at least some nuances to this theme. I’ll not go into so much detail, but the fact that Voyager is literally offering them a solution to their problem (of pollution) and they turn it down because there is a whole industry around managing pollution at least is a critical take on our modern society, without patronizing the audience too much.
Queerness
The “forced” aspect I was thinking about, when I wrote my original comment, mainly comes from the way how Sevens and Rafis relationship is treated in ST:Picard.
To me it felt like there was no organic build up to it. It just popped up and then disappeared again. There was no real build up to it, in my opinion (!). This is what I mean when I say tucked on. It would make no difference if one of the two has a different sex. It would still feel of and weirdly out of character. It’s very much in line with how season one and two of ST:P treat their storylines, which are often oversimplified, dumbed down and often not explored to the extend they would have deserved. Rafis and Sevens relationship felt glued on and almost like an afterthought. That’s what I mean pandering to the left crowd. It’s not organic or natural, it’s just forced into there (and the only reason I can think of is to hold up a Neon sign about how woke they are).
ST:D handled, things way better, as I have learned after doing some reading up on the topic over the last couple of hours.
Homosexual, Trans- and Non-Binary characters are treated in a positive light, and, at least in the case of gay persons, normalized, as @Stamets has pointed out upthread. I’d wish for ST:D to take this one farer, as detailed below, but hey, it’s definitely the right direction to walk in. Plus, I now do indeed feel they treated Queer topics with respect (after reading about it some more).
It’s a shame how it is embedded in a shitshow of a story, but after reading some of the comments here and doing some more research I absolutely have to agree: They handled it fine. I do stand corrected in that regard and am happy to admit so.
My remaining problem with Non-Binarity, and how it is treated, is how it is still handled as something out of the ordinary. I would prefer ST to uphold it’s utopian take on things. In a utopian world Non-Binarity would be a non-issue. I think it would have been a much more revolutionary stance if ST:D showed people choosing /changing and modifying their pronouns regularly, without it being in the spotlight too much. Because, if one thought this to its end, that’s the kind of future society that has arrived beyond the dichotomy of binary genders.
Think about how being vegetarian is presented in ST:TNG. Humanity has simply moved on from it. There are a few remarks towards this here and there, but mainly it is treated as a given. I would have loved for ST:D to take a similar approach to Non-Binarity.
Thank you for the response. I totally see where you’re coming from on the non-binary part, and I haven’t gotten to S3E08 in ST:D so I’ll have to keep this in mind.
As far as Raffi and Seven, they felt like extraneous characters after season 2 in general and I felt like Picard dragged the further I got into the series.
Take my upvote
As a rather left leaning Person I have no problem with TOS beeing “woke” in general.
The way how “woke” ideas are implemented just feels like pandering to the audience. Black, Asian and female characters… At least they got rid of number one after the pilot, no need to pander to the female audience with two women on the bridge crew.
-Gloomys grandfather probably
The same people would be upset to learn that Rage Against the Machine is politically charged and not just nonsense you can bop your head to.
I still can’t get past Paul Ryan saying RATM was his favorite band as if he’d never listened to a single lyric.
I don’t care what anyone thinks.
I’m really enjoying the new series, and if you don’t like them, turn them off and watch something else. You can let people enjoy things.
I am not to into many of the series since DS9 but I Love me some Lower decks and I of course watched the cross over episode.
not if those things are bad, bro
;) just fuckin with you i aint seen an ep mostly because i’m racist against all the other new treks. Does this one do the artificial bullshit the other ones have been doing to drum up tension? Making every technical problem be life or death, pulse-pounding soundtrack, dude’s literally changing a screw but the whole ship might explode? Ten minutes of cuts between concerned faces per episode? sorry i’m falling asleep trying to describe it, so boring
The problem is that most modern trek TV shows have terrible writing. I tried so hard to like discovery
I don’t want this serialized shit.
I’ve seen 4 generations of the show, all were episodic. All of a sudden, everything is serialized. Fuck that. Give me self-contained, 43-45 minute stories I can watch in any order and not be like “wait, wtf is going on?”
DS9 and Voyager (and the new season of Lower Decks is doing it too with the mysterious ship plot) have been able to have both an overarching story line while still being episodic. Why can’t Picard or Discovery do that?
I’ll say the B-word. I’ll say it.
Babylon 5 had it perfectly figured out in the 90s.
Yeah I’m pretty sure that is what is turning me off the current shows. I don’t mind the representation, since that’s a core element of Trek and has been since the first show.
Just that the shows, especially discovery, felt very lecturing and on the nose. I don’t want literal current day talking points in space. I want to see a future where those issues have been overcome and it is normal and no big deal.
Though I may be biased because I hated the stamets character, or rather the whole engineering department.
Neurotic gay scientist who is always preoccupied with his emotions and personal life but is also as an afterthought the smartest guy in the galaxy, featuring snarky butch lesbian wonder engineer who is preoccupied with being obnoxious kinda gets old after some episodes.
I think it’s starting to turn around.
Discovery - I stopped watching after season 2 cause I thought it was so bad
Picard - season 1-2 terrible. Season 3 pretty good
Lower Decks - all good
Strange New worlds - only watched S1, not my favorite but will definitely watch S2
Prodigy - never saw it so IDK
I think Discovery and Picard really ruined the reputation of modern Star Trek. Overall I think it’s at worst it’s average.
To each their own. I had a different experience.
I found Picard 1-2 was great fun. Haven’t seen season 3 yet.
Lower Decks is awesome. I love the myriad references.
Strange New Worlds pretty much reignited my dormant ST passion and reminded me why I loved TOS and TNG. Interesting Sci-Fi stories are the main thing I want out of Star Trek because that’s what it was all about when I was a kid watching TOS returns. The stories can be implausible and corny with clunky dialog, I don’t care. Just make me go “hmm” or make me wish I could explore the galaxy and I got my fix. It’s why I still like TOS and TNG.
Just started Discovery last night. Only one episode in. First impression, “Why you gotta do my Klingons dirty like that, what the actual fuck??”
I appreciate that it is so cinematic in style. Feels like watching some of the original movies. But goddamn with the Klingons. The discontinuity is incredibly jarring. Although I will admit I am really wanting to find out what happens next.
The klingon redesign pissed everyone off, myself included. They toned it back significantly in season 2 and the Klingons aren’t as in the forefront as they are in season 2 so it’s less noticeable.
I felt compelled to pause the show about ten seconds after they appeared just to go see if it was just me having a wtf moment.
I’m glad they at least listened to viewers at least.
(Not that it is a bad design for alien creatures and their ships… in isolation)
I seems to be in a minority that liked it.
Is everyone just ignoring the forehead thing that Klingons don’t tak about?
Honestly I always considered the fist (IIRC) season of DSC to be deliberate Klingon fan service: Hours-long dialogue in Klingon, tons of warrior honour culture (and its conflict with federation ideals) and people are complaining about… hair? WTF?
Picard is the worst offender for sure. Discovery is just the Michael Burnham show loosely set in the star trek universe.
TOS was just the Enterprise show setin the star trek universe.
Exactly, it’s a show about a ship and it’s crew, not a person.
Prodigy is good, but it’s intended for kids so the subject matter is a bit different.
My kids only one, I’ll check it out with her when she’s a bit older.
Isn’t that how almost every Star Trek show goes though? They needed a few seasons to find their footing.
Kind of but, no. Discovery just isn’t for me and I’m not planning on ever watching the rest. Are you saying that it gets better after season 2?
Picard got a new show runner after season 2. So it’s less the show getting it’s footing and more hiring better writers.
Lower Decks and SNW I’ve liked from the start.
Unless you’re looking at Nu Trek as a whole, then I guess you’re right.
That’s not failure that’s life.
Everything needs time to mature.
Cool, never seen a gold colored Enterprise before.
Hides in corner…only having watched lower decks and afraid to understand the rest of ST as a SWs fan…
You can always join us and watch more Star Trek!
But people complain about the newer iterations of Trek being ‘woke’ for introducing all flavor of LGBTQIA+ characters, tackling hot button issues, and just generally showing love and equality for all. Yet they seem to be completely blind to the fact that the original series started all of this by being ‘woke’ at the time. Having a black woman on the bridge who was treated as an equal, a Japanese man treated as an equal. Even a Russian with Chekov. People forget that at the time this was a little bit insane to show on TV. Now it’s like “Oh well, yeah, of course! They were just being awesome!” No. They were being the 60s equivalent of woke. That only continued in The Next Generation by introducing more people of color, people with disabilities of all sorts, and more intense subject matter. Got even more intense (and darker) in DS9. Voyager is guilty of the same thing. Enterprise as well but it’s the younger sibling people talk less about so it doesn’t get as much praise in that department. Probably because of alien nazis but blame Voyager for starting that with the Hirogen.
Anyway.
Point being that Star Trek has been woke since the start but people wanna ignore that and just whine about people different than them because they’re either cowards who are afraid change, who are hateful bigots who don’t want others to have happiness, or who are fools that believe the world revolves around them.
That or they’re just plain fucking stupid.
I’d say it’s not even woke, it’s an ideal. The Federation is symbolic of a utopian society, something that could be achieved through cooperation and tolerance and understanding.
I really think this is well demonstrated in the second season of Picard when they end up in 2024. It’s very subtle but well done how the characters react to a world with massive suffering and social issues compared to what they’re accustomed to in the Federation.
Didn’t it also have the first multi racial kiss on TV? I remember seeing that somewhere. Which at the time was considered hella woke
Star Trek has always always been moral plays set in space. Politics has been integral to it since the beginning.
Wow, you’re missing a LOT of context for the jokes if you’ve never seen any other Star Trek. Still, it’s a credit to them that you can enjoy it regardless.
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Yea some of it I’ve had to Google but LDs is really well done. It’s replaced Futurama sleeping for me. Which I thought would never happen. They did the characters so damn well, and the story is great. Some of my friends who are trekkies don’t like LDs, so it seems those of us who have less ST understanding, like it better.
Meanwhile, I love Star Trek (mostly the older stuff) and think LD is the best modern Trek show.
Watch it, enjoy it, ignore the fans.
No one hates ST more than Trekkies.
TNG was woke, and DS9 was dark. What star trek is has always been.
I started with The Orville (I know, it’s not Star Trek), then Lower Decks, TNG, and now DS9. If you want woke, The Orville is very woke and I really enjoyed it, they brought up trans rights and gay rights issues. Following that, TNG isn’t really woke I don’t think, there’s still some traditional patriarchy issues in there iirc but it’s still a pretty moderate show.
In my opinion, The Orville is the startreckiest series ever made.
DS9 was also woke and fun. TNG and TOS had dark episodes. I miss the diversity in modern trek
Anybody ever watch Earth Space Dock zone chat in STO? I last visited around the time Trump was materializing as an actual possibility as a presidential candidate. The toxicity put r/thedonald to shame.
Rule one of STO - if you value your sanity, turn off zone chat.
Set phasers to … Stun
And Personal Computer?
