Guaranteed if original Star Trek came out today, it would be decried as “woke” and “DEI” and there would be outrage over it from the usual culture warriors.
Okay, I’ve finally looked up what DEI means… Diversity, equity, and inclusion are things people are berated for??
It’s not what DEI means. It’s about what it stands for.
Conservatives don’t want to be told to treat people with decency. They want to treat however the fuck they want, and then tell you that you aren’t treating them decently.
It’s about wielding power.
YES, it’s insane. It’s like saying “be a decent person” and people going “Fuck you, commie bastards, I do what I want.”
From 2020 on we’ve seen that telling people “hey wear the most basic of facemasks when you’re out in public because the morgues are running out of space all over” causes them to start screaming at the Walmart greeters and throwing tantrums like children. We are still stupid apes in a lot of ways
DEI is the current iteration of affirmative action, that’s all.
The problem with DEI is that it’s an imperfect solution that only came about because racists and other bigots couldn’t behave themselves. Forcing the hiring of specific demographics isn’t going to result in the best possible outcomes in every case but those groups also need opportunities even though they’ve been systemically given worse educations and have been generally shat upon. Removing race we’d also probably hire the white man more often but not because they’re inately better, but rather because they are simply more likely to be able to afford to have pretty looking resumés compared to disadvantaged minorities.
We wouldn’t need DEI in the first fucking place except people like an old boss, who saw an immigrant classmate of mine’s resumé come up and because of his African last name said “no thanks I want to keep jobs in Canada”, need to be forced to do the right thing. They create the problem and throw temper tantrums when we try to fix it. These people are obstacles and it’s getting tiring.
TL;DR: They feel as if they have a point because DEI can result in a more qualified person being turned away, which I get feels unfair. However, they refuse to acknowledge the fact that said person was only more qualified because we make it so difficult for minorities to fucking do anything. I’m getting so sick of right-wing bullshit.
Also, DEI is trying to diversify the points of view in the workplace. Homogeny of thought is NOT better when it comes to problem solving. Varied voices can create amazing solutions to problems one didn’t know really existed. If allowed, it builds creativity.
The outrage the far-right spun over DEI is by trying to portray it as hiring vastly underqualified applicants simply because of their belonging to an underrepresented group (often even being portrayed as vastly underqualified because of their race as white supremacist rhetoric). Of course in reality this wasn’t true and it was just a foghorn for racism/an ethnic slur, but that’s how it started.
Yeah, I’ve heard it called “Didn’t Earn It” and the idea is that people are given preferential treatment in job or services based on their ethnicity and not their qualification. As with all things the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Counterpoint: As long as they consider the women “hot” they will accept them as part of the franchise.
Nichelle Nichols I think was probably hot enough to not draw their ire.
Those culture warriors are somehow always okay with women they view as “fuckable.” Women only have value in their eyes if they want to sleep with them by their looks alone.
Just out of curiosity, what do you think is more progressive: a spaceship where all female crew is forced to wear miniskirts, a bridge crew that has exactly one woman, the part in the pilot where “Orion sex slaves” are introduced in the horniest possible way, or the married producer who was cheating on his wife with the only two relevant female cast members?
The 1960s was a long time ago. While there are a lot of TOS that aged very well, the idea that the show would be decried as woke is straight up delusional.
Cow pies. “Original Star Trek” clearly referred to TOS.
If OC meant a modern rendition of classic trek, they wouldn’t be speaking in hypotheticals. They’d just refer to SNW by name.
Nichelle Nichols was at one point thinking of quitting the show but stayed because MLK Jr. himself told her how important her character was.
She thought about leaving because she didn’t feel like her character got to do enough - a common sentiment of supporting actors.
It was TNG that really established an ensemble cast formula; TOS was Kirk-Spock-McCoy and the rest. It took TNG a couple seasons before they got the idea of a true ensemble cast where everyone gets to star in some episodes. TOS wouldn’t have had more than one episode starring Reginald Barcklay with Geordi and Dianna in supporting roles, but TNG had at least two.
TOS wouldn’t have had more than one episode starring Reginald Barcklay with Geordi and Dianna in supporting roles, but TNG had at least two.
Three, even. Horny holideck, barkley gets his groove on, and transporter cuddles.
“Shatner figured it out? Shatner? This is a real low point. Yeah, this one hurts.”
“When I have a problem that phasers can’t solve, I just kiss a beautiful alien. Then suddenly, I have a completely different problem!” - Jason Tiberius Kirk
Edit: I may have drifted into the Kelvin timeline…
They didn’t have everything figured out back then. For one, they bullied Spock for what we could only describe today as his neurodiversity.
The message I got from McCoy was that humans got along because they found new people to be racist against instead of each other
You should see the episode when a woman body swapped with Kirk, and how the Enterprise crew suspected something was wrong
They were even more upfront about it in TOS for some issues too.
I remember many instances where they say “We have women in our crew in the future.” It’s not like DISCO flaunted around saying “we don’t hate gay people in this ship.”
Like I understand that DISCO isn’t everybody’s favorite, and sure it has some issues, but all the flak it got for being “woke” and “preachy” was weird to me.
Part of Kirk’s whole thing was preachy speeches, and Picard had many moments too.
Saying discovery is woke with their crew split in two parts, the queer ones all packed together and then the “normal” ones, seems like a stretch.
The gay couple basically adopts the non binary one who is in a couple with the trans one, are friends with the gay engineer, but barely even talk to the rest of the crew? Ah and sex scenes between straight people but the most the gay couple gets is sitting next to each other, brushing teeth and a small kiss (not that it’s a bad thing on its own, it forced the writing to actually show a relationship and not just a bunch of sex, which is positive)
That did really bother me, shoehorning all the queer people into their own little box after being far more progressive in previous seasons. Literally anyone else on the crew could have adopted Adira (who I didn’t really care much for as a character anyway, she was basically SNW Uhura but not as good an actor), but they had it be Stamets and Culber. How about making it, say, Detmer?
How about making it, say, Detmer?
Who? You sort of trailed off there; all I’m seeing is a blank space.
but the most the gay couple gets is sitting next to each other, brushing teeth and a small kiss
While you’re absolutely right, I think the record should show that tooth brushing scene is one of the sexiest scenes in television history. Those two have some serious on-screen chemistry.
Once again, the “don’t show too much gay” policy they seem to have forced them to show a relationship through actual intimacy, in contrast to the usual “relationship=sex” that shows usually have (which we can see with most heterosexual relationships in the same show, for example). Even the doctor that is portrayed by an actor that, let’s say, likes to show his body (most of the google results are him half naked) was not sexualized stupidly like they usually would ; a positive thing, except that it’s probably only because they don’t want to “show the gay” (Book for example is always naked and fucking).
So yeah, taken independently it’s a better relationship image than most relationships in most shows, but in the context it’s pretty horrible.
It’s not like DISCO flaunted around saying “we don’t hate gay people in this ship.”
Well, after DS 9 it would just be repetitive. Also TNG spent a few episodes on this exact point, but it wasn’t a main topic.
But people tend to focus their complains about things being “preachy” when those things put the preach above the story-telling. DISCO absolutely had this flaw in some point or another. Never for very long, though, so it really wasn’t a main characteristic. Anyway, when a show is simply good, almost nobody gets bothered by the preaching.
The only issue disco has ever actually had is their serialized episodes. People hate on the other shit cause they’re bigots. Its still good Trek. The story is just less flexible.
I just wish a single ship weren’t saving the Federation/Galaxy/Multiverse every season.
It also waffles hard between “The important part of the Federation is it’s ideals” and “Section 31 is pretty badass right?”.
Have yet to see anything outside of DS9 use Section 31 well. It’s inclusion manages to turn what’s supposed to be a hopeful story of the future into just another police procedural that happens to use Star Trek™ branded props
it’s still good Trek
Everything with Pike and crew and pretty much everyone except Michael is decent Trek. Deus ex Burnham in every century Starfleet exists in is boring as shit and the nacelles not even being attached to the ship anymore is veering into Star Wars level of nonsensical ship design.
If floating nacelles is what does it for you but you can accept people being torn apart to the atoms and rebuilt somewhere else Idk what to tell ya bud. The saucers detach and float around, idk how that is sensical as it would create unnecessary weak points in the hull of the ship. The worst parts about discovery were how they were stuck trying to tell grand stories instead of being able to focus on the characters much. They didnt have that tight A plot B plot action that Trek does. But it was far from stinky poo poo terrible like most people say.
I don’t care about the woke nonsense. STD has very few redeeming qualities. Bad writing, bad acting. They spent little to no time flushing out the characters. I guess they didn’t have time what with the universe about to end every 10 minutes. I only watched for Anthony Rapp, Doug Jones and Michelle Yeoh. Everyone else was a stinker or didn’t get enough screen time.
