Jess wrote: I gotta say, I was always one of those who, while acknowledging the show's political shortcomings (this is coming from a guy raised to be a Socialist) I have a soft spot for Roddenberry's vision of the future, in which ethnicity didn't matter and it was important to recognize our humanity.
I mean, he had a famously multiracial and multiethnic crew on the ship, and that was a big deal in 1966-67.
Not that there aren't issues– Roddenberry's original vision was very much a technocratic sort of utopia, along the lines of the stuff that Arthur C. Clarke would come up with, and very "traditional" in a science fictional sense (the New Wave really wouldn't make itself felt in science fiction television for a while, I'd say it took until the 90s for that to go mainstream, but you could argue the point depending on how you define things).
In any case, I was just thinking of George Takei — I mean, Asian, gay, (and compared to many people in TV at the time, rather openly so, though closeted by today's standards) and playing a key role in many episodes.
I'd call the show's racial politics pretty good for its time. Yeah, when we watch it now it doesn't look as progressive as we would like, but I bet more than half the readers of this blog weren't born yet when it aired. Things have changed a bit, in ways that hen I think about it, are pretty damned huge. Remember, it's been forty years(!). [I am officially old, having caught the series in its first syndications as a kid in the mid-70s].
All of which makes me want to see the movie. I'm interested to see how Abrams takes on Roddenberry's concept. I think it could be a fun ride. Posted 08 May 2009 at 8:02 am
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Jehanzeb wrote: I was never into "Star Trek," in fact, I was conditioned to hate it because I was a die-hard "Star Wars" nerd. Every day in middle-school, my fellow "Star Wars" geeks would engage in intense debates and arguments with the Trekkies who sat on the other side of the lunch table.
Because of this, I have never seen a single "Star Trek" movie. Now that I am older, I had to admit that the trailer for the new "Star Trek" movie looks pretty cool. I have only just begun to realize how diverse their cast is (not just in this film, but in their other movies and television shows, particularly Voyager and Deep Space Nine). I still haven't fully watched a "Star Trek" movie or episode, but after reading this post, I'm curious to see how people of color are portrayed.
But that inner geek is making me feel like I'm betraying "Star Wars" if I say anything positive about "Star Trek." Ha! Posted 08 May 2009 at 11:05 am **
Eva wrote: "I think the Klingons were originally supposed to be the the Russians then morphed into a representation of black people. I think the Vulcans and Romulans were supposed to be Asians."
I watched TOS when I was a child in 1966. It was very revolutionary, I was amazed to see a black woman on the bridge, an officer. Originally, the Klingons were supposed to be the Russians, however when TNG came on, Michael Dorn, a black man, played Worf, that meant they had to find another black person to play his brother (Tony Todd) and so it went. I don't think it was intentional for the Klingons to be black people. But when I was a teenager in the 70's, we all thought the Vulcans were supposed to be Asians, so you're right on that one. Posted 08 May 2009 at 11:30 am
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Eva wrote: One more thing, the Vulcans and the Romulans were originally one people. I can't remember why they split up. I do remember the Vulcans believed in logic while the Romulans didn't. Posted 08 May 2009 at 11:31 am ¶
** Daniel wrote: I'm also a trekkie and a huge sci-fi fan. Haven' t seen the movie yet, maybe much later on. It's pretty cool because this media franchise is one of the few where we did get that wide range of minority characters with quite a lot of depth in their acting…relatively speaking. I watched and enjoyed/disliked parts of all the series, TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise plus the movies. I think if Star Trek does get revitalized, the series will change in a way that might reflect more of the demographic variety (not just people but in terms of different cultures, religions, philosophies) of today. It's done that before of course, but I suspect it will change further.
The strange thing about these science fiction shows is that we know it's fake but compared with other genres, the acting and mini-plots make it quite realistic. Half of the time it's just drama with a space background. Pretty good drama as they don't hide the mundane parts plus flaws and "amoral" traits of their characters. At least, it's what I think. Posted 08 May 2009 at 2:49 pm