Star Trek -- please stop inserting politics into Science Fiction
killerrabbit
Member Posts: 402
in Off-Topic
November 9, 1966
Dear Sirs,
I am offended by your new show 'Star Trek'. When I go to the drive in to watch a science fiction movie I expect to escape the troubles of the day. When I turned on the TV I expected a show filled with lasers and robots not lectures about the virtues of race mixing. Your show is clearly an allegory for the United Nations and the main set of the program is nothing more than an attempt to shoehorn the agenda of the civil rights movement into America's living rooms.
Now I have nothing against negroes or chinamen but I do object your hamfisted portrayal of the characters. If you are going to put a negress on the screen her character should be fully developed and do more than simply answer the phone. At present the characters 'Uhura' and 'Sulu' serve no purpose except to signal support for race mixing. Indeed a good friend of mine, a negro himself, sees the Uhura character as a token.
I ask that you either remove the Uhura and Sulu characters or fully develop them. To do anything else will be to destroy the legacy left by fine shows such as Lost in Space.
Sincerely yours,
Dear Sirs,
I am offended by your new show 'Star Trek'. When I go to the drive in to watch a science fiction movie I expect to escape the troubles of the day. When I turned on the TV I expected a show filled with lasers and robots not lectures about the virtues of race mixing. Your show is clearly an allegory for the United Nations and the main set of the program is nothing more than an attempt to shoehorn the agenda of the civil rights movement into America's living rooms.
Now I have nothing against negroes or chinamen but I do object your hamfisted portrayal of the characters. If you are going to put a negress on the screen her character should be fully developed and do more than simply answer the phone. At present the characters 'Uhura' and 'Sulu' serve no purpose except to signal support for race mixing. Indeed a good friend of mine, a negro himself, sees the Uhura character as a token.
I ask that you either remove the Uhura and Sulu characters or fully develop them. To do anything else will be to destroy the legacy left by fine shows such as Lost in Space.
Sincerely yours,
22
Comments
Your head ------------> ( ^ _ ^ )
I dont get it...
When Star Trek showed the first interracial kiss in television history, you can BET there were angry armchairbros screaming about politics being "shoved down their throats." Only because the "writing was bad," mind you.
On another note, I just realized that the words "agenda," "hamfisted," and "shoehorned" now produce a slight eye twitch for me. Hope that goes away.
Anyone who took issue with such a brilliantly-written show was clearly a racist and/or homophobe, regardless of what they actually say. There's absolutely no valid criticism that could be made of this show whatsoever.
It gets bashed a lot though.
"There's another 78 episodes of Star Trek, why are you concentrating on that one small piece of the original series?"
"Because it was written terribly?"
"You just don't like the idea of Transvulcanism. How Technophobic of you!"
"???"
Two can play at that game
If you were to criticize *that* scene or the writing generally, then you would not be a racist or homophobe.
If you're a straight white dude nitpicking to death the portrayal of minorities that you feel have been "forced" upon you, then you might be.
Hope that cleared things up
https://youtube.com/watch?v=7xSOuLky3n0
Why not make a comparison with a medieval-based fantasy show like Game of Thrones?
In Game of Thrones, there are strong female characters who defy gender roles like Arya and Brienne, but they are considered weirdos, basically. There are also LGBT characters, but they are considered degenerate perverts by society at large.
Is this because the author is a bigoted male chauvinist? Not at all. To my knowledge, George R. R. Martin is a fairly progressive liberal. He just respects his works of art, that's all.
If your work of fiction takes place in a medieval-based setting, this will have some inevitable ramifications. If you ignore this and place progressive themes left and right unsparingly, the quality of your work will surely drop.
If this were a medieval setting, a black guy named Sarevok wouldn't have almost become Duke of Baldur's Gate.
In any event, it's not at all strange that many people think an interquel which proposes to bridge the two original games should have a similar atmosphere to them.
And the way they phrased it? "Females are easily the equals of their male counterparts?" They could have just said "This choice won't affect your stats", but no, they have to go all feminazi on us. I GET it. Women can do things too.