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.
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.
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.
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.
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
