this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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[–] roscoe@startrek.website 48 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (9 children)

The thing I love about this, the thing I always find funny whenever this comes up, is that these midwits are just too dumb to make the obvious argument. The argument that is "in their face" and "being shoved down their throats."

There is a rational, coherent argument to make their point. It's one I disagree with. It's one that, in my opinion, can only be made in bad faith with no purpose other than to be a concern troll, but it's there.

They always bring up Adira, Gray, Jett, Stamets, Culber, and anything else that's gone up their ass but never any of the actual social commentary because they're so thick it went over their heads and they didn't even notice it. You can see it in this thread. They mention the characters and people respond with "but they're just existing, how does that bother you?" They just bring up the characters again to a response of "yeah, we heard you the first time, what are they doing that bothers you other than existing?" And it just goes in a circle.

There was never an episode of ToS where Uhura talked about how hard it was to be a black woman as a bridge officer, because it wasn't. That's the whole point. In the future Star Trek wants us to imagine, a black female officer is completely unremarkable. Whenever they wanted to engage in social commentary about race relations in the 60s they had to invent an allegorical race, time travel, or use some other device to make their point.

The same thing is happening in the newer series. All those characters are just existing. Their sexuality and gender identity is completely unremarkable in the future Star Trek shows us. If those dipshits had two brain cells to rub together they would see the new series are full of allegories about not just tolerance, or even acceptance, but appreciation for beings with non-conforming expressions of self. If any of that did manage to trickle through their thick skulls they probably just twisted it into "yeah, people shouldn't make fun of me for having a relationship with a waifu pillow."

If they weren't so stupid they could easily give a half dozen examples and say "it's too much," "I got it the first time," "focus on something else for a change," or whatever other bullshit justification they came up with to oppose these themes. It would be a bad faith argument that I would disagree with but at least they could pretend they're not bigots, instead of their current position which seems to be "I've got no problem with these people, I just don't want to see them."

[–] 31337@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

TBH, I initially had a strange reaction to Discovery. It seemed to me like it was virtue-signalling and pandering to an audience to increase viewership or profit. Similar to how you sometimes see fake stock-photos of a business where they contains exactly one person from every ethnicity. I think the word I'm thinking of is "tokenism." I still watched it for a couple seasons, and it was decent. I didn't really realize at the time how prevalent and dangerous bigotry still was in the U.S.. Now I think it's probably good some shows and movies over-represent minorities.

[–] ThirdDurasSister@startrek.website 4 points 10 months ago

It seemed to me like it was virtue-signalling and pandering to an audience to increase viewership or profit.

Until people stop seeing minorities as different, then these kind of labels are going to get applied just because they exist. If a cast of non-minorities doesn't raise an eyebrow, then a cast of minorities shouldn't either. Base such labels on the way the characters are written, not because they exist. Stopping bigotry requires not caring about sex, gender, or sexual orientation.

I didn’t really realize at the time how prevalent and dangerous bigotry still was in the U.S

Bigotry is a worldwide issue, not just in the US. The problem is often implicit discrimination, where someone is subconsciously influenced by bigotry and isn't aware they're doing it. It never gets resolved because people get defensive when it's pointed out to them. Stopping it requires prioritizing doing the right thing over being right.

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