Would there have ever been an outroar if they got rid of Kim?

[Guy Gardener]

10 years since the show finished, 14 years since they picked the little girl over the gerbil and I'm still pissed... but if the refuse ejection had targeted the other mook on the chopping block instead of the adorable little blonde tyke, would our dissatisfaction have even registered or kept steam for any duration?

 

[The Grim Ghost]

Probably. Because every character has their own set of vocal fans.

We probably would have had some people accusing Voyager of being racist as well, since Wang is Asian. Which would be complete garbage of course, but some people would say it.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I'm having a difficult time thinking of the appearance of any other Asians on Voyager?

there must be a shortage of Asian actors (cough) since I did hear that only two actors were auditioned for the part of harry kim in the beginning, so it's not like we can damn the TPTB form not being able to squeese blood from a stone?

O. Sulu's guest spot didn't count.

I always liked noticing Nurse Alyssa Ogawa in the background in TNG, she totally fleshed out chickbay (Freudian typo too funny to correct.) and Doctor Crusher, so I wonder why the Voyager production team didn't think about picking her up when they were stealing the stuff from the props and costume department as TNG was locking up?

 

[The Grim Ghost]

There was Keiko on DS9, but of course she was a supporting cast member.

Wang was the first major Asian actor in a Star Trek series (other than Sulu of course). If it came out that there was a choice between keeping Kes (cute white girl) and Kim an asian male...I think that might have stirred something up if Kim was picked to leave.

Of course a lot of that would probably have come from people who never actually watched the show. Because most of us that are fans seem to pretty much agree that Kim was the weakest link.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Rosiland was a hold over from TNG. (I just giggled,, maybe cackled incessantly because Worf delivered her first baby Molly.) faced with such a backlash, they would have saved more face in casting the "sexy" Borgette Asian which would have stirred further arguments about the Conservation of Token minority characters, than reversing over Wang's tossing.

Destro? Do you play the clarinet?

 

[Jeri]

Daniel Day Kim as Gotana-Retz in Blink of an Eye. He made a memorable character in a memorable episode.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Yes he was, but that guy could easily qualify as being one of the hardest working men in science fiction... He's been in EVERYTHING.

Oh my. I tried to cheat and see if there was a shortcut to figuring out if there were many more asian actors trappedinthe ranks of Voyager actors and guess what? This thread is 5th from the top of 45 thousand search results.

 

[Kurros]

http://memory-alpha.org/en/index.php?title=Category:VOY_performers

Go through it and try to pick out any Asian sounding names. On the first couple of pages, i found:

Julie Jiang
Tang Nguyen
Betty Matsushita
Taylor Chong
Lin Chong

harry Kim's stunt double (doesn't really count, does it?): Al Goto
another stunt man: Joey Sakata

There maybe more. I didn't go through it all.

 

[nx1701g]

10 years since the show finished, 14 years since they picked the little girl over the gerbil and I'm still pissed... but if the refuse ejection had targeted the other mook on the chopping block instead of the adorable little blonde tyke, would our dissatisfaction have even registered or kept steam for any duration?

Berman, Braga, and People Magazine would've had a problem.

I don't feel like repeating the story again... someone else want to?

 

[RyuRoots]

If they did get rid of him, it's not like the show would change all that much, aside from Tom having someone around who's easy to mock and make him look good by comparison.

 

[The Grim Ghost]

Destro? Do you play the clarinet?

I'm a backup member of the Kim-Tones.

 

[Tallis Rhul]

I would have been annoyed. I was also annoyed that they got rid of Kes. What would have been ideal is if the writing had been good enough that they didn't have to replace someone in the first place.

Seven was an interesting character... why the hell didn't they replace Neelix?

 

[TheGodBen]

Destro? Do you play the clarinet?

I'm a backup member of the Kim-Tones.

Boooooooo! Booooooo! Get off the stage!

 

[The Grim Ghost]

Destro? Do you play the clarinet?

I'm a backup member of the Kim-Tones.

Boooooooo! Booooooo! Get off the stage!

You'll have to pry that clarinet out of my cold dead hands!

We Kim-Tones are on a sacred quest to spread boring elevator music across the Delta Quadrant.

 

[exodus]

Probably. Because every character has their own set of vocal fans.

We probably would have had some people accusing Voyager of being racist as well, since Wang is Asian. Which would be complete garbage of course, but some people would say it.

I don't think it is garbage at all.

Mulgrew, Picardo, McNiell, Philips, Lien & Ryan are all White actors on the show. They out number the miniorities 5 to 1. Wang is the first Asian actor to be in the main cast, Takei doesn't even count because anyone outside of Shatner, Kelley & Nimoy were all supporting cast on TOS until the films.(It's why Takei's bitching about Shatner stealing all their screne time has no merit) Losing Wang would have been a step back and hypocritical towards Treks theme of diversity, Lien would not.

 

[JustKate]

They had an entire, though not often seen, crew to choose from. Surely if they decided to get rid of Kim, they could have simply brought another crewmember, who just happened to be of Asian decent, into the fore.

What I mean is, their only two choices weren't "Keep Harry Kim/Garrett Wang" or "Make our already almost entirely white cast even whiter."

So I have to think that TPTB thought Wang and Kim were acceptable just as they were.

 

[exodus]

They had an entire, though not often seen, crew to choose from. Surely if they decided to get rid of Kim, they could have simply brought another crewmember, who just happened to be of Asian decent, into the fore.

What I mean is, their only two choices weren't "Keep Harry Kim/Garrett Wang" or "Make our already almost entirely white cast even whiter."

So I have to think that TPTB thought Wang and Kim were acceptable just as they were.

How rare was it as it was that we saw other crew members brought to the forefront as it was?

 

[JustKate]

^ Almost never. What I was trying to say, although I can see now that I said it clumsily, is that if TPTB really wanted to get rid of Kim, they could have easily replaced him with another crewmember. Since we hardly saw other crewmembers except as background scenery, they wouldn't have had to go to any extraordinary lengths to find another person of any ethnic background they desired and use that person in place of Kim. It could have been another naive-but-hardworking ensign, or it could have been a rebellious former Maquis...really anything was possible.

But they didn't. So apparently they didn't feel it was necessary.

 

[TheGodBen]

I'm a backup member of the Kim-Tones.

Boooooooo! Booooooo! Get off the stage!

You'll have to pry that clarinet out of my cold dead hands!

We Kim-Tones are on a sacred quest to spread boring elevator music across the Delta Quadrant.

Down with this sort of thing! We demand the Doctor!

 

[The Grim Ghost]

Probably. Because every character has their own set of vocal fans.

We probably would have had some people accusing Voyager of being racist as well, since Wang is Asian. Which would be complete garbage of course, but some people would say it.

I don't think it is garbage at all.

Mulgrew, Picardo, McNiell, Philips, Lien & Ryan are all White actors on the show. They out number the miniorities 5 to 1. Wang is the first Asian actor to be in the main cast, Takei doesn't even count because anyone outside of Shatner, Kelley & Nimoy were all supporting cast on TOS until the films.(It's why Takei's bitching about Shatner stealing all their screne time has no merit) Losing Wang would have been a step back and hypocritical towards Treks theme of diversity, Lien would not.

It's garbage because the desire to get rid of Kim had nothing to do with his race. He was simply the weakest character on the show, that's it. Are you seriously suggesting that the people in charge of Voyager were motivated by race to get rid of him? Kes and Kim were the two characters that the writers seemed to have problems making interesting and finding things to do with. Kim won out because of the beautiful people thing.

I don't care how diverse the show is. I just want good actors and stories. If they can achieve that with an all african american cast, all white, all asian or some kind of mix...it just doesn't matter to me. Good stories, good characters, that is all I want.

And I'm one of the few people on this board who actually defends Harry! I kind of like him, and I don't think Wang was a bad actor like so many others do. But even though I have a soft spot for him, his character was still by far the weakest on the show!