Trek guest actors in maybe surprising roles

^Yes, dammit, obviously it seemed innocent at the time -- to the white men who wrote the line. But they're not the only ones whose opinions mattered. Just because Asian-Americans weren't given a voice or a cultural space to object to such portrayals doesn't mean they weren't hurt and embittered by them.

And yes, comparing people of a given ethnicity to ethnic cuisine is kind of racist. It's reducing them to symbols that are stereotypical of their otherness rather than treating them as individual human beings. Not to mention that equating someone with an inanimate object is, well, objectifying. There are plenty of food-based ethnic slurs, like "kraut" for Germans or "beaner" for Mexican-Americans.

And if you listen to Asian-Americans' commentary on their portrayal in media culture, not only do they hate being portrayed purely as "the Chinese person" or "the Japanese person" or whatever, as a race rather than a person, but they don't like the "They all look alike" mentality that leads to casting Japanese actresses as Chinese characters, for instance. Those are actually entirely separate ethnicities, and they don't like being treated by Westerners as interchangeable.

 

I always thought it was odd (and kind of disturbing) when Spock called the Comms - "Asiatics." Even when I first saw the episode when I was around 10 or so in the 1970s. I had never heard that term before and to be honest am not sure if it was even considered disparaging.

 

Merriam-Webster says it's "sometimes offensive." Probably depends on context. And it certainly didn't sound flattering in the episode. TOS didn't really do a great job portraying Asians, Sulu aside. He was an "assimilated" Asian, about as Westernized as he could get, but characters like the Kohms or Genghis Khan in "The Savage Curtain" were painted as unflattering racial stereotypes. That was pretty common in media portrayals of Asians, Native Americans, Africans, Indians, and the like in the '40s through the '60s, if not later -- the "good" ones were always Western-educated and assimilated, while the rest were walking stereotypes, either childishly ignorant and superstitious or cartoonishly savage and malevolent.

 

And "Sulu" isn't even a real East Asian surname. The name came from the "Sulu Sea" in the Philippines...
George Takei has said that Roddenberry intended for Sulu to represent all of Asia. Though Sulu's depicted hobbies and interests don't have much to do with Asian cultures; there is renaissance-style fencing, and revolvers (I can't think of any others at the moment).

Similarly, Uhura was apparently intended to represent Africa. As Christopher pointed out in another thread, her name is an arbitrarily altered form of the true Swahili "Uhuru." I've seen printed background materials that say she was from "The United States of Africa," a political entity that must have formed sometime between now and the 23rd century. But we don't really see anything about her that is particularly African.

It is interesting that the two foreign racial minority characters are presented as being very Western in speech and demeanor, as if that makes them more noble, proper and acceptable. And it's hard to tie them to a specific place of origin.

However, the foreign Caucasian characters (Scotty and Chekov) are often stereotypical, even cartoonish. There's Scotty's constant drinking... Scotch, in particular (I wonder if he preferred blended or single malt? ). And he likes kilts and Claymore swords.

And we find it amusing and endearing that Chekov talks the way he does and claims that everything is a Russian invention. But I think it would be a different matter if Sulu spoke with a thick accent and was constantly claiming that everything was a Japanese invention.

Kor

 

The Asiatic Fleet (originally Squadron) represented US interests in the Asia-Pacific area from after the Civil War till it was destroyed in 1942. Though it sounds thoroughly 19th century now, "asiatic" may have had an official, legitimate ring to the ears of those who remembered the early years of WW2.

 

Several weeks ago it was the first time I heard someone speaking with a Scottish accent. I didn't understand him first and thought: where is the guy comming from? He isn't from Scotland, isn't he? Yes, he was. I heard a Scottish accent before - spoken by actors. It is very different from native speakers.

 

I believe it also depends on what part of Scotland you're talking about. Based on my limited experience, what you hear in Glasgow is different from how people speak in Edinburgh, and probably applies to other regions as well.

 

The same is true for German dialects. I'm from Bavaria (Frankonia, that's northern Bavaria). Sometimes I have my difficulties to understand people from Munich (southern Bavaria). People from Hamburg or Berlin have even more problems. For foreigners it is all Greek.
By the way, I don't like this phrase "all Greek". It is offending for people from Greece. Just because someone doesn't speak that language. I like "it's as clear as mud to me" better, if that's common.

 

My understanding is that there are two main categories of Scottish accent, highland and lowland. I heard recently that Fraser Hines, who played the supposed Highlander Jamie McCrimmon on Doctor Who, gave him a lowland accent following his debut story (which was actually called "The Highlanders") because it was more recognizably Scottish to the show's mostly English audience. (Apparently, in a highland accent, "Jamie" would be pronounced "Jimmy.")

It's from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Act I, scene 2.

Greek was the common language of the Eastern half of the Roman Empire, as Latin was of the Western half. So it would've been pretty common for Romans to hear people speaking Greek. Casca simply meant that to other listeners, it was understandable, but the only thing he could tell was that it was Greek.

 

Good to know. My online dictionary sometimes offers me Shakespeare/Goethe/Schiller or other playwright's quotes. Sometimes it doesn't.

 

Meanwhile, Mannix runs into an old non-ethnic girlfriend at SFX:

]



(Season 7, "Cry Danger")

 

^ Nice. I love old shows with airport scenes; there's a glimpse of a very early United DC-10 there. SFO airport, by the way.

 

When my girlfriend's father comes over, I basically just nod and hope for the best. I know some people criticised Pegg's accent for being too different from Doohan's but if Scotty is from Aberdeen (which I believe is the case) then the eastern accent is far more accurate.

No, the Edinburgh accent is entirely different from the strong Weegie accent (Glasgow based) both of which are lowlands.

 

Botany.

 

Very nice for sure.

 

My mother's mother was from Glasgow. When a cousin came to visit when I was about 12, I couldn't understand a word the poor man said. He got REAL tired of me saying "What?"

We currently have a Scottish engineer at work (his first name is Scott!), with a very soft, very understandable accent. He was sitting with me while I was prettying up one of his diagrams for a powerpoint, when he said "Crikey!" I had to stop, look at him, and say, "I think that's the first time anyone said crikey to me at work."

 

I'm old enough to remember when you could go to the airport just to hang out and watch the planes. When you didn't need a boarding pass to go into the terminal and you could wait for your visitors at the gate. That must freak out young people now.

 

Indeed. If people think jets are loud now, it's nothing to the truly ear-splitting levels back then. And you could smell jet fuel everywhere.

 

I'm currently reading a TOS novel where it reads: .... to Scotty it was everyone else who had an accent, not him..... What's the difference between `accent´ and `brogue´, by the way?

 

A brogue is specifically an Irish or sometimes Scottish accent (Gaelic in general). It's from the name of the traditional type of shoe worn in those countries.