Why wasn't Worf in Code of Honor?

Which is your right. I try to look at both intent and the final product when making this type of judgement.

Code of Honor is still one of the worst episodes in seven-hundred plus hours of Trek though.

 

Worf originally wasn't supposed to be regular, and Roddenberry didn't even want any Klingons on the show.

 

I think the final product is only racist on the shallowest surface level. Considering that the "white woman kidnapped" there's also other women in the story who are the leaders of their alien culture.

I feel bad for the writer because if they had cast in any other way, it would just be any old episode.

 

Next time, he/she shouldn't write a shitty script!

 

Yes, it would have been a bad episode either way.

And, yes, a planet of black people in which the leader can't help himself from kidnapping a blonde woman does indeed strike me as racist.

 

But the action, in and of itself, wasn't really racist. He was enamored by Yar but was using her to off his wife.

 

i agree that more than likely the script didn't have any intent, but the casting is where it became troublesome.

if they had been native american instead of black, i think that would be rascist too, both have been subject to 'savage' charicatures in media. its the historical negative portrayals that have to be taken into account.

 

But then you have to ask, why can't they cast an entire alien race as black when they do it with white people? Insurrection's race for instance, which Frakes mentions doesn't have a black person in sight. If Insurrection's village was all black instead of white would it be called racist too?

 

I think sometimes people tend to take things a bit too far. Would the episode still be racist if only Lutan were black?

Do we only give 'savage' roles to white actors now because if we give it to a minority it'll be called a caricature and the producers will be accused of racism? Of course, the producers will also be accused of racism if they refuse to give 'savage' roles to minority actors.

White people (I'm one) have said and done alot of shitty things over the centuries but don't penalize minority actors because of it. I'm for giving any role to the actor best suited to play it.

 

The episode itself wasn't. Why does having the ruler of a planet being black equal "racist?"

But if the rulers had be cast solely with lily white actors and actresses then your confusing label of savages would persist?

Savages have their own transporter system?

The planet's leader was setting up his wife to be killed in a duel, the dialog stated that he'd done this before with women from the planet, after Yar's (lame) martial art demostration he saw her as a possible device to kill his wife.

It's not like he kidnapped her because he personally/sexually wanted her. Yar was a tool.

Far from being racist, the episode highlight how often Star Trek cast leadership characters using mostly white actors. We should have seem more non-white characters ... not less.

 

just the leader being black = not a problem, entire planet of black savages = problem. its the historical context that makes a kinda boring season 1 story and turns it into what it is.

and if you're thinking 'we only saw a few people there could be white people there', we only very rarely see more than a few of any given species.

i agree we should have seen more non white people in star trek, just not like this

 

You'll have to point out where anyone in this thread said that.

 

I'm still not exactly sure why you refer to them as 'black savages'? They seem to be a moderately advanced technological species that seems are united under one world government that has had something of a violent background.

Is it racist if I walk through a city in Nigeria or Ethiopia and don't see any white people while I'm there?

Was it racist that both Angel One and Justice had no black people in them (outside of the crew)?

 

There's been modern day criticism of the old Buck Rogers serial as well, for using Asians as natives of the planet Saturn.

I didn't sense any intentional racism when I first saw "Code of Honor" back in its day, though Jessie Lawrence Ferguson's vocal delivery reminded me of Tim Moore's Kingfish. I thought the idea of an all black world was inventive.

Then again, I'm a white anglo, so I'm not the best to judge when it comes to these things.

 

because it was shorter than writing 'negative charicature black people that act like savages by kidnapping white women such as might appear in something from the 1930s' which i probably should've said to be clearer.

and as for the other points you know it isn't.

on topic for the thread: worf was off getting his ridges waxed

adios.

 

It's a poor episode but the cries of racism aren't very well thought out.

 

Actually maybe the writer benefited in the end. If we weren't talking about whether or not the episode was racist we'd only be talking about how crappy the episode is.

 

Worf wasn't in this episode because they were thinking of recasting his actor.

 

So because Denise Crosby is white her kidnapping is savagery when comitted by black men because of how your mind associates savagery with black people due to inflammatory depictions from gone by eras? What if she had been kidnapped by black women would that count as savagery? What about asians in wheelchairs? What strikes me as problematic on your part is that you are making the act of savagery dependent on the ethnicity of those who commit the act. Would the idea that Lutan and his people are savages have even entered your mind if they had been white and Yar black? It strikes me that it is you who is thinking in racist terms here.

 

I think the episodes would have seemed less racist if the aliens were not dressed like tribal stereotypes.

Moving on, doesn't seem like Lutan's code of honor is just self serving BS? I am wondering if he made it up, instead of it actually being part of their culture. Lutan gets kidnap someone and the other side has to nicely ask for the kidnapped person back? I doubt Klingons would think that honorable, if someone kidnapped a member of a Klingon House, there would be bloody revenge, not niceties.