Gotta admit, Earth Starfleet Command's not very diverse

This might've occurred to me after I saw a youtube vid somewhere where someone pointed out the same thing with the sea of cadets in Abrams-Star Trek:

It seems like EVERYONE at Starfleet Comand in "Broken Bow" and "First Flight" is a white male with an American accent. (And this is coming from someone who IS a white male)

Not trying to make a big deal about it, but given Star Trek's message, it didn't look very good when I thought about it.

 

"Your world of starship captains doesn't admit women."

Janice Lester, Turnabout Intruder

And you know what is really stupid about this white males in the seats choice?

IT DOESN'T GIVE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT.

What people want is WOMEN. Erika Hernandez X 100 FILLING the seats. Gaila, Gaila and her sister Gaila. Beautiful Betazoids with their promise of naked weddings. Shelby, lots of women like Shelby. Everyone wants women. Men, obviously, want women and women also want women and yet what do we get? OLD FARTY WHITE ADMIRALS and scrawny adolescent males and the air force. The male air force. Everyone in ENT looks like they fell out of I Dream of Jeannie.

Why though, really WHY. Are there so few women when everyone wants them? I wrote JJ a letter about this, hopefully he listened and ST:XII gives us what we want.

 

And here, a brief and educational video on this issue:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deQuFc3BP74[/yt]

 

I agree too many people were white/american in Enterprise, but definitely not STXI. That background cast was the most diverse in Trek history, I think.

 

I know I've seen some favorable breakdown of the cadets in ST:XI at some point. But I'm also wondering what vid the OP is talking about.

 

It wasn't just an ENT problem, all of Star Trek in the Roddenberry/Berman era was pretty whitewashed. You'd think that in California they'd have a pretty diverse selection of actors from which to choose.

 

Shall we examine.

TOS

Kirk - American Male
Spock - Vulcan Male
McCoy - American Male
Scott - British Male
Sulu - American Male
Checkov - Russian Male
Uhuru - African Female

And a few of the minor Character

Riley - Irish Male
Kyle - British Male
Rand - American Female
Chapel - American Female

So out the principal characters only 3 where American Males, while 4 where not.


Moving onto TNG

Picard - French Male
Riker - American Male
Data - Android
Troi - Betazoid Female
Worf - Klingon Male (raised on Earth in Minsk Bealrus?)
Crusher B. - Human Female Born on the Moon (According to Memory Alpha)
LaForge - Afircan Male (according to memory Alpha)

So That's 1 American Male

And onto Deep Space Nine

Sisko - American Male
O'Brein - Irish Male
Worf - See TNG Above
Dax - Trill Female
Bashir - Not Known Possible British

So that's one Americna Male

And Onto Enterprise

Archer - American Male
Trip - American Male
Reed - British Male
Mayweather - Born in Space
Hoshi - Japanese Female

So that's 2 American Males

And of course there is Voyager

Janeway - American Female
Tuvok - Vulcan Male
Kim - Not Known
Paris - American Male

I could go on, but I'm not seeing this American male bias in Starfleet, sure their might be a male bias but as for an American male bias I'm not convinced.

But isn't this more down to the fact that it's filmed in America so most of the scenes with extras in will use the local talent.

 

Maybe there's a Bollywood branch of Starfleet, based in Delhi? Another in Tokyo. With few westerner faces to spot in the crowd scenes? It would be nice, if in the future ideas of nationalism had gone the way of the dinosaur. But there's still different cultural backgrounds, and given a choice... native majority inhabitants generally don't up sticks to go live thousands of miles away. They stay within hundred of miles of where their families have always been.

In the Star Trek future, perhaps off world colonies paint an even more immigrant diverse picture? They should set a future series there, and explore what it is to be human determined to make it on a new world around Proxima Centuri or elsewhere. More than human, once more and more interspecies relationships begin happening.

 

How many did we see? Forrest, Leonard and James come to mind. According to Memory Alpha there are also these. I'm seeing a mix of sexes and races. No way to determine nationality.

 

Are you referring to the characters or the actors?

 

Sulu was supposed to be of mixed Asian or Asian/Pacific ancestry, though his precise ethnic makeup was never given.

And it's Uhura, with an "A."

What about Janice Rand? Maybe her head was actually shaped like that -- and she was a Conehead!

 

Sulu, see TVH.

"San Francsico, I was born there"

 

She does not look cerean.

 

American. He was born in South Carolina, IIRC.

 

Scotty always referred to himself as being Scottish, never British, or as being from the UK.

It pretty safe to say that he is not "British."

Hoshi Sato's speaking voice is the same as Linda Parks, she wasn't employing a accent. What we were hearing on the show was Linda Park's normally accented speaking voice. A accent she came by through growing up in San Jose, California

Hoshi Sato possessed an Pacific coast American accent, and most likely was a "American Female."

 

Hoshi was born in Kyoto. I guess you could explain her accent by saying she was raised in North America, or something.

 

She's already stated to be an accomplished linguist. She could be using the American accent to fit in with the other Western Starfleeters.

 

The background actors, perhaps. The main cast, no. Like in TOS only two of the three leads are white male North Americans while the other one is an alien and the rest of the crew consists of different nationalities, sexes and species.
Furthermore there is a difference between mere representation and actually caring about equality. Thatcher was no feminist.

 

Uhura is supposed to be from Africa, yet speaks with an American accent.

Scotty can still be British, even if he never mentions the UK. Did McCoy ever mention the USA?

 

Sure, he comes from Georgia doesn't he? Land of the mint juleps.