Code of Honor - Racist?

[Citizen Cook]

Season 1, Episode 3 of TNG has been deemed racist by the Mission Log podcast. According to them, many of TNG cast have disowned the episode.

Is this true?
I've never viewed this episode as being racist myself.
I live in the UK and racism has never been a thing in my life. It is something I have heard about but never witnessed first hand.

On the other hand I know that the US continues to suffer with racism and that this episode my hit more sensitive nerves.

Is Code of Honor truly racist? Have I been missing something all these years? Yes, it's a planet of black people. Yes, they have a backward societal view compared to Humans of the 24th century. So what? We've been to planets with white people with backwards views in the past. Are they racist to white people? If the show had been cast with white actors painted blue would it have been OK? If it were so racist why was it made? Why did the cast, Gene Roddenberry, and guest actors commit to the show?

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Yes, yes it is...

 

[hux]

Wasn't that the episode where Tasha got all turned on because the planets leader was a real man (who knew how to keep a woman in line).

So sexist too.

But not as sexist as "Angel One" where the women who run the planet suddenly realise that they've secretly been wanting tall alpha males to come along and make them happy.

Season one TNG should be punched in the face.

 

[T'Girl]

A planet where the leadership wasn't white, and the population wasn't white.

How racist.

 

[at Quark's]

If the show had been cast with white actors painted blue would it have been OK?

That's an interesting question In a way, it can be argued that making a fuss about black guys being portrayed in a certain way, but not when the same happens with white guys (painted blue or not), it's a form of racism too... even if it can be understood from a historical perspective.

My guess would be that in that case (white guys painted blue) there still would have been complaints about the ep being sexist, though ... but no allegations about 'specieism'.... at least not until we discover some actual alien species

 

[Green Shirt]

Season one TNG should be punched in the face.

Not all episodes deserve to be punched in the face, some of them only needed a Gibbs head slap.

 

[ihno]

But not as sexist as "Angel One" where the women who run the planet suddenly realise that they've secretly been wanting tall alpha males to come along and make them happy.

Yeah, that was rubbish. I liked the little subservient men in their skimpy clothes.

@topic: I think I have to rewatch it again, I rarely watch the first two seasons of TNG.

What's the Mission Log podcast? (I will google that, so you only have to answer if there's something special to know).

 

[hux]

Yeah, that was rubbish. I liked the little subservient men in their skimpy clothes.

I want one for Christmas. I'll pat him on the head when he makes me a cup of tea.

 

[stardream]

I always skip this one because it's boring.

Some articles that go into greater detail about this. They aren't long.


http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/star-trekthe-next-generation/22809/revisiting-star-trek-tng-code-of-honor

http://trekkiefeminist.tumblr.com/post/53664551491/tng-14-code-of-honor

 

[Marsden]

Most of the time, something is racist because someone says so, no other qualification necessary.

 

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

There are a long list of other threads about this episode that could be found with a little searching. Check 'em out.

 

[Mudd]

It was a clumsy, wrong-headed attempt to correct something that someone, somewhere saw as previous racial/cultural insensitivity in Star Trek: the fact that Kirk's Enterprise was forever voyaging to Weekly World Of White People.

The only real exception was "The Paradise Syndrome" AKA World Of Hollywood Indian Stereotypes. Then, of course, there were one or two where asians were used as stock villains.

In any event, TNG's first stab at righting that balance was thuddingly off-key and best forgotten.

Eventually TNG settled into casting alien populations the same way they would humans, with at least some non-white actors in the crowd wearing the same funny foreheads as the white folks. Given Trek's general tendencies toward stereotyping that's probably the best that could be asked for.

 

[Mysterion]

^^^^
And then in season 2 we got the Planet of Offensive Irish Stereotypes in Up The Long Ladder.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

^^^^
And then in season 2 we got the Planet of Offensive Irish Stereotypes in Up The Long Ladder.

Don't forget the holodeck of Offensive Irish Stereotypes in Voyager.

 

[Timo]

What about the Planet of Offensive US Stereotypes, aka Earth? Sure, there was a French joke there once, and a rather obscure Belorussian one that other time, but still.

One really wonders whether the Vulcans, Romulans and Klingons we see should be considered at least as stereotypical examples of the "real" deals as the rest!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Terok Nor]

Yar and Yareena.

Really, writers? That's the best you could do?

 

[Paradise City]

The first season of TNG wasn't unlike TOS in this respect. It set itself the goal of outlining this utopian universe yet they managed to obliviously write these comically horrendous episodes.

 

[ManOnTheWave]

The problem with the episode was that the planet of the black people and the planet of the people with backwards laws who think they are more civilized than anyone else were the same planet. When you do that, people think you are trying to say something.

Something.

 

[Mudd]

The problem with the episode was that the planet of the black people and the planet of the people with backwards laws who think they are more civilized than anyone else were the same planet. When you do that, people think you are trying to say something.

The base problem there was that early TNG was channeling the old TOS standard Planet Of People Who Need Correcting By Us.

 

[Paradise City]

It's very Roddenberry-esque this episode IMO. You do have women like Yar take on the no-nonsense traditionally masculine roles and are genuinely regarded as being entirely on par with the other officers.

The racial angle doesn't faze me personally. You could and you did come across exclusively black tribes that behave in a very traditional way in the past. This is just a kind of a planetary representation of that kind of society hitherto unchallenged by a Federation cultural encounter. There are other representations of exclusively white societies acting up and on it goes.

The stuff where Yar goes weak at the knees for this guy is what is incongruent in my eyes. I think it's very Roddenberryesque though. Women are par in a professional sense yet within the private/recreational realm it's one permanent mating dance between seductor and seductee, each firmly within traditional power dynamics.

Much of the first season follows this vein.