Not technically human, but human enough, certainly federation. And Riker ate his Gagh just fine..it's more common that it's the Klingons waffling on about their food rather than humans complaining about it.
Is Deep Space Nine racist?
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Not technically human, but human enough, certainly federation. And Riker ate his Gagh just fine..it's more common that it's the Klingons waffling on about their food rather than humans complaining about it.
Well Bashir new a lot about Klingon food and he's definitely human.
Bashir knows about Klingon food. But what does he know about the diversity and variety of Earth cuisine.
Certainly, the Generation era did politically relevant stories. But the tone was more earnest and realistic. I got the impression I was supposed to take these stories as politically relevant examples from a realistic world somewhere else in space and time, not as playful fictions.
Probably everything, and how to order them in their native languages....he's a Londoner, genetically Augmented, and a Doctor to boot. But since that would fail to hide his secret, he settles for Del Boy linguistics when ordering Klingon food, and probably has chips and Brown Sauce as a side order.
I think by the standards of the day, TOS was also supposed to be realistic...and they should be. SciFi isn't a kids Saturday mornin thing all the time, Trek is more than Aesops fables in sparkly tights....it's meant for adults but is generally family friendly. TNG era probably looks more earnest because it's not quite so primary coloured as it's forebears, and DS9 in particular is very soap opera like (thereby making it true to its Space Opera roots)
There's nothing childish about self-conscious fiction and nothing inherently "adult" about realism. Quite the opposite, there's something inherently naive and childish about realism (though the best realist writers overcome it), since realism treats the fictive as the real.
That's a much nicer way of putting it.
I have always wondered why some people think genre fiction is in some way easier, because we can 'just make everything up' and has less value than 'realistic' literature.
It ignores the difficulty of 'making every thing up' and the comparative ease of world building in 'realist' works, and then, as you say, ignores the fact that realist fiction is often incredibly silly (How much trouble can a few households actually manage to get in. Or even a few people. Or one person, before you start losing suspension of disbelief. At least the simpsons knows it is a cartoon.)
It's important to distinguish between realism as a genre and realism in a genre.
Realism as a genre has come to mean stories set roughly in the present day about things happening that don't defy the laws of science as generally and popularly understood. By that definition, The Next Generation is not realism.
However, a fiction can strive to treat its own world like the real one, whatever that fictive world may be, if it sets up internal laws of its world's science that it doesn't break, if it treats its fictive world like the only world, if it makes no reference to other fictive worlds (except as subordinate, second-level fictions like the holodeck), if it makes no reference to the really real world of the auidence or else presents itself as continuous and/or coterminous with the really real world. This practice is what I am calling "realism in a genre," for lack of another term. And The Next Generation engages in this practice. I'm not sure Star Trek does.
Realism as a genre has come to mean stories set roughly in the present day about things happening that don't defy the laws of science as generally and popularly understood. By that definition, The Next Generation is not realism.
However, a fiction can strive to treat its own world like the real one, whatever that fictive world may be, if it sets up internal laws of its world's science that it doesn't break, if it treats its fictive world like the only world, if it makes no reference to other fictive worlds (except as subordinate, second-level fictions like the holodeck), if it makes no reference to the really real world of the auidence or else presents itself as continuous and/or coterminous with the really real world. This practice is what I am calling "realism in a genre," for lack of another term. And The Next Generation engages in this practice. I'm not sure Star Trek does.
I think the worst accusation that could be made against DS9 is that they resort to stereotypes.
And even then it's mostly Alien Stereotypes. Then it doesn't, to remind you how stereotypes aren't real, and proceeds to deconstruct its own stereotypes through Quark and Worf in particular.
Well, Rom is an anti-stereotype, more so than Quark.
Alexander is more of an anti-stereotype than his father worf.
True, but I was thinking about the various 'more Klingon than the Klingons' discussions and the times Quark yells vociferously about upholding Ferengi tradition whilst simultaneously totally rebelling or bringing down that tradition. Something people forget when jumping up and down at Profits and Lace.
Well, Quark has broken quite a few traditions in his time.
And many glasses. But he doesn't talk about that.
And Brunt accused him of being a philanthropist.
Bastard. XD
Actually I love the quasi Shakespearean nature to a lot of the ferengi stories, especially as they draw from the comedies, which I personally prefer. Quarks, and by extension his family, seem to live through a protracted Much Ado About nothing, while the rest of Ds9 lives through the historicals and the odd Midsummer Nights Dream. An underrated side to Ds9, and one I think more people miss than should.
You have a point but there is always something funny in a Ferengi story, especially on DS9.
The show itself doesn't espouse racist views, in my opinion. But it, like all incarnations of trek acknowledges that it exists. People are racist. We all know and to an extent tolerate racism from people we know, generally family. Or at least tolerate THEM as human beings and love them despite their faults. Scotty, for example, in "relics," he still hates Klingons and he's like your grandpa who doesn't want that "damn foreigner Doctor" performing surgery on him. Stiles in balance of terror, he's just like people now who think everyone from the Middle East is a terrorist. But he had redeeming qualities. Racists are mostly our friends and neighbors who are a little misguided. Trek at its best shows us that a harmonious future is possible, but there's always room for improvement.
Scotty's reaction to Worf is weird given that when Scotty put himself into transporter stasis the khitomer accords had been signed for several decades already. It's more than enough time to get used to the idea.
This always drives me a little nuts about Star Trek. These are actual RACES. Different SPECIES. If race X is always / usually blah blah blah it's because they're not human! And you can't make any decent analogies because the only different species that humans have in real life are unintelligent animals. So I can't say "Well, it's like all / most German shepherds are blah blah blah" because then I'm comparing a sentient being (Klingon, Andorian, whatever) to a dog.
The flip side of this is that I'm exasperated when people say the crew in TOS are "racist" because they dislike Klingon cultural aims. If I don't like communists (the Klingon analog during TOS) I'm not racist. Kirk (for example) has never shown a dislike for any given color or shape. But he doesn't care for people that take over planets and convert them to work camps, murdering swaths of the population that doesn't go along with the occupation.
So no, DS9 is not racist.
The flip side of this is that I'm exasperated when people say the crew in TOS are "racist" because they dislike Klingon cultural aims. If I don't like communists (the Klingon analog during TOS) I'm not racist. Kirk (for example) has never shown a dislike for any given color or shape. But he doesn't care for people that take over planets and convert them to work camps, murdering swaths of the population that doesn't go along with the occupation.
So no, DS9 is not racist.
I do think Star Trek has some racist moments (I mean, the TOS Klingons were practically in blackface as were a few other aliens); but that's the fault of the limited worldview of the writers and directors etc. And human characters being prejudiced against Klingons or Cardassians or whatever isn't the same as racism, not unless Klingons or Cardassians join Federation society and start being persecuted and denied the advantages Humans in the Federation get.
I can't think of examples where alien characters are presented as "good, unlike the rest of their species". The regular and recurring characters just get more screentime and therefore we see more of their complexities.
I can't think of examples where alien characters are presented as "good, unlike the rest of their species". The regular and recurring characters just get more screentime and therefore we see more of their complexities.
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