Masks is a misunderstood, fantastic episode. I've proven people wrong over and over again. lol
I just had to say it
- Thread starter Geordi's Fingernails
- Start date
I like Captain's holiday. At last Picard's 'I am a French celibate monk' image was destroyed!
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Data get's hijacked and stops acting like Data... been done before. Spiner spends an entire episode trying to play a variety of characters, because he never gets to showcase himself... been done before. Alien gizmo takes control over & otherwise effects the Enterprise... Been done before. Data acts weird & scares everybody... been done before.
Sure, they at least try to find a way to make those aspects seem different from when they'd done them previously, & I'm not saying people shouldn't like it if they do. It's certainly not as terrible as people have made out, but it is far from being anything close to their best stuff imho, and it smacks, to me at least, entirely of a very tired writing staff
Don't forget that the ship turns into an ancient Mayan civilization township.
But that this stone edifice occurance cause no problems with anything or anyone on the ship it seems
I've gone over the reasons why its so good and countered criticisms many times. Look up some old stng Masks threads and you'll see where you're wrong. 
RAMA
RAMA
I've gone over the reasons why its so good and countered criticisms many times. Look up some old stng Masks threads and you'll see where you're wrong.
RAMA
It's really up to the individual. Just because someone dislikes something you like doesn't mean they're wrong for disliking it... well, except for cats. Cats suck.
Kidding.
yes, yes, & yes lolIt's really up to the individual. Just because someone dislikes something you like doesn't mean they're wrong for disliking it... well, except for cats. Cats suck.
I just got the season 7 BluRay. I will watch it and give it a fair shot.
Honestly, like everything else I expect some people to dislike Masks. It's no big deal, I simply disagree and have very concrete reasons for doing so. I think it was at least 15 years later before I realized people even disliked it, which came as a shock. Carry on with your hating haters.
Edit: For what it's worth I accidentally stumbled on the link to one of the better Masks threads I was talking about. There are some simple answers and speculation here.
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/masks-why-all-the-hate.140025/
..and what the Hell I found some others of interest, one with a nice summary by polyharmonic:
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/making-sense-of-masks-episode.285925/
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/tng-rewatch-7x17-masks.280192/
Which includes this gem:
RAMA
Edit: For what it's worth I accidentally stumbled on the link to one of the better Masks threads I was talking about. There are some simple answers and speculation here.
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/masks-why-all-the-hate.140025/
..and what the Hell I found some others of interest, one with a nice summary by polyharmonic:
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/making-sense-of-masks-episode.285925/
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/tng-rewatch-7x17-masks.280192/
Which includes this gem:
RAMA
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Of course it is! How dare they show a planet with only black people !!!!!!
(spot the sarcasm)
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No, but the very unnecessarily cartoonish, Africanesque, actors' performances, coupled with the primitive way in which the culture is presented, made for a VERY indelicate way to depict an all dark skinned culture, given the climate of American television history. It's as if the actors were supporting players in Eddie Murphy's Coming To America (Which was a parody on an old Hollywood stereotype) except this wasn't a comedy
And I never said Masks was implausible, nor do I hate it. I just don't watch it, because it's a very thin mishmash of tired/rehashed story elements & production concepts, overloaded with scene chewing overacting, in an otherwise well produced, but boring production. I'm not saying people should hate it, but I certainly don't agree that it is either grossly misunderstood, or an otherwise unrecognized, fantastic episode. I understand it just fine, & it's far from fantastic imho.
Remember all those episodes with all-white planetary populations? The decision here probably seemed incredibly progressive to include an all-black cast. The problem comes in where you suggest: their portrayal seems backward..but first, it was not even an African culture presented, and two they were trying to show the planet had valid but very different moral codes that were still respected by Picard. This is diametrically opposed to what we saw in TOS, with straw culture after straw culture (mostly white). Picard cleverly uses their own codes to circumvent them while not tearing down the intricate and long-standing culture. The execution here might have been lacking, but racist? Nope. Indelicate? Only on the surface perhaps.
Nope, nope, whatever. I'm not making you watch it. Your loss.
RAMA
No, but the very unnecessarily cartoonish, Africanesque, actors' performances, coupled with the primitive way in which the culture is presented, made for a VERY indelicate way to depict an all dark skinned culture, given the climate of American television history. It's as if the actors were supporting players in Eddie Murphy's Coming To America (Which was a parody on an old Hollywood stereotype) except this wasn't a comedy
And I never said Masks was implausible, nor do I hate it. I just don't watch it, because it's a very thin mishmash of tired/rehashed story elements & production concepts, overloaded with scene chewing overacting, in an otherwise well produced, but boring production. I'm not saying people should hate it, but I certainly don't agree that it is either grossly misunderstood, or an otherwise unrecognized, fantastic episode. I understand it just fine, & it's far from fantastic imho.
Nope, nope, whatever. I'm not making you watch it. Your loss.
RAMA
I didn't find it insulting at all, plus there was nothing 'Africanesque' about it. (And I have Ghanaian connections). Do you consider all those other all white planets a representation of something Europeanesque? Unless Justice was a parody of some Scandinavian nation with everyone looking blonde haired and pale skinnned running around in seminaked togas. Do they do that in Sweden, Denmark or Finland?
The aliens in Code of Honour acted and were presented no more primitive than the Justice or Angel One lot. At least the Code of Honor aliens had the women in charge of things.
The aliens in Code of Honour acted and were presented no more primitive than the Justice or Angel One lot. At least the Code of Honor aliens had the women in charge of things.
Masks was a good episode. It never occurred to me that it seemed African-esque.
Maybe it's just a smart virus that reconstructs the Enterprise but its knows well enough to know to stay away from inflammatory properties and materials. It's certainly not any more challenging to believe than The Inner Light episode.
Maybe it's just a smart virus that reconstructs the Enterprise but its knows well enough to know to stay away from inflammatory properties and materials. It's certainly not any more challenging to believe than The Inner Light episode.
oops. No, we were having 2 different conversations about Code of Honor's Africanesque stereotyped performances & Mask's episode quality. Sorry for the mix up
It goes to the notion that racism exists in the indelicacy of inadvertently treating people who've been the victim of racism in a less than flattering light. It's still depicted as a more primitive culture, and the poor performances paint it similarly to antiquated Africanesque stereotypes. None of this was likely intentional. So yes. It's fair to say that no one producing this show was deliberately or even subliminally being racist, but the unintentional result had the unfortunate effect of disparaging people of a certain race regardless. Therefore it's also fair to say, it's kind of racist, how this came out
Not realistically so, but in that those portrayals are something of an antiquated Hollywood "Africanesque" stereotype, & even given that they weren't all hamming it up in that way, it still mixed badly with the primitive culture of violent, fight to the death, sensibilities, and through pretty poor writing & presentation, made for a really indelicate result imho
Sometimes... Take for example, something like Star Wars, where all the evil Empirial commander guys are British. While that's a pretty slight thing to harp on... It's still kind of racist. lol
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Honestly, I'm not sure this applies across the board. By this definition. Most TV shows and movies are still racist, showing black characters as criminals and buffoonish. It's a little too broad for me.
The other side of the coin..does the fact we have one all-black race on a planet made to look less-than-moral mean all the myriad all-white alien planet straw-culture episodes are racist too??
People keep expressing the idea that something is "wrong" with Barclay just because he's different, that it's some "disorder" that needs to be "cured." But I would think that in the enlightened future, mental/neurological differences are considered to be just another form of human diversity to be respected like any other difference, rather than being pathologized and subjected to "cures" by the neurotypical-normative ideological majority.
Kor
Oh, so this. With TNG levels of tech they'd have either "cured" autism (not something I'd like to see) or devised a solution for optimizing neurodiverse people's strengths.
"Neuro-diverse". Interesting term.
I think the problem with the Enterprise-D is that neuro-diverse didn't always fit in with the "best-of-the-best". Obviously, his expertise proved worthwhile or he wouldn't have lasted till the movies and Voyager.
Much as I'd like to think that folks like me could just as easily be the ship captains, I think a lot of us would be well-suited to serve as technicians, researchers and maybe the odd department (operations, engineering or science) head. A guy like Barkley should have a place in Starfleet, but it seems to me that by then people wouldn't be so down on Reg for being weird.
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