The lack of national diversity in the Discovery cast...

The officially Atheist governments of the Soviet Union and Communist China killed more innocent people than all of the worlds’ previous religious wars combined.

It was almost exactly 99 years ago today that Tikhon, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church at that time, wrote this scathing and entirely accurate rebuke to the Soviet authorities. He wrote this in full knowledge that it would result in his imprisonment, torture, and possible execution – because the radical Left tolerates no criticism.


“For an entire year, you have been gripping the power of the government in your hands, and you are already preparing to celebrate the anniversary of the October revolution; but the rivers of the blood of our brothers, pitilessly murdered at your rallying, cry out to heaven and force us to tell you the bitter truth.


Having seized power and called the people to entrust themselves to you, what promises have you given them, and how have you kept these promises?


Truly you have given them a stone instead of bread, and a serpent instead of a fish…


You have divided the entire nation into warring camps and cast it into a fratricide unprecedented for its cruelty. You have openly exchanged love of Christ for hatred, and instead of peace you have artificially fomented enmity between the classes. And there is no end in sight to the war you’ve generated, since you aim to deliver triumph to the phantom of world revolution with the hands of Russian workers and peasants…


No one feels safe; everyone lives in constant fear of searches, robbery, eviction, arrest, and execution. Hundreds of defenseless people are seized, then languish for whole months in prisons, are often executed without investigation or trial, even without going to the court you have simplified. Not only those who are somehow guilty before you, but even those who are in no way guilty, but were taken only as “captives”—these unfortunate people are killed to answer for crimes committed by persons who not only are not of one mind with them, but very often your own followers or those with convictions similar to yours. Bishops, priests, monks and nuns who are guilty of nothing are executed simply because of some wild accusations of vague and indeterminate “counterrevolution”…


You promised freedom.


Is it freedom when no one can bring home food or rent an apartment without special permission, when families, and sometimes all the inhabitants of whole buildings are evicted and their possessions are thrown into the street, and when citizens are artificially divided into ranks, certain of which are consigned to hunger and being plundered? Is it freedom when no one can speak his opinion openly without fear of being accused of counterrevolution? Where is freedom of speech and press, where is freedom for preaching in church? Many bold preachers have already paid with their martyrs’ blood; the voice of social and governmental discussion and criticism is being stifled; all press, other than the narrow Bolshevik press, has been completely strangled.


Especially painful and cruel is the violation of freedom in matters of faith. Not a day goes by when the most monstrous slanders against Christ’s Church and her servants are not published in the agencies of your press, along with malicious blasphemy and mockery. You deride the servants of the altar, force bishops to dig trenches, and send priests to do dirty work…


Yes, we are experiencing terrible times in our reign, and it will not be erased from the peoples’ soul for a long time, having darkened the image of God in it and stamping in it the image of the beast. The words of the prophet have been fulfilled: Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths. (Is. 59:7).


We know that our rebukes will evoke only anger and indignation in you and that you will look for an excuse in them for accusing us of opposition to the authorities, but the higher your “column of wrath” rises, the more proven will be the testimony to the truth of our rebukes.”


From Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the United States to St. Tykhon in Russia, it has often been the religious leaders who spoke out in defense of the marginalized and oppressed.

 

I'm not talking about the good or bad of religion / atheist. I just said that there are super sensitive religious groups that can feel offended if you put their religion into the show, and you do something wrong about it. They will angry and will make the problem bigger. Of course, there are also another religion that won't do something bad even when you mocks their belief in the show. That's why putting religion into the show is a bit tricky. Specially when you goes international and aims for many countries in this world.

Different countries have different rules and way of thinking. Not everyone are tolerant with something that different from their belief.

 

Well, this thread has certainly gotten off the main track. Let's bring it back on topic.

One thing I've noticed is that the previous Star Trek television series have often enough been represented exclusively by their main captains. This is why you see images like this:

• James Tiberius Kirk - American (U.S.-born).
• Jean-Luc Picard - French with British accent (French-born).
• Kathryn Janeway - American (U.S.-born).
• Benjamin Lafayette Sisko - American (U.S.-born).
• Jonathan Archer - American (U.S.-born).

Star Trek conventions have symbolically reflected this as well:



Add to this Christopher Pike and you have yet another U.S.-born American captain.

With Star Trek's supposed push for diversity, it's nearly non-existent within its main captains roster. Isn't the show supposed to be about all of humanity?

The argument that it's an American TV show does not account for the French/British main captain. Otherwise, he too would have been a U.S.-born American.

There is only one conclusion from all of this: Star Trek wants mostly U.S.-born American main captains in command, bossing around "diverse" subordinate crews.

 

Please tell us you are joking.

 

What aren't people allowed to question? If that were told in advance, then it'd be easier for everyone to get on board?

 

No "radical" group tolerates criticism. That is part of why they are radical.

 

Metaphor, exactly. It's why "Encounter at Farpoint" makes an arguable metaphor far better than "The Outcast" telling us (completely inadvertently) how bad scientifically-controlled test tube babies are.

Sens8 was an interesting concept, if not flawed in execution - from what little I've seen, or what I had been told about various plots (which largely sums up the following). There's genuinely no need for any gratuitousness (straight or gay or both) in order to tell a complex, deep, rich story, unless the series is just about sex in which case any cheap porno is good enough and saves a ton of money in the process, unless STD testing costs have gone through the stratosphere yet. And, how can I say the following with as much tact as possible, the group of linked people must be utterly stupid and suicidal and blistering idiots if some of them they decide to have sex (for the sake of their personal gratifications indulged (love is said to be about the other person's well being, not just one's own)) while one of their own is in a clandestine life-or-death situation should that person be revealed. So when person-A is having an orgasm with person-D, person-C in the middle of an already dire situation blows the cover and could get killed or captured to reveal the hideout or whatever.

 

You are allowed to question it, you just don't. That's what I was saying, you don't question it. I want you to. Reading comprehension is your friend.

 

I was trying to remember the reference, but I remember that episode of the Damon show from the mid 90s where the main character's weekly love interest -- a woman named Carla -- delivered the oh-so-funny punchline "I have a confession too. My name used to be Carl." I honestly don't remember anything else about that episode except for that one line because it made me think "Would that joke actually be funny if they had gone through the trouble of casting an actual transexual actor for that role instead of a hot supermodel?" After fifteen years the answer remains "Doubtful."

I have the impression that through the 1980s and 1990s, common practice was to use actual female actresses for transwomen, while depiction of transmen was just not really a thing. They started going the other way in "special theme" episodes tackling gender identity issues, namely Law and Order and Ally McBeal and a few others.

Honestly, I think that's a relatively new thing. In the past, most transwomen were depicted by actual women, mainly because "she's really/used to be a man!" was played for laughs, or they went completely the other way and the depiction was just a guy in drag.

I kind of think that having transwomen played by actual women would be preferable to having them played by cis men with bad wigs, but it mainly depends on how the role is being portyayed in context. It could go to hell either way, but my thinking here is that sexual identity is as much about perception as it is about acceptance, and it could be valuable to promote the perception that men who transition to women do indeed transition completely and aren't just perverts in drag.

 

It's not explicit enough for people to really question it, as the origins of those characters is up for a lot of interpretation. For starters, what does it even mean to be "American" in the 23rd or 24th century? The United States is LONG gone, and the lower 48 are probably just "southern canada" by now.

OTOH, alot of us took issue with John Eaves picking explicitly American-based names for the classes of the new starships, and how it makes no sense for a starship named after Yuri Gagarin to belong to a class of ships named after Alan Shepard.

 

I bet Alabama and Mississippi are exactly the same as they are now!

 

No, it isn't. It's just a part of United Earth.

States didn't cease to exist when the USA was formed, did they? Same story here. Just "up" one level.

 

I reckon if Australia produced Star Trek we would skew heavily on pivotal characters being ... oh let me guess, Australian maybe? Always wondered why Doctor Who was UK 'ish'.

 

^ The less distance you have to go to find actors, the cheaper it is TO find them. So that's why most productions hire actors who are from the same general area.

There's also the work-visa issue to consider, as well.

 

Which is fine if that is your primary audience. But with Discovery, it is clear they are looking for an international audience for the show.

 

Have any major Australian actors appeared in Trek?

 

Dame Judith Anderson, Nick Tate, Alan Dale (well, a Kiwi, but close enough), Chris Hemsworth, Eric Bana and Wendy Hughes.

Only Hughes came close to using her natural accent.

 

Chris Pine's Dad was Chris Hemsworth, well, George and James T.

 

And for the most part that international audience is most likely more interested in a good story, and not casting choices.

 

1) The two are not mutually exclusive. 2) I am interested in both.