It's too late for you to say you don't want to argue, because we've been arguing for numerous posts before you said that. Nope. Two ethnic characters, each from a large continent. Her backstory was treated respectfully. His wasn't. Maybe because he was in the episode that was the "inspiration" for Chakotay's backstory? The fact is that both French and English had colonies in North America, and there are Canadians (mostly from Quebec) who are still whining about losing the Battle on the Plains of Abraham, back in 1763.
Oh man. You say his backstory wasn't respected because you won't accept his backstory is not that of a pinpointed tribe. He was born on a colony and his Native American heritage was vague.
This might be settled if we knew Chakotay's full name, or if he is related to Admiral Chekote from ds9 Season 2... Season 2? Berman and Taylor really did live in a tiny little bubble. Nicole Janeway was French, or she wasn't French, but had a French accent, who can really tell, it's not like we really got to know the woman. One reason that Chakotay may not have used his Christian name on Voyager, was that he did not want to be confused with another prominent male crewman with the same Christian name as him, in a red alert situation... Tom Chakotay? Harry Chakotay? Tuvok Chakotay?
Is Chakotay an actual Native American name? A colonist name? Or is it a fictional name? Maybe that is a clue?
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Rubber_Tree_People The Aztecs were utilizing rubber products 3000 years before the Europeans. Cool. The wiki above is saying that the Rubber tree people were "modified" with alien DNA, which sounds like surgery and grafting, but honestly the Aliens probably came to Earth to bone, which is a far more likely reason for the Rubber Tree People, centuries later, to be Alien Human hybrids... Also since Sky Spirit Springbreak kept happening, maybe the Rubber Tree People got their name from inventing condoms hundreds of years before the French by articulating natural rubber? Fight city hall. See what happens.
Interesting, I mean Chakotay was 15 when he and his father were looking for these descendants then 26 years later Chakotay discovers the sky spirits home world. So he was 41. The rubber people genetic bonding with the sky spirits is kind of doing my head in but I can go with it. The condom thing? It's hard to interbreed wearing a condom.
The thing with Chakotay is we don't even know if he is from Dorvan 5 which was the indian colony. We don't know if he was really RO's commanding officer or who his mom was. We have zero knowledge about his pre-Voyager starfleet crew other than he screwed up once on a away mission and disrespected a burial ground. We know he has some family in Arizona but they guy has some weird things about him. Sometimes he talks about how proud he was to join Starfleet and doesn't believe in violence but he quit Starfleet to basically become a terrorist. The Indian stuff was actually the most consistent stuff about him but even that stuff got pushed aside in the later years when people forgot he was still on the show and they should maybe write for him from time to time. He just wasn't a well wrtiten character on any level. I thought they did a okay job at least in avoiding the embassing "F-Troop" level of sterotypes that worst writers could have used. Jason
The Aztecs weren't around 3000 years ago. Some people in that region may have been using rubber, but they weren't Aztecs. Very interesting article, and it's an excellent explanation of why Chakotay's backstory is 99% bullshit.
His backstory incorporates his nonexistence? So you'd be fine with Uhura being a Swahili-speaking cannibal who comes from a family of camel breeders living in the Kalahari Desert? (note that these four groups have NOTHING in common other than their continent of origin) That's essentially what you think is just fine for Chakotay - a Heinz-57 stewpot of Hollywood cliches, in the mistaken belief that "Indians are all the same." And you presume to lecture me about diversity. I studied the Navajo, Hopi, Mayans, and Aztecs in my college anthropology courses. I know there are a lot of things about these different groups that are mutually exclusive. The article made a good point about sand paintings. They're not hobby art. They're for healing ceremonies.
Indeed and all under the umbrella of fiction and all that it incorporates. Seriously Star Trek is not a documentary. Chakotay is a work of fiction not a case study. He wasn't even born on a real 'colony'. His story and background involves sky people and aliens. It's a ... story.
What if Indian cultures have blended together and changed into something new? Kind of like the religion that Franklin had on "Babylon 5" that sort of cherry picked the best concepts and is sort of open to all religious and philosphic concepts. Cultures change over time. Why would modern cultural idea's still be expected to be the same other than some basic surface level idea's that managed to stay alive. Also in the future human cultural has more or less blended into one big culture and the things we see as "culture" or more like regional quirks but in the end everyone seems to be living the same Roddenberry dream of utopia. At least that is the impression. We haven't even nailed down if humans still use money or who does the crap jobs on earth because everyone we see seems to be a business owner or have a great job or be a starfleet officer. Jason
Interesting... since I am now watching TNG, thanks Prax. This is about the most informative thing I've seen in this thread so far.
Star Trek has made a point of being at least partly about having a diverse set of characters. Chakotay was touted as the first Native American character since the Animated Series (Walking Bear). The producers had a golden opportunity to do a good job. Instead, they seemed to go out of their way to totally screw it up. Somehow I don't see Chakotay adhering to a worldview that includes bloodletting and human sacrifice. As for money... that's another argument.