Star Trek is not, and never was, particularly progressive

We Yanks can't even handle "In the Night Kitchen", because the protagonist (who is about 4) is naked part of the time.

 

I mean, this is more a TOS thing than later Trek, but in TOS you constantly saw scenes where female officers were quicker to express fear and request that a man -- usually Kirk -- give them physical comfort, in contexts where male officers would never do such a thing.

Also, there's literally a scene in TOS "Wolf in the Fold" where Spock remarks that "women are more easily and more deeply terrified" than men.

 

"Captain...I'm frightened." - Lt. Uhura, "City on the Edge of Forever"

 

No, “Number One” was forced out by the executives over gender, and only in the second pilot did he invent Spock, which was little more than a male “Number One”.

In case you not know: Star Trek most uniquely had two pilots: one was rejected but they saw enough potential hat they finances a second one.

Yes, I suppose I cannot argue with that, but that was more so sexual than anything I feel, the male officers were also often quite afraid.

 

Which is (not-so) funny considering that Uhura replaced Rand in Ellison's original script. And Rand in Ellison's version is pretty kick ass. She grabs a phaser rifle, burns open the transporter room hatch. Then later, holds the transporter room against the space pirates who now command the Enterprise in the altered Beckwith timeline.

Umm... Spock was in the first pilot, "The Cage," as has been pointed out. And he was in Roddenberry's first pitch document as THE FIRST LIEUTENANT.

And I do know. I work with @Maurice and @Harvey on Fact Trek, a deep dive into the actual history of the show via production documents, busting many of the myths around it.

But then again, I think most of us on the board know this little tidbit.

 

Let's be honest. Nudity in western European television is female nudity. There's bouncing and flouncing, little swinging and swaying. Indeed, there was a small scandal in Germany about ten years ago when a man's genitals appeared in a reality show.

 

Trek was progressive - in many cases very progressive - by 1967 American television standards. But it still fell victim to the cultural tropes and stereotypes of its era.

 

Not sure if indigenous peoples are too keen on being called "Americans", especially in a pre-Columbian context.

It would take a whole lotta sex to turn the entire world "brown".

 

Trek was progressive in some ways. Regressive in others. Something that's been with the franchise throughout its history.

 

No, Number One was dropped by Gene Roddenberry when the executives balked at Roddenberry casting his mistress in the part. He chose to drop the character rather than recast.

Spock was in the pitch and in the first pilot.

 

Not the same thing. We didn't see male officers go, "Captain, I'm afraid" to solicit comfort from Kirk, or asked (or allow) themselves to be cuddled by him on the bridge in the middle of a crisis, for instance.

 

Star Trek's reputation as being on the forefront of progressive casting and onscreen milestone's is exaggerated to almost the point of mythology at times, that's true. But it is undoubtedly progressive in its ideals and has been so from the start.

The OP has some frankly very bizarre and naive/insular ideas about the homogeneous nature of people in the Americas outside the US (and weirdly not including Canada). Yes, there are a lot of mixed race people, but there are still some pretty hefty racial and class divisions to overcome between Mestizos, people of European descent, and indigenous peoples. It's not all puppies and unicorns with no racial strife. If anything, that's playing into a prevalent myth of those regions which seeks to make it sound like everything is hunky dory when in fact there is considerable white/European supremacy still present, among other divides. And the idea that the US is the only place left in the world that has racial divisions is laughable on its face.

They still use modern day terms like "pansexual" and "gay" because they're speaking to a modern day audience about modern day concepts through the lens of a future society. It's never going to be an exact depiction of how things would really be in 300 years because you still have to keep things relatable and understandable to the present day audience, which means using present day terms. Though I'm not sure why either pansexual or gay would be considered off-limits as a descriptor even in a more egalitarian future. Just because people don't consider it a big deal doesn't mean people won't still use descriptive terms to identify themselves.

While they absolutely should make an effort to avoid predominantly white casts, (and indeed, Discovery has) the OP's idea of casting everyone to reflect a future where people of all racial background have mixed together into a homogeneous shade of medium brown runs into the same problems where you'd be excluding both darker and lighter skinned people, people of East Asian and Inuit descent, and many more.

Spock and other Vulcans wore eyeshadow in both TOS and the movies, so it is clearly not exclusively a female Vulcan fashion statement.

I've never really bought into the idea of the glorious co-ed shower as the pinnacle of future progressiveness scifi movies and TV want it to be. Never mind the fact that none of the societies it's depicted in are actually progressive (quite the opposite): Starship Troopers, BSG, Robocop, Judge Dredd, Robot Jox, etc.

It's hard to recall everything the OP complained about since they were all over the place in their ideas of what constitutes progressiveness or not according to their arbitrary standards (I like how they dismissed the points Lord Garth made about Discovery's progressive casting). Was there something about US-only ideas of gender and sexuality that don't exist elsewhere? Like Central and South America (and elsewhere) don't have gendered language and a lot of residual machismo culture? Like anti-LGTBQ legislation is not happening in other places? Are you kidding me?

It just all feels like extremely insular observations combined with deliberate button pushing and casually tossing aside counterpoints that don't agree with your flawed premise.

 

A lot of people feel comfortable with Rufus Sewell in practically any role he's cast in. He was nominated for an Emmy for Mrs Maisel, recently. And he wasn't even playing the title character. When I think of Rufus Sewell I don't think of a white man, or a nude man, or his remarkable and to my mind suspiciously overlooked audio production Dr. Syn for BBC Radio 4, but rather someone who was completely overlooked for the role of Captain Archer over twenty years ago, today by the dim witted unprogressive doofuses running the show. We can't right that wrong. That boat has sailed down the river styx to the land of streamed reruns. But we can take a completely ludicrous train wreck like this thread has become to derail and discuss it while there is yet time to find a role for someone whom, I am sure you will agree upon deep reflection, is more than an actor or potential friend, but rather one of the greatest human beings who has ever lived.

 

Yes, but he was a very different character and he only became cold and logical after “Number One” was scrapped.

Which can be chalked up to that even the suggestion of same-sex intimacy was strictly forbidden, not so much their lack of fear.

I never made a comment on that, and I don't disagree. I only described how people visually looked and said nothing else.
I simply pointed out that if in most of the Americas most people have already become “medium brown" in a 100 years of such mixing, one can certainly expect that 300 years into the future with cheap travel that contemporary understanding of “races” no longer exists.

I similarly never said anything similar to that. Which, frankness be, seems to be why you reply on a high level rather than quoting the specific parts I say and address them.

Yet many titles do not do this. It is often said that this is needed to be relatable and understandable, similar to fashion styles, but many science fiction and phantasy titles forgo this and deliberately depict a truly different culture with different fashion and sexual norms.

It is not so much a matter of it “being a big deal”; it is a matter of it not existing any more.

“sexual orientations” have been a spec in the history of mankind; such a thing did not exist in most historical societies and seems to largely stem from the psychiatric medicalization of Abrahamic morality. There would be few to none Greeks or Romans with any strong gender præference. — This is the future Torchwood portrays. Jack Harknes has no need to call himself “omnisexual”, because everyone around him has been for as long as he can remember. Yet, as said, he is still oddly “white” looking for a man so far from the future.

Of course I'm excluding them; it is about a future where they logically no longer exist. There are no limbless people too in a future where missing human limbs can be regenerated.

This is not about showing people themselves, but their future. Wanting to show people themselves is what causes that it can never be progressive. Stick to something relatable to the audience and one can never show the progress and the “utopian” future that might be; it should be non-relatable, and better than what exists now.

Nothing of that sort was ever in the original text. As I said before, perhaps you should have simply quoted the relevant parts and addressed them concretely rather than replying on a high level because part of what you address is not something I ever said.

 

That's not how you put it originally. You stated Spock was "invent"ed in the second pilot.

 

Ah yes, I see. That was a very poor phrasing in my part.

 

Eh, a lot of people coming to the Americas from Southern Europe were already "medium brown".

 

The difference between the average Spaniard and “Mestizo” is still quite clear. Looking at my own family history pictures as well, three generations back they all looked quite “pedigree” as in what one would expect from uncolonized old world nations. It really is quite a recent event. Remember that in many of those countries racial slavery was abolished later than in the U.S.A.; they simply did not replace it with de jūre racial apartheid.

 

Sure
Racism In South America
Racism in Mexico

 

Again, what does this have to do with whatever I said?
This is the second time now that you seem to construe by that I say that most of the population of Mexico is mixed that that is some comment on racism or class difference, which has nothing to do with any of that.