Spoilers Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1x01 – “Kids These Days”
- Thread starter Commander Richard
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That wasn't intended to be a jab, that had everything to do with her character and not her body.
I'm not sure what trope you're talking about here. SAM's weight (well, Kerrice Brooks's, since I presume SAM is a massless photonic being) looks completely within the average range.
If anything sets her apart, it's that she looks like a normal person, which is pretty striking when set against a bunch of other young actors who were cast in part due to being model-level hot. In general, Hollywood has a hard time casting normal people in roles, and when they do, it's usually reserved for men and/or older actors.
I'm speaking of the "trope" mentioned below by TimeIsAPredator about the "jolly fat guy" sidekick/comic relief character.
I'm not getting "jolly fat guy" from SAM at all. They seem to be going for the aspie-coded socially awkward thing.
I was more referring to LT Rork than SAM. I also said that I could be completely wrong about SAM and she could turn out to be a great character.
I don't know how you think you are agreeing with me when my post was a rebuttal to your own.
I have no problem with the fitness.levels of any characters on Academy. In fact we haven't seen their level yet. I do have a problem with people assuming fitness based on size. I know plenty of "Tillys" that are fitter than some "Burnhams" I know which annoyed me when they showed Tilly struggling with the exercise levels.
I think it's too early to tell what they intend with Rork, though looking up the actress, she has a comedic background, so they may well go for comic relief.
Her role on the ship, though, is academic liaison, which isn't one that requires great levels of physical fitness.
Rork was portrayed as a “‘jolly fat guy’ sidekick/comic relief character”? Are there perhaps some deleted scenes I haven’t seen, because I can’t recall anything even remotely like that from those first two episodes.
As people have noted elsewhere, I can see an argument for how Cadet Pickford (who also isn’t “fat” by any means) might fall into that rather unfortunate stereotype (“Look, the fat girl is so hungry, she even eats her combadge!”), but I trust that’s not how they wanted it to come across.
As people have noted elsewhere, I can see an argument for how Cadet Pickford (who also isn’t “fat” by any means) might fall into that rather unfortunate stereotype (“Look, the fat girl is so hungry, she even eats her combadge!”), but I trust that’s not how they wanted it to come across.
Case in point, the comments made in the media about Ilona Maher after the Olympics.
Academy is 2 episodes in so I'm speaking about the trope in a broader sense. I don't think they ever intend for it to "come across that way" but it ends up that way partly because the creators want to include different body types but deep down sex sells so the lead always looks like Caleb in the end.
The moment people start complaining about things being "woke" -- especially in Star Trek --is the moment that I stop taking them seriously as adults.
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I think it's important to note that there's never, ever been "neutral" casting, any more than there is neutral hiring in anything. Even when we aren't consciously going for something, unconscious bias slips in.
An example of this I saw a few years back: In Europe, for some example, including head shots is a normal thing for most resumes. It was found that the more attractive men were, the more likely they were to get interviewed. However, the more attractive women were, the less likely they were to get brought in for interviews. They did some further studies, and found that it seemed to be because the people who do lower-level HR work at major firms (just as in the U.S.) were largely women - and presumably mostly straight women. The hot men were implicitly interesting to them, whereas the hot women did nothing for them, and they might have been a little biased against them if they saw them as more attractive than they were.
Casting a Black actress with a normal body type isn’t “ticking a box,” they cast the part based on whomever did the best job auditioning for the role.
I bet you wouldn’t make this comment about a white guy being cast in a similar role.
Being a gay man who works in Admin and HR and has for the past 24+ years, this 100% checks out based on experience, and that includes my time spent on active duty in the military, which was Admin and HR, majority in support of SpecOps (specifically the SEALs). The majority of Admin and HR in the military are still female, and unconscious bias seeps into a LOT of HR work, with anti-female bias (coming from their fellow females) being one of the strongest.
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I already said I could be completely wrong about SAM.
The interesting thing I find about Kerrice Brooks is she's most well known as a dancer (was a background dancer for Kanye West and Billie Eilish in the past), which isn't something you'd think would work well with SAM's characterization. I'm sure they'll find a way to work it in eventually, though.
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