Early Criticism: What’s Unfounded and What Isn’t

[Starflight]

There's a lot of cool ways to integrate people's experiences into the setting's futuristic/high tech context, the key is to just not remove the disability, or minimise it in a way that'd detach the character's experience from that of a viewer with the same condition.

Then again, I'm not 100% sure what the setting of SFA actually is - it almost seems lower tech than TOS at times (which you could understand given this Burn situation), but more advanced in other ways. I don't think they necessarily care about total coherence in worldbuilding, which is actually refreshing IMO. I guess a standard modern-day wheelchair doesn't really seem out of place given what else has been established in the show.

 

[Firebird]

They want to see a world where there is a possibility theyll be cured or at least become much more able to do what they want to do in the future.

I can bet you there are many disabled people that don't see their physical limitation as something that needs to be cured or something to be ashamed of.

 

[fireproof78]

There's a lot of cool ways to integrate people's experiences into the setting's futuristic/high tech context, the key is to just not remove the disability, or minimise it in a way that'd detach the character's experience from a viewer with the same condition.

Which is what is being advocated. Just remove it.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I can bet you there are many disabled people that don't see their physical limitation as something that needs to be cured or something to be ashamed of.

Indeed, we saw Geordi reject outright the notion of cloned implants for his eyes.

 

[Fateor]

Indeed, we saw Geordi reject outright the notion of cloned implants for his eyes.

Yup, because his visor gave him better vision then a regular human and he didn't want to give that up.

 

[The Salt Umpire]

False. Many deaf people reject cochlear implants in real life.

I would, too. I'll use up what's left of my residual hearing. The auditory fidelity is lacking in many respects, and you have to destroy the hair cells in the cochlea when you insert the device. I'm teaching Mrs. U sign.

I can bet you there are many disabled people that don't see their physical limitation as something that needs to be cured or something to be ashamed of.

I am one of them. I like who I am.

"Loud as a Whisper" was incredibly important to me. I understood what Riva was signing! Not everything on TV had captions back then. I'm spoiled by (almost) universal captions in virtually all media now, it wasn't like that in 1988.

I would wager that a significantly higher than normal percentage of Trek fans are people with disabilities, I'm there as much for the inclusion as for the future tech that would address what ails me...as long as it's not an auditory version of the BeepChair.

 

[ToddCam]

The BeepChair is such a great example of a depiction that needs to be altered for a more reasonable vision of the future but canon-obsessives would be up in arms if so. Actually, did that happen? I remember Pike seeing himself in a vision on Discovery.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

1200 years from now? Unlikely. Even now our medical science is advancing fast. To say in 1200 years we wont have made progress is not realistic.Do you really think people would rather be in a wheel chair than have 100% duplicates of they're own legs?

Yes absolutely because people will have the choice. Unless you feel the state should force things on people? No one is saying the technology wouldn't exist but some people might not opt for it. One could argue no one in their right mind would reject replicators to make life harder for themselves but they do. Even further than that we hear about entire communities of luddites on Earth.

Just because you or I might immediately opt for a quick fix for anything wrong with us does not speak for everyone. I have 2 working legs, 2 working arms and 5 working senses yet I view myself as broken. There are people with less who do not.

Either you are deliberately carrying this on just to find some way to disparage Academy or you have absolutely no idea what Star Trek is all about.

 

[Enterprise1701]

Do they? You speak for all people with disabilities now?

You haven't even asked why this person is in a wheelchair. Just assumed it's a flaw. That's ridiculous. People are not just problems to be cured.

I don't give a damn about representation. I care about asking the human questions of what does this person want, instead of assuming the absolute worst about the writers. There's no room for just doing, "Eh, just fix them, just cure them." That's so flippant it hurts.

If this were a genuinely peaceful utopia, then I would be more sympathetic to that idea, but this is a world where the showrunners want to have their cake and eat it too with the protagonists being able to succeed in combat against dangerous pirates and the like. Are you going to scream ableism against an antagonist character who exploits the opening to lob an EMP weapon against the wheelchair guy's wheelchair? Or do you think the pirate character always has to be respectful against opponents just to move the plot along?

 

[flyerdog]

I can bet you there are many disabled people that don't see their physical limitation as something that needs to be cured or something to be ashamed of.

With all due respect, I think that is something non-disabled people tell themselves to assuage guilt.

Ask someone who is blind if they would like their sight back? sure you might get an outlier who says no but...generally speaking. If that person was born blind you might get a different answer, I grant you.
or ask a type one diabetic if they would prefer a functioning pancreas, instead of constant blood sugar monitoring, increased risk of renal failure, arterial disease, neuropathy, cardiovascular disease.

again having spent 15 yrs working with paraplegics and quadraplegics, not one of them wouldn't trade almost everything to have full functioning back...which is why the whole WC thing in SFA is so close to home I guess....

I've even asked some of my patients, "If you could have a billion dollars, or the use of your legs back, which would you take?" all of them said their legs...

I agree there should never be shame or ridicule, that is inhuman, and i think people in general are aware and sympathetic, sure there will be outliers and anecdotal examples of bad behavior, but overall i think sympathy is still the M.O.

 

[Michael]

With all due respect, I think that is something non-disabled people tell themselves to assuage guilt.

Ask someone who is blind if they would like their sight back? sure you might get an outlier who says no but...generally speaking. If that person was born blind you might get a different answer, I grant you.
or ask a type one diabetic if they would prefer a functioning pancreas, instead of constant blood sugar monitoring, increased risk of renal failure, arterial disease, neuropathy, cardiovascular disease.

again having spent 15 yrs working with paraplegics and quadraplegics, not one of them wouldn't trade almost everything to have full functioning back...which is why the whole WC thing in SFA is so close to home I guess....

I've even asked some of my patients, "If you could have a billion dollars, or the use of your legs back, which would you take?" all of them said their legs...

I agree there should never be shame or ridicule, that is inhuman, and i think people in general are aware and sympathetic, sure there will be outliers and anecdotal examples of bad behavior, but overall i think sympathy is still the M.O.

I respect that this may be what a majority of them is answering, I really do. However, I don’t think that’s really the question. How about you ask these same people this one:

On a television show set in the far future, would you prefer that people with paraplegia / quadriplegia are “healed” and you effectively never see them on the show, since they just look like able-bodied people and blend in, or would you prefer to see them integrated into the future setting?

Also, do you think actors with paraplegia / quadriplegia should be able to get a job on such a television show, or should they not, since they simply wouldn’t exist in the future?

I don’t suppose the answers to these would be quite as unanimous.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

On a television show set in the far future, would you prefer that people with paraplegia / quadriplegia are “healed” and you effectively never see them on the show, since they just look like able-bodied people and blend in, or would you prefer to see them integrated into the future setting?

Also, do you think actors with paraplegia / quadriplegia should be able to get a job on such a television show, or should they not, since they simply wouldn’t exist in the future?

"Simply wouldn't exist" and "blend in" is a bit of a harsh way of putting it. Nog didn't blend in or stop existing when he got his leg replaced. Scotty having all his fingers doesn't mean TOS is a bleak future where James Doohan couldn't exist.

Also, do you think actors with paraplegia / quadriplegia should be able to get a job on such a television show, or should they not, since they simply wouldn’t exist in the future?

Space opera science fiction should provide opportunities for all kinds of actors to find work, even if they're playing a regular human with a medical condition in a sci-fi chair like Kenneth Mitchell's character in season 3 Disco. Still looks weird when someone's in 32nd century Starfleet Academy looking like they're right out of the 21st century.

 

[Michael]

"Simply wouldn't exist" and "blend in" is a bit of a harsh way of putting it. Nog didn't blend in or stop existing when he got his leg replaced. Scotty having all his fingers doesn't mean TOS is a bleak future where James Doohan couldn't exist.

Yeah, that again is the “there has to be a story reason for a disabled person to exist” route, which I personally find problematic. Don’t get me wrong, Nog’s storyline of losing his leg in the war is one of my favorite parts of Star Trek. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only way disabled people should ever show up on Trek. Just like in reality they should be able to just exist. There doesn’t need to be a super cool and dramatic sci-fi reason to have a person with a disability on Trek, when they are just part of everyday life in our real world.

Space opera science fiction should provide opportunities for all kinds of actors to find work, even if they're playing a regular human with a medical condition in a sci-fi chair like Kenneth Mitchell's character in season 3 Disco. Still looks weird when someone's in 32nd century Starfleet Academy looking like they're right out of the 21st century.

I’m sorry, but I honestly just can’t find it all that weird. When I saw those cadets in wheelchairs, my train of thought was more like “ah, nice to include actors with disabilities in Star Trek”. Maybe my next thought is “I’m curious how they are integrated into the everyday life of a cadet” or “I wonder if their wheelchair is made of programmable matter and can hover/fly”. But I don’t need these answered to just be happy that there’s people who you normally don’t see existing in Star Trek — both in its fictional future, but also in terms of it being a television production.

 

[Starflight]

FWIW, I have early-onset arthritis in my right knee which has hampered my mobility, and I think I prefer the idea that it's easily curable in Star Trek, and that if I lived in the Star Trek universe then they could just wave a medical tricorder over it and fix it instantly.

It seems like using aliens might be a good way to incorporate it, since they're often just stand-ins for human experiences in Star Trek anyway. Have someone from the Species of Permanently Fucked Knees showing up who uses a special device to aid mobility, like Melora.

The presence of the presumably-human cadet in a wheelchair didn't bother me at all, I'm just thinking out loud about possibilities to include real-life conditions in ways that simultaneously feel specific to the fictional universe but also allow people to identify their own experience with that of a character.

 

[Michael]

It seems like using aliens might be a good way to incorporate it, since they're often just stand-ins for human experiences in Star Trek anyway. Have someone from the Species of Permanently Fucked Knees showing up who uses a special device to aid mobility, like Melora.

But wouldn’t something like that always scream “Look, this is a disabled person! They have this special thing, and it’s a disability. Their disability is something alien and unique, not ‘normal’ and everyday.” I don't know, this just makes me a bit uncomfortable and I don’t think that’s how we should look at disabled people in our fiction.

 

[Starflight]

I think the reality is that having certain disabilities often is a unique thing that results in you having a different experience than able-bodied people. I 100% get where you're coming from though, if a character is defined entirely by the presence of a physical condition or other characters constantly bring it up, then it's poor writing.

If - to pick the easiest example - Melora were to have become a regular cast member on DS9, you'd expect that her disability wouldn't come up 99% of the time, and her use of mobility aids would be entirely unremarkable and not a feature of plots. But, as in real life, there'd be the occasional moment where she's not able to do something that able-bodied people are able to do or is unable to access her aids, at which point (as in real life) she has to improvise or find an alternative, which is where people with limited mobility in real life can be like "oh, yeah, that's me".

 

[Detached Nacelle]

With all due respect, I think that is something non-disabled people tell themselves to assuage guilt.

Ask someone who is blind if they would like their sight back? sure you might get an outlier who says no but...generally speaking.

Of course you would but the principle is more that there's a choice for people and not advocating people being forced to have limbs or eyes removed.

There's any number of reasons a person may choose to keep their limbs or eyes that don't work, a sense of dysphoria that cloned ones aren't theirs, maybe even the influence spiritual beliefs.

The point is it's a choice for people.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Or, as shown in the episode, there'd be something they could do better than others (in her case, float in zero G) to the other heros' advantage.

 

[WarMaster1701]

RMB has to be the number 1 media gatekeeper.

 

[Michael]

I think the lesson I take from the discourse in this thread is that it’s a more nuanced question than I thought. Not everyone who doesn’t like seeing cadets in wheelchairs just wants them to be completely invisible in Star Trek. There’s also people who definitely want them on the show, but maybe just in a more sci-fi way. And I respect that, even though I personally think the way they’ve been doing it now, i.e. just have actors in wheelchairs as cadets in wheelchairs, is the optimal way to do it, because it doesn’t focus on their disability as something alien or fantastical, but just has them as regular folk who exist in a show made for a 2026 audience.