For those who say Trek promotes racism, elitiism or speciesism

[JRoss]

I hear/read arguments about how Trek is racist because we seldom see non-humans in Starfleet and very seldom see them in command, how Starfleet ships generally only have human names, how alien civilizations of the week are presented as monotone and uniform, and how the beliefs of other civilizations are not respected by the Federation.

I've decided to counter-argue.

1. Starfleet is a "humans only" club. REMEMBER THAT TREK IS A TELEVSION SHOW. Yes, portraying equality among alien and human species is great and all that jazz, but alien prosthetics are expensive, whereas it's cheap to just throw on a stock uniform or use body doubles as extras. We've seen non-human crew and commanders of Starfleet vessels before. Arguments of racism fall flat when we consider that aliens cost money, thus few aliens.

2. Starfleet ships only have human names. We've seen what, 200 different starship names? NCC registration numbers go into the tens of thousands. We're only seeing a fraction of the fleet, there's no reason to assume that every ship is named for humanity. REMEMBER THAT TREK IS A TELEVSION SHOW. The writers likely realize that we humans might like hearing "USS Cheyenne" rather than "USS Solfihjvw0481klcnv" or something else equally strange.

3. Alien cultures are bland and lack depth while humanity is portrayed as a rich and superior culture. We've seen this dozens of times. The Enterprise approaches a planet that is ruled by a single council with vast powers and who oppose Starfleet for whatever reason. Why is every antagonistic species ruled by dictators and the like? REMEMBER THAT TREK IS A TELEVSION SHOW. Episodes are 50 minutes (less later) that often have to establish a new civilization, introduce a conflict and then show a struggle and resolution. Alien cultures are represented this way to facilitate storytelling, not to make humans look better than everyone.

4. Alien cultures are portrayed as backward. Well, sure, some of them are. REMEMBER THAT TREK IS A TELEVSION SHOW. Shows thrive on conflict. Who says that the Enterprise never encounters perfectly reasonable aliens and everything ends with hugs and handshakes each and every week? Do you want to see that in a show, or do you want to see something interesting? Let's just assume that the boring stuff happens off-screen.

 

[T'Girl]

REMEMBER THAT TREK IS A TELEVSION SHOW

As "in-universe" explanations go, respectfully yours is a tiny bit thin.

 

[-Brett-]

I'll skip right over the part where I act shocked and appalled at the "revelation" that Star Trek is a TV show. That meme has been done to death.

Most likely you're a troll, but on the very slim chance that you're looking for an actual discussion on this subject I'll give you a little advice. Condescension is not a very good way to start a conversation.

 

[T'Girl]

Seriously through, there is a feel that Starfleet does promote cultural elitism. The message come across that "we support diversity ... except for (of course) diversity that we don't personally approve of.

 

[Pauln6]

Yeah the Federation is rather elitist. Make up considerations would affect the number of aliens they could feature in the regular cast but DS9 and B5 had lots of background aliens. Trek could have put more effort in.

What's indefensible in universe or because it is a TV show is how sexist the franchise and new movie remain. Why so few women in positions of authority compared to men? Why are women still featured predominantly as love interests, carers, and mothers? Apalling!

 

[Mr Silver]

I hear/read arguments about how Trek is racist because we seldom see non-humans in Starfleet and very seldom see them in command, how Starfleet ships generally only have human names, how alien civilizations of the week are presented as monotone and uniform, and how the beliefs of other civilizations are not respected by the Federation.

I've decided to counter-argue.

1. Starfleet is a "humans only" club. REMEMBER THAT TREK IS A TELEVSION SHOW. Yes, portraying equality among alien and human species is great and all that jazz, but alien prosthetics are expensive, whereas it's cheap to just throw on a stock uniform or use body doubles as extras. We've seen non-human crew and commanders of Starfleet vessels before. Arguments of racism fall flat when we consider that aliens cost money, thus few aliens.

2. Starfleet ships only have human names. We've seen what, 200 different starship names? NCC registration numbers go into the tens of thousands. We're only seeing a fraction of the fleet, there's no reason to assume that every ship is named for humanity. REMEMBER THAT TREK IS A TELEVSION SHOW. The writers likely realize that we humans might like hearing "USS Cheyenne" rather than "USS Solfihjvw0481klcnv" or something else equally strange.

3. Alien cultures are bland and lack depth while humanity is portrayed as a rich and superior culture. We've seen this dozens of times. The Enterprise approaches a planet that is ruled by a single council with vast powers and who oppose Starfleet for whatever reason. Why is every antagonistic species ruled by dictators and the like? REMEMBER THAT TREK IS A TELEVSION SHOW. Episodes are 50 minutes (less later) that often have to establish a new civilization, introduce a conflict and then show a struggle and resolution. Alien cultures are represented this way to facilitate storytelling, not to make humans look better than everyone.

4. Alien cultures are portrayed as backward. Well, sure, some of them are. REMEMBER THAT TREK IS A TELEVSION SHOW. Shows thrive on conflict. Who says that the Enterprise never encounters perfectly reasonable aliens and everything ends with hugs and handshakes each and every week? Do you want to see that in a show, or do you want to see something interesting? Let's just assume that the boring stuff happens off-screen.

Its not much of a Counter Agrument, its more of an attempt to remind people that Trek is a Tv Show, I think everyone knows that and everything you've wrote in that post is stating the obvious, sorry but everyone else who has posted responses is right and as fans we don't like being made to feel as though we're stuck in some little World where we think Star Trek is real, its insulting and an Ancient Cliche

REMEMBER TO THINK OF A BETTER POST NEXT TIME

 

[barnaclelapse]

Yeah the Federation is rather elitist. Make up considerations would affect the number of aliens they could feature in the regular cast but DS9 and B5 had lots of background aliens. Trek could have put more effort in.

What's indefensible in universe or because it is a TV show is how sexist the franchise and new movie remain. Why so few women in positions of authority compared to men? Why are women still featured predominantly as love interests, carers, and mothers? Apalling!

Because someone needs to be in the kitchen making sandwiches for the men.

Geez.

 

[BillJ]

Cultural elitism is rampant in Star Trek. Sorry.

 

[The Inquisitor]

I don't think anyone has said Trek promotes racism, even condone it. Quite the opposite.

 

[erastus25]

Yeah the Federation is rather elitist. Make up considerations would affect the number of aliens they could feature in the regular cast but DS9 and B5 had lots of background aliens. Trek could have put more effort in.

What's indefensible in universe or because it is a TV show is how sexist the franchise and new movie remain. Why so few women in positions of authority compared to men? Why are women still featured predominantly as love interests, carers, and mothers? Apalling!

Seconded. Other than expanding on Uhura's intelligence the most recent movie did very little. Maybe JJ can give us a super powerful female enemy? One that can't be easily wooed into submission a la the Romulan Commander.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

There doesn't need to be an in-universe explanation. The one given in the OP is all that we need, and certainly all we will ever get. At least onscreen.

Special effects & uniform budgets, or lack thereof, are *exactly* why we don't see many aliens onscreen. Case closed.

 

[JRoss]

I'm not trying to troll. I love trek. I mis-remembered. The anti-trek posts saying that Trek is elitist were on the imdb boards, not here. I don't mean to condescend, but merely to point out that much of the perceived problems come from budgetary issues and time constraints, not a desire by writers to impose their cultural standards on others.

 

[BillJ]

I'm not trying to troll. I love trek. I mis-remembered. The anti-trek posts saying that Trek is elitist were on the imdb boards, not here. I don't mean to condescend, but merely to point out that much of the perceived problems come from budgetary issues and time constraints, not a desire by writers to impose their cultural standards on others.

The elitism had nothing to do with costume budgets. Just watch Next Gen episodes like Reunion or First Contact.

 

[T'Girl]

I don't think anyone has said Trek promotes racism, even condone it. Quite the opposite.

This is where i get jumped on (but), consider Ben Sisko, both of his wifes have been black, the aliens he is attracted to are black, I believe the sole except is the time he had sex with mirror universe Dax. That seems racist, at least on the part of the shows writers.

Special effects & uniform budgets, or lack thereof, are *exactly* why we don't see many aliens onscreen.

much of the perceived problems come from budgetary issues and time constraints, not a desire by writers to impose their cultural standards on others.

Deanna Troi could have easily have been full Betazed, and have require no more costuming or make-up budget than any "Human" character. A alien can be depicted through acting ability and dialog (and some really dark contacts), elaborate prostesis and masks are un-nessasary.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

There doesn't need to be an in-universe explanation. The one given in the OP is all that we need, and certainly all we will ever get. At least onscreen.

Special effects & uniform budgets, or lack thereof, are *exactly* why we don't see many aliens onscreen. Case closed.

Might I perhaps point out that the reason we didn't see that many aliens in STXI is primarily because we did not NOTICE them. Try freeze-framing the Assembly scene at the academy, look closely at the faces behind Kirk and Spock while they're debating the Kobyashi Maru test. What at a glance appears to be a sea of human faces turns out to contain a huge amount of heavily makeuped non-human background characters of various races.

From the background information, it seems JJ's team did this on purpose; they had cosmetic types for aliens that would only appear in the background and never seen close up, and different more detailed types for aliens that would appear in tight closeup (A-Rex and the big-eyed nurse on the Kelvin, for example. And also the "Species" looking girl on the Enterprise, among others).

It isn't as explicit as it has been in the past, but ironically, the PRESENCE of alien members of Starfleet has increased considerably even if their prominence has not. I actually kind of think this is a form of progress; Starfleet has reached a point where a room full of a hundred officers can have forty non-humans and nobody even notices.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Deanna Troi could have easily have been full Betazed, and have require no more costuming or make-up budget than any "Human" character. A alien can be depicted through acting ability and dialog (and some really dark contacts), elaborate prostesis and masks are un-nessasary.

The reason she WASN'T is that actual telepathy is a useful ability that would have solved quite a few problems during the series.

As it stands, even her EMPATHIC abilities turned out to be conveniently useless more often than not.

Mean while, the more interesting of the three female characters in TNG left the show because she felt the character wasn't being properly developed. Go figure.

 

[Captrek]

Its not much of a Counter Agrument, its more of an attempt to remind people that Trek is a Tv Show

GET A LIFE!​

 

[The Inquisitor]

I don't think anyone has said Trek promotes racism, even condone it. Quite the opposite.

This is where i get jumped on (but), consider Ben Sisko, both of his wifes have been black, the aliens he is attracted to are black, I believe the sole except is the time he had sex with mirror universe Dax. That seems racist, at least on the part of the shows writers.

Special effects & uniform budgets, or lack thereof, are *exactly* why we don't see many aliens onscreen.

much of the perceived problems come from budgetary issues and time constraints, not a desire by writers to impose their cultural standards on others.

Deanna Troi could have easily have been full Betazed, and have require no more costuming or make-up budget than any "Human" character. A alien can be depicted through acting ability and dialog (and some really dark contacts), elaborate prostesis and masks are un-nessasary.

A good point which I hadn't considered, however, weather this was done with a racist agenda in mind is debatable. The writers/casting agents may well have unwittingly cast the roles without even contemplating the racial ramifications of their choice. The very fact they have a black captain in the 1st place is enough for me to discard the accusations of racism. I doubt (hope) the writers had no negative race agenda.

 

[Captrek]

This is where i get jumped on (but), consider Ben Sisko, both of his wifes have been black, the aliens he is attracted to are black, I believe the sole except is the time he had sex with mirror universe Dax. That seems racist, at least on the part of the shows writers.

Standards of the day. We rarely see mixed-race couples on TV. Even in commercials, couples are always one race, two genders.

 

[JRoss]

On race: Well, TOS certainly cannot be accused of racism, what with Black, Indian, Latino and Asian flag officers, as well as a mixed-nationality/race/species bridge crew. The perceived misogyny comes from executive meddling, as Roddenberry originally cast a woman as the Enterprise's XO, but was vetoed by the network.

DS9: Sisko's preference for Black women doesn't bother me. I think that it can also be considered forced if everyone absolutely has to have a spouse of another species/ethnicity. What if Sisko just prefers Black women? Studies have shown that people are most physically attracted to what they have grown up with and what reminds them most of themselves. Besides, on DS9 we have Julian/Ezri, Worf/Jadzia, Jake/that dabo girl, Rom/Leeta, Jadzia/that captain with the transparent skull and who knows how many more.

I see that some people have taken issue with my lack of "in-universe" defense of Starfleet's position. Understandable, but as Trek is a real-world show created by human writers in the 20th and 21st centuries, the content of the show, the universe, has to be judged on the basis of the decisions of the writing staff, directors, producers and studio executives.

As for arguments made about the elitism in the show, I'd ask please that people list specific issues, rather than simply saying, "watch episode x." As my position is thus far that Starfleet/Star Trek is not racist/elitist, simply saying that won't do anything to change my mind, as I've seen those episodes but have not obviously come to the same conclusions as you. I'm willing to be proved wrong, but I need specifics, please.