They addressed that earlier in the season, though barely touched on it. In The Child, Troi was basically raped. Abortion was brought up, which Troi promptly rejected.
Up the long ladder
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They addressed that earlier in the season, though barely touched on it. In The Child, Troi was basically raped. Abortion was brought up, which Troi promptly rejected.
Emphasis on barely. It's not really RAPE if you just wake up and you're pregnant. At least not in Christian mentality.
True, but that was 50 years ago and times were changing, even then. Certainly, by the time TNG came around, it wasn't such a big deal, anymore. Especially with cable T.V. and the home video market starting to offer increasingly greater viewing choices. But one thing using allegory allows for, also, is lazy writing. If a topic is named directly, well, now it has to be properly explored and that involves putting in effort, which alot of STAR TREK scripts sorely lack.
STAR TREK pats itself on the back a little too much for its topicality, when said topics were never meaningfully explored or ever presented viable options to any issue. Kirk would just "pull the plug" on the society and helpfuly offer saige-sounding tripe like, "now, you'll have to learn to live sensibly," then he'd get out of town ... while the getting was good ...
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But too many modern-day issues, tackled directly rather than through allegory, would make a show that's supposed to be set 300-400 years in the future seem awfully dated. How does Trek do a story about the Vietnam War set in the 23rd century? Through allegory.
I do see the argument for a rape metaphor, with the clones, with Troi, and with the Borg. They're all examples of people being violated.
I always did have a problem with Riker killing the clones. Regardless of how they were created, the clones had lives seperate of their own, even if they were still in development, they were damn close to being able to live their own lives, and they were innocent of the crimes done to Riker and Pulaski. It is an abortion metaphor, but it doesn't work well since the clones weren't in Riker and Pulaski's bodies. I wish there had been some real debate over the fates of the clones. There is often a tendency, especially in older sci fi, to treat clones as not really alive, not really human. I guess it's a thing with the era.
In a side note, I remember in the early 90s in Marvel Comics's series by John Byrne, Namor killed a bunch of clones of his dead wife who were said to have the intelligence of toddlers. They were innocent and harmless, although the man who created them had violated the corpse of Namor's wife. I think it was handled better though, as Namor was shown to be extremely grief striken at his wife being violated in her grave, and the other side of the issue was at least touched upon as Namor's cousin Namorita, who he was very close to, was revealed to be a clone of her mother, and this didn't change Namor's attitudes toward her. Namor was king of Atlantis, and cloning was illegal, so while he was in his legal right, I still found in morally appalling, as Namor essentially killed a bunch of toddlers, who were capable of maturing intellectually into normal adults in time. An interesting comparison to the less sophisticated way this issue was handled in TNG.
I also agree Pulaski seemed to be making a lot of decisions for those people in their relationships and family structures. I'd think a more detailed explanation of family planning and their reproductive options would've been more appropriate. Those people were intelligent enough to understand the option of artificall insemination if they wanted to pursue that. I'd think many of those people would have preferred using artifical insemination over having to sleep with people they didn't want to. I feel uncomfortable with this whole non-monogamy (and by this I mean sexual) issue being all but pushed on these people. If they chose it, fine, great, but it should be their choice. Without these people being given really informed choices the sexual component can feel kind of rape-y. In their situation, I think I might well feel that way.
These issues do make this a really creepy oogie feel bad episode.
I always did have a problem with Riker killing the clones. Regardless of how they were created, the clones had lives seperate of their own, even if they were still in development, they were damn close to being able to live their own lives, and they were innocent of the crimes done to Riker and Pulaski. It is an abortion metaphor, but it doesn't work well since the clones weren't in Riker and Pulaski's bodies. I wish there had been some real debate over the fates of the clones. There is often a tendency, especially in older sci fi, to treat clones as not really alive, not really human. I guess it's a thing with the era.
In a side note, I remember in the early 90s in Marvel Comics's series by John Byrne, Namor killed a bunch of clones of his dead wife who were said to have the intelligence of toddlers. They were innocent and harmless, although the man who created them had violated the corpse of Namor's wife. I think it was handled better though, as Namor was shown to be extremely grief striken at his wife being violated in her grave, and the other side of the issue was at least touched upon as Namor's cousin Namorita, who he was very close to, was revealed to be a clone of her mother, and this didn't change Namor's attitudes toward her. Namor was king of Atlantis, and cloning was illegal, so while he was in his legal right, I still found in morally appalling, as Namor essentially killed a bunch of toddlers, who were capable of maturing intellectually into normal adults in time. An interesting comparison to the less sophisticated way this issue was handled in TNG.
I also agree Pulaski seemed to be making a lot of decisions for those people in their relationships and family structures. I'd think a more detailed explanation of family planning and their reproductive options would've been more appropriate. Those people were intelligent enough to understand the option of artificall insemination if they wanted to pursue that. I'd think many of those people would have preferred using artifical insemination over having to sleep with people they didn't want to. I feel uncomfortable with this whole non-monogamy (and by this I mean sexual) issue being all but pushed on these people. If they chose it, fine, great, but it should be their choice. Without these people being given really informed choices the sexual component can feel kind of rape-y. In their situation, I think I might well feel that way.
These issues do make this a really creepy oogie feel bad episode.
A more detailed explanation of their options very well may have happened off-camera, but it wasn't needed onscreen. Fiction is life with the boring parts edited out. She may even have arranged for some medical personnel to be assigned to the planet for consultation.
I'd have liked to have heard something to the effect of Pulaski saying that it would be better if each woman had children fathered by multiple men, but that there were medical procedures to allow for artifical insemination if they preferred. That wouldn't have took much longer to say that the whole talk where Pulaski tells these people how they'll be handling their person lives. It did feel like she was being a little pushy with her opinion on how they solved their relationship issues and reproductive needs.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn one of the writers was advocating polygamy in the subtext. Just a possibility. All kinds of creepy going on regardless.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn one of the writers was advocating polygamy in the subtext. Just a possibility. All kinds of creepy going on regardless.
Up The Long Ladder was not a very well written episode.
But I think, regardless of what the morals of the time are, if your way of life was on the verge of extinction anybody would change their sexual morals to survive.
And although in Star Trek it was clear a two person marriage was the norm, it was also clear that people were open minded to different cultures' idea of what love and marriage constituted.
But I think, regardless of what the morals of the time are, if your way of life was on the verge of extinction anybody would change their sexual morals to survive.
And although in Star Trek it was clear a two person marriage was the norm, it was also clear that people were open minded to different cultures' idea of what love and marriage constituted.
Right. It feels like Pulaski is being insensitive to their culture's monogamous norm. It feels very much like an agenda is being pushed when there are alternative solutions besides non monogamy. People in the thread have already suggested they use artifical insemination instead of throwing key parties. Just bluntly telling these people they're going to have to change their social and sexual mores doesn't seem to be in line with the Federation's value of respecting other cultures.
I don't think that's fair...it's not like the Enterprise was going to stay there and enforce polygamy at phaser-point. She was letting them know what they'd need to do to survive, but it was up to them to carry it out in their own way.
No, Pulaski wasn't holding them at phase point, but it does seem like she's giving them a specific plan to save their race, without giving them the very realistic alternatives. Artifical insemination should be something those people could do, but may not know how to do properly without some basic instruction. I'd think artifical insemination would be a less obtrusive change to implement into their society than group marriage or organized infedility. For a society not inclined to polygamy or whatever they were doing, that could be a big disruptive upheval vs the less obtrusive change of artifical insemination. I get the limits of time constraints and all. I just think, and I think most of us agree, that the resolution wasn't handled well.
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