IDW Star Trek Ongoing...

[Pauln6]

Re: IDW: Ongoing #31: I, Enterprise

...I wish they would let Rand be Kirk's Yeoman and at least feature her doing something...

Exactly what is a yeoman? Let alone "Kirk's Yeoman". Being somebody's yeoman sounds somewhat slavish. And, ultimately, it seemed Rand's job duties amounted to something like bringing Kirk his coffee when he'd wake up in the morning. Hardly something you'd need to graduate from starfleet acadamy for.

I don't view the yeoman's job as demeaning in itself; it's just a plot device to keep a character in the orbit of the captain. The issue is what you do with the character once they're there. If all they do is ask stupid questions and serve coffee then yes, you have a problem but it's no different to TOS Uhura acting like a telephone operator or Mayweather just being eye candy. The issue is the implementation of the character. If Rand or any of the yeomen had been guys in TOS, that implementation would still have sucked.

On the other hand if you treat them like technicians or security officers whose job it is to also do the captain's admin then you can view them in a whole other light.

However, you do actually have to use the character in order to develop them and the admin job or handing out coffee is a good place to start. Probably Rand's best scene in TOS was handing out Sulu's food. Personally I would treat the yeoman as an additional security guard and that is what they started to do in the IDW comic. However, they went too far in forgetting that Rand is ALSO a yeoman. She hasn't done a single admin task to date.

Still, Carol makes irregular appearances, as has Keenser. Zahra (both of them), Cupcake, Boma, and Kai, so if it's their intention to gradually develop a broad spectrum of supporting characters then I approve. I'm just hoping a few more of them will be aliens!

Edit: Just read issue 31 - looks interesting. I think 2-issues for an origin story should be ok. You can just see a wisp of Zahra's blonde fringe inside her helmet though!

We don't know what Chapel is doing on the frontier but it might be interesting if this story led to her return to track down Korby and the artificial beings are connected.

 

[Christopher]

A yeoman is a secretary, clerk, or personal aide. It doesn't make any sense to treat one as a security guard. That's an entirely different specialization.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Re: IDW: Ongoing #31: I, Enterprise

Yeoman is a naval enlisted rating responsible for clerical and administrative work -- basically the equivalent of a secretary or aide. Essentially Rand was to Kirk as Radar was to Col. Potter on M*A*S*H -- the person who handled the clerical duties for the commanding officer.

There was also Steve Trevor's yeoman, Diana Prince, who was secretly TV's "Wonder Woman".

 

[Markonian]

So, do we have two Zahras now, or not?

Married couple sounds fine to me by way of explanation.

 

[Oso Blanco]

So, do we have two Zahras now, or not?

Married couple sounds fine to me by way of explanation.

Yes, we do have to Zahras. But why must they be related in any way? Just because they happen to have the same family name?

I have been working with a woman who had the same family name as I did, but guess what? No relation at all! She wasn't my wife, my sister, my cousin, we didn't even had any ancestors in common!

 

[Pauln6]

A yeoman is a secretary, clerk, or personal aide. It doesn't make any sense to treat one as a security guard. That's an entirely different specialization.

You have a physicist at the helm, a navigator as chief engineer, and a computer scientist as first officer, but you draw the line at a security guard doing admin?

 

[Pauln6]

So, do we have two Zahras now, or not?

Married couple sounds fine to me by way of explanation.

Yes, we do have to Zahras. But why must they be related in any way? Just because they happen to have the same family name?

I have been working with a woman who had the same family name as I did, but guess what? No relation at all! She wasn't my wife, my sister, my cousin, we didn't even had any ancestors in common!

Even if we do have two Zahras doing the same job on the same ship, it doesn't really alter the issue in debate if the writers stop using the Arabic/African/Indian one in favour of the Caucuasian one. It's whitewashing either way and in a comic that's even sillier.

 

[Oso Blanco]

Even if we do have two Zahras doing the same job on the same ship, it doesn't really alter the issue in debate if the writers stop using the Arabic/African/Indian one in favour of the Caucuasian one. It's whitewashing either way and in a comic that's even sillier.

Who said the have stopped using the Arabic Zahra? Maybe she will be back ... who knows? In this case it's not exactly whitewashing as in "Khan is a Brit now" ... there is no hint whatsoever that dark haired Zahra and blonde Zahra are supposed to be the same person. Blonde Zahra was on the Bridge in STID, but I don't think she's supposed to be the same character as dark Zahra in TOS (who also appeared in the Ongoing comics).

As I've said before, it could be that the comic writers assigned the name "Zahra" to the blonde character by mistake ... but that doesn't make it whitewashing. She is clearly a completely different person! It's not as if they have explicitily stated that this is supposed to be one and the same character!

 

[Christopher]

You have a physicist at the helm, a navigator as chief engineer, and a computer scientist as first officer, but you draw the line at a security guard doing admin?

I'm just saying that it would be nice to see a yeoman portrayed as what a yeoman actually is, rather than making it a meaningless title for a character who's doing something entirely different.

Besides, none of your examples is equivalent to this. Sulu changed jobs from physicist to helmsman. Chekov changed jobs from navigator to engineer. And Spock is consistently addressed as both first officer and science officer. If you're not going to portray a character as an administrative aide at all, if you're just going to present her as another security guard, then just bloomin' call her a security guard, not a yeoman.

As I've said before, it could be that the comic writers assigned the name "Zahra" to the blonde character by mistake ... but that doesn't make it whitewashing. She is clearly a completely different person! It's not as if they have explicitily stated that this is supposed to be one and the same character!

Yes, it is whitewashing. No matter what excuses you make for it, it's still replacing a person of color with a white person, and that's a bad thing for reasons far more significant than whatever superficial in-story rationalizations you might make. Here -- I'll let Felicia Day explain it.

 

[British Khan]

I found this. Seems they can't decide on Zahra's ethnicity.

 

[Oso Blanco]

Yes, it is whitewashing. No matter what excuses you make for it, it's still replacing a person of color with a white person

No one is replacing anyone with anyone ... they are two different people!

 

[Christopher]

Yes, it is whitewashing. No matter what excuses you make for it, it's still replacing a person of color with a white person

No one is replacing anyone with anyone ... they are two different people!

Err, yes, if one person goes away and a different person takes their place, that is a replacement by definition. So that sentence makes no sense. It's also splitting hairs to avoid confronting the real issue.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I found this. Seems they can't decide on Zahra's ethnicity.

No one listens to poor Zahras.

 

[Oso Blanco]

Err, yes, if one person goes away and a different person takes their place, that is a replacement by definition. So that sentence makes no sense. It's also splitting hairs to avoid confronting the real issue.

Yeah, it's like John Smith goes away is being replaced by Joe Smith ... big deal!

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, it's like John Smith goes away is being replaced by Joe Smith ... big deal!

If John Smith is dark-skinned and Joe Smith is a pale blond, then hell, yes, it is a big deal, or should be. Read the Felicia Day post I linked above -- she explains it beautifully.

 

[Oso Blanco]

If John Smith is dark-skinned and Joe Smith is a pale blond, then hell, yes, it is a big deal, or should be. Read the Felicia Day post I linked above -- she explains it beautifully.

So just because John is dark skinned, Joe must also be dark skinned? What kind of logic is that?

I really don't know why you are making this a racial issue. Khan being a Brit all of a sudden, that's strange ... or what about Kirk having blue eyes? Strange because they are supposed to be the same characters. But the two Zahras are two completely different people!

 

[Christopher]

Read. The Damn. Article.

 

[Oso Blanco]

Read. The Damn. Article.

I did. So what? Seems that some people can only think about race and colour. I don't!

 

[Caretaker]

Zahra from the second Operation: Annihilate issue looks like a clear mistake (in the first panel with her) - the artist seems to have forgotten that they were supposed to be drawing Zahra and used Rand instead. A few panels later, there is a picture of Zahra from behind and she clearly has dark hair and a darker skin tone.

I really can't explain the post-STID appearance. Vitiligo?

 

[Pauln6]

You have a physicist at the helm, a navigator as chief engineer, and a computer scientist as first officer, but you draw the line at a security guard doing admin?

I'm just saying that it would be nice to see a yeoman portrayed as what a yeoman actually is, rather than making it a meaningless title for a character who's doing something entirely different.

Besides, none of your examples is equivalent to this. Sulu changed jobs from physicist to helmsman. Chekov changed jobs from navigator to engineer. And Spock is consistently addressed as both first officer and science officer. If you're not going to portray a character as an administrative aide at all, if you're just going to present her as another security guard, then just bloomin' call her a security guard, not a yeoman.

Then perhaps we're talking at cross purposes. I was suggesting that the yeoman be a security-trained crewman who changed jobs to be a yeoman.

The wider point I was trying to make was that astronomy to engineering (or security in the prime universe) is actually a bigger leap in terms of training because they are quite different disciplines. Being a yeoman would require a more limited skill set than being a starship engineer, and learning about administration on a starship is something that would be part of basic training. We also know that even in TOS, all the crew were trained astronauts, often featured performing tasks in multiple disciplines.

So, the yeomen would have to be trained in something else as well as admin - it makes sense to pick something that can contribute to the story in simple ways. Pick communications or helm and they are almost never going to contribute to the story e.g. Rand and Uhura's brief stints at helm and navigation in TOS. Pick engineering and it's likely they can contribute more often in a meaningful way. Pick security and they can contribute whenever they're joined to a landing party.

I do agree that I want the yeoman to be seen doing the job they're supposed to be doing but I would not want that to be all they did any more than I want Uhura just to answer the phone or Sulu just to fly the ship. I would like Rand to be developed into a modernised version of the character she was intended to be but that will only happen gradually if they feature her doing her job regularly.

As far as ethnicity goes, I'm not a fan of a stark one in, one out approach, where you replace one similar character for another (like Babylon 5 did from pilot to season one) but I am also not in favour of replacing characters of ethnic minorities with Caucasian characters unless the reverse is also happening elsewhere to keep the overall 'cast' balanced.