anyone else APPRECIATE chakotay's ethnic bits?
- Thread starter WesleysDisciple
- Start date
Honest question from a confused Western Canadian: Do Caucasian Americans not eat fried chicken or watermelon? Personally I love those foods, and as recently as 1923 my family was from Sweden.
OMG, is THAT how nuBSG ends? Sounds like the TV series of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy did a much better job...
Some of us like bagpipe music!
Sure they do. But in early 20th century American film especially (and perhaps earlier), and "ethnic jokes", African-Americans expressing love for fried chicken, watermelon, cornbread, and chitlin's (don't ask) were frequently topics played for laughs. One of the Our Gang comedies (short subjects with child actors) from the late 20s or early 30s, had Stymie, a little bald Black boy wearing a derby (given to him by Stan Laurel), rubbing what he thought was a magic lamp and wishing for a watermelon.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uazqvQuYi-w[/yt]
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Some of us like bagpipe music!
And some of us like peyote.
Oh wait no, I don't actually like peyote, but I know rather a lot of people who do who look like hippies. They wander about in all weather in bare and filthy feet and drape themselves in washed out, once colorful garb. There's a lot of mumbling. But I know a lot of intelligent activist hippies who would get pretty pissy if I cracked peyote jokes whenever I talked to them even though the peyote partakers are damn proud of their peyote partaking. God it's hilarious listening to them. One girl likes to tell me that by taking peyote she is changing the world for the better because she is having an impact spiritually on all those around her. Which I guess isn't much different than Chak's hallucinogenic machine since he thinks it improves his perspective which would have a follow on effect with everyone he interacts with.
Some of us like bagpipe music!
I wasn't bashing bagpipe music. If it floats your boat, go for it. Please don't play it loud around me though! The point I was getting at was they never specified what tribe or ethnicity Chakotay was. They just applied every applicable Indian cliche to him, which really did a disservice to all the Native Americans. There were times he seemed South American, other times like he was from the Plains Tribes, and other times they just didn't even pretend to try and care.
That would be like me celebrating my European heritage by playing the bagpipes even though my family was from Germany. Why not, it's a European cliche isn't it? Just like running with the bulls in Spain and drinking Vodka until you throw up in Russia. I'm European and that's part of my culture. Yes, that does sound stupid. So was Voyager's treatment of Chakotay.
In keeping with promoting Star Trek's vision of a radical egalitarian future, I would have appreciated having a character like Chakotay from an oppressed culture... if they had actually bothered to have him be from an oppressed culture. Having him be from the Magic Space Indians does not count. That just continues to perpetuate the invisibility and oppression of Native Americans.
America was THE target in WWIII.
Are sure that there are any left by 2370?
Then Colonel Green built death camps all over the world to remove any one with radioactive genetic damage from the gene pool to preserve the integrity of the species.
Which probably doubled or tripled the body count, if he's also extracting any with a regular congenital diseases like MS, cancer or Asthma.
Space Indian's might have been the only Indians left.
Are sure that there are any left by 2370?
Then Colonel Green built death camps all over the world to remove any one with radioactive genetic damage from the gene pool to preserve the integrity of the species.
Which probably doubled or tripled the body count, if he's also extracting any with a regular congenital diseases like MS, cancer or Asthma.
Space Indian's might have been the only Indians left.
StarTrekSlut
Lieutenant Junior Grade
If anyone cares to hear my two cents:
.. I thought Chakotays ethnic rants were pretty tame.... well tame when you compare it to the times they let Avery Brooks loose with a pen in DS9: "Far Beyond the Stars" with his black power civil right nonsense..
Seriously.. as much as i love DS9 and consider it probably the best of the "new era" Star Trek, those few episodes with Avery Brooks voicing his mind instead of opening it were pretty hideous....... I imagine Gene Roddenberry must have cut wind in his grave..
-crim
.. I thought Chakotays ethnic rants were pretty tame.... well tame when you compare it to the times they let Avery Brooks loose with a pen in DS9: "Far Beyond the Stars" with his black power civil right nonsense..
Seriously.. as much as i love DS9 and consider it probably the best of the "new era" Star Trek, those few episodes with Avery Brooks voicing his mind instead of opening it were pretty hideous....... I imagine Gene Roddenberry must have cut wind in his grave..
-crim
Gene Roddenberry would have loved every second of Sisko's civil rights rants in Far Beyond as well as his commentary in Vic Fontaine's about the historical inaccuracy making him uncomfortable.
Gene's ashes were deposited in space by pegasus rocket in 1997. If there's a chance his bum has breath left in it, willing to expel, no one will hear. Tim Leary was in the same flight. He remains unphased by the experience.
Hehe...I am a J/C fan, so obviously I do not dislike Chakotay, but I do like to poke fun at him for this only because it was done in such a stereotypical way. It just was not...believable enough. He used that electronic gizmo to somehow speak to his father? I mean...I don't know. Something about it was just off.
And the tribal music...EVERY TIME.
Did he think it was the actual spirit of his father or a hallucination his mind built and then used all memories to extrapolate what kind of advice his father would give? I was never clear on this.
From what I understand, the device was supposed to imitate the effects of herbs such as Peyote, etc to enlighten you and guide you without making you...high.
So it was probably NOT his father. Just some sort of hallucination. But I also am not clear on this.
He acted like it was his father's spirit talking to him though, didn't he?
I don't exactly rewatch these eps a whole lot
If you spent enough time with a person and you could access all your memories and understandings of their viewpoints you could come up with their advice in a given situation. Really, it's a matter of getting out of your own rut and being able to see what someone else would see.
I don't exactly rewatch these eps a whole lot
If you spent enough time with a person and you could access all your memories and understandings of their viewpoints you could come up with their advice in a given situation. Really, it's a matter of getting out of your own rut and being able to see what someone else would see.
And that's the safe, starfleet approved version. Imagine what kind of tech you can buy off Ferengis.
He acted like it was his father's spirit talking to him though, didn't he?
I don't exactly rewatch these eps a whole lot
If you spent enough time with a person and you could access all your memories and understandings of their viewpoints you could come up with their advice in a given situation. Really, it's a matter of getting out of your own rut and being able to see what someone else would see.
He did act like his father was talking to him.
However, it is kind of like a dream I guess. My mother died a few months ago and if I had a dream where she was there, giving me advice or something, I suppose I would not ignore it as just a dream. It would probably feel very real to me. So in that sense, it probably was supposed to feel very real to him.
However, they never clarified if it was his father or not. Considering Star Trek never, in any series, gave a clear view on religion or afterlife, I am inclined to say it was just an advanced state of dreaming. Like a shamanic experience, but without all the peyote.
StarTrekSlut
Lieutenant Junior Grade
ROFL... yeah I thought that remington microscreen horse schnit was ridiculous.. It would have been way more spiritual for chakotay to have like some special herbs or something.. Id have had more respect for him too..
One of my biggest dissapointments with chakotay is that they really could have made him into a "picard" esque type of character. The spiritualism, the renessance... Robert Beltran could have easily pulled off..
Instead, we get yet more half arsed "motel6 indian" bullschnit requiring the viewer to make a leap of faith rather then being drawn into and convinced of the realism.
-crim
I'm sorry about your mother Captain Kathryn 
And yes I can see that people will take that kind of experience more to heart. It's the oddness of thinking you can access someone who is no longer with you any time via brain stimulation.
And yes I can see that people will take that kind of experience more to heart. It's the oddness of thinking you can access someone who is no longer with you any time via brain stimulation.
