Sorry, that wasn't meant to sound xenophobic. Most of my new television viewing these days is non-American (Midsomer Murders, Death in Paradise, Frankie Drake/Murdoch Mysteries, A Calm Sea, etc.). We were actually watching Continuum last night.
What I meant is that the casting produces an uncanny valley effect. In some way, it's apparent that the cast hasn't lived in the U.S. (even when their characters should have), and something is just distinctly off about the show.
It would be like the BBC filming Doctor Who in Atlanta with a cast of mostly Americans.
I didn't take it as xenophobic, it just didn't make sense to me.
I can't say it feels like any of the characters in Academy should have lived in the US bar Reno and Ake since most of them had never been to Earth.
Do you feel American-ness is key to Star Trek's identity? As a non-American the over saturation of characters from North America in VOY felt quite bland.
I think it's philosophically American (there was a lot of discussion of this by European posters on the ENT forum during that show's run), but also clearly a product of American culture in the same way that, e.g. Lucy, is a distinctly European movie.
I haven't watched any of Academy, so I can't speak to that show's cast specifically. But the Starfleet characters on SNW and Discovery should have spent time in San Francisco.
For a lot of them though it's just the equivalent of where they went to uni so they wouldn't exactly get Americanised by it.
I bet you're not a Russian who watched TOS (or Japanese American, or a black female, or a White Scots....)
No I’m an aging Irishman.
And no O’Brien doesn’t mean anything much to me.
That the stars of TOS were white,straight males meant absolutely zero to me.I had as much in common with Jim Kirk as I did with Jim Rockford or Billy Blue Cannon…pretty much nothing.
And no O’Brien doesn’t mean anything much to me.
That the stars of TOS were white,straight males meant absolutely zero to me.I had as much in common with Jim Kirk as I did with Jim Rockford or Billy Blue Cannon…pretty much nothing.
I guess since most of the stars of TV and movies were straight white males meant absolutely nothing to you because it was the norm. If most of the TV characters were the complete opposite, you would soon notice the lack of representation.
FYI...
Sandro Rosta (Caleb Mir) is British.
Karim Diane (Jay-Den Kraag) is American.
Kerrice Brooks (SAM) is American.
George Hawkins (Darem Reymi) is British.
Bella ShepardGenesis Lythe) is American.
Zoë Steiner (Tarima Sadal) is Australian.
Okay, Tatiana Maslany's Canadian. There's one.
Representation?
Whatever.
How I could be represented by an American movie star is escaping me.
Somebody from for instance Harlem or LA had more in common with the people I saw on television than I did.Fact.Nothing in my educational background,my work,social life or family had anything to do with American culture.The shops we went to,the streets we walked,the foods we liked.
Nothing in my life intersected in any way with the TV programmes we used to watch.I have visited the US exactly once,to celebrate my fiftieth.
Look, whatever.
Read my post again,I’m not attacking anyone for finding whatever they find in Trek,best of luck to you.But as I said that’s not what I’m there for.
Whatever.
How I could be represented by an American movie star is escaping me.
Somebody from for instance Harlem or LA had more in common with the people I saw on television than I did.Fact.Nothing in my educational background,my work,social life or family had anything to do with American culture.The shops we went to,the streets we walked,the foods we liked.
Nothing in my life intersected in any way with the TV programmes we used to watch.I have visited the US exactly once,to celebrate my fiftieth.
Look, whatever.
Read my post again,I’m not attacking anyone for finding whatever they find in Trek,best of luck to you.But as I said that’s not what I’m there for.
I couldn't say what it is, but you can tell that they didn't do even that. It's not a problem individually, but something about the cast slowly starts to feel "off" in aggregate.
I'd have particularly liked to see Detmer on an American show.
Is that Starfleet Academy?
I've heard good things about Maslany's work on Orphan Black. (Her brother is amazing on Murdoch Mysteries. Every scene he's in is interesting.)
Perhaps as a non-American this really just isn't something I can identify with. I can't even think of an equivalent situation where I have felt similarly.
I'm told that the same thing happens in the South (although British actors are apparently usually convincing), but I can't speak to their experience. I've noticed it somewhat with shows that are set in the Pacific Northwest.
(The U.S. in general is bigger than people overseas usually realize. Seattle to Miami is farther than Dublin to Damascus; Maine would be somewhere in Kazakhstan.)
We are the third-biggest country on Earth in area.
It probably does not help that America is a very miopic and jingoistic nation. As a society everything is very inward focused and your media and education systems reflect that presenting the whole world through the lens of Americanisms.
I do just mean this as a societal observation, this is not a personal one. If everything around you is pushed to be so American all the time then perhaps that could cause that feeling of off-ness if something is slightly less American?
I once visited an American school and was told I sounded like Harry Potter and not one single student there could name anywhere in the UK apart from London. I don't live anywhere near London nor do I have an accent even remotely like the southern dialects.
Of course I by no means believe every American is reflected in that microcosm.
I don't think we're myopic so much as very far away from anyone else (except for Canada and Mexico).
Most Americans consume media from other countries, ranging from the books we read (Shakespeare, Shelley, Austen, Dickens, Dumas, Verne, Doyle, Wells, Christie, Tolkien, Rowling), to anime and Manga (hugely popular with anyone under 45), to the multi-decade staple of British mystery shows (and classic literature adaptations).
In addition, 15% percent of the country is foreign-born, and 25% of children have at least one immigrant parent. We're overwhelmingly the descendants of people who came here in the last two hundred years, and there are strong familial memories of that. (My father watched a show filmed in Europe because it was set in his grandfather's hometown.)
Familiarity is somewhat relative, unfortunately. I've spent a week in Portsmouth and most of a week in Plymouth, but couldn't name a city in Wales that isn't Cardiff. We really are very far away. How many Europeans could name a city in China (excluding former dependencies) that isn't Beijing, Shanghai, or Wuhan?
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Not really. I go back and forth between fandoms. It's been so long since I've logged on that I had to reset my password, since I couldn't remember it.
I was born in the early 70's, so I've been more into the spinoffs (TNG, VOY, etc) than the original series. That said, I loved Star Trek Beyond so much that I ended up buying a copy. I haven't seen any of the other movies in the Kelvin Timeline yet (though I'm sure I'll get to them eventually) but loved the character of Jaylah (who is played by the same actress who portrayed the female mummy in the Tom Cruise Mummy movie, which I didn't think was a bad movie, I just prefer the Brendan Fraser ones).
Whenever I go back to a fandom, I always have to replace everything, since I didn't keep anything (I have to stop doing that, since it gets a little expensive after a while). I first saw Star Trek Beyond on television (on Easter Sunday, to be exact, followed by First Contact).
I was born in the early 70's, so I've been more into the spinoffs (TNG, VOY, etc) than the original series. That said, I loved Star Trek Beyond so much that I ended up buying a copy. I haven't seen any of the other movies in the Kelvin Timeline yet (though I'm sure I'll get to them eventually) but loved the character of Jaylah (who is played by the same actress who portrayed the female mummy in the Tom Cruise Mummy movie, which I didn't think was a bad movie, I just prefer the Brendan Fraser ones).
Whenever I go back to a fandom, I always have to replace everything, since I didn't keep anything (I have to stop doing that, since it gets a little expensive after a while). I first saw Star Trek Beyond on television (on Easter Sunday, to be exact, followed by First Contact).
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I'll go with a half meh. Sometimes I like it sometimes I don't and thst goes for all the eras.
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