Shhh! Spoilers. That's season 2, episode 7 of DSC.
Bryan Fuller: Diversity is key
- Thread starter RAMA
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Affirmative action-based casting is one of the primary reasons why all modern Trek shows other than DS9 are bad.
The quoted statement in the OP which claims Nurse Chapel was important to TOS is disingenuous & misleading. She was an unimportant side character.
TOS included characters in the same way as do all good storytellers: when their presence was needed to perform a function in the story.
In contrast, modern Trek shows insert redundant, interchangeable & unnecessary characters who perform no function in the story whatsoever, simply to fill arbitrary race & gender quotas. As a result, those shows become cluttered with characters who have no good reason to be there (i.e. Troi on TNG; Harry Kim on VOY, along with many other characters on VOY; either Dax character on DS9) and thus those characters do nothing other than detract from their shows.
Even worse, the producers/writers of those shows seems to use the "diversity" card as an excuse not to write real stories in the first place (i.e. the endless holodeck filler episodes in TNG & VOY, which have nothing to do with SciFi). Why bother to write a good story when they can bank on people claiming their shows without good stories are good anyway solely because they play the "diversity" card?
So no, affirmative action/"diversity" is not the key to Trek, and nor has it ever been. The opposite is true: it's the bane of modern Trek shows.
The real key to Trek is creative, interesting & new SciFi stories that have never been told before. For the most part, that's been absent from Trek ever since TOS ended. And it will probably remain absent for the entire future of Trek, since apparently no one cares about that anymore. Much easier to fill race & gender quotas than to write creative & unique stories.
The quoted statement in the OP which claims Nurse Chapel was important to TOS is disingenuous & misleading. She was an unimportant side character.
TOS included characters in the same way as do all good storytellers: when their presence was needed to perform a function in the story.
In contrast, modern Trek shows insert redundant, interchangeable & unnecessary characters who perform no function in the story whatsoever, simply to fill arbitrary race & gender quotas. As a result, those shows become cluttered with characters who have no good reason to be there (i.e. Troi on TNG; Harry Kim on VOY, along with many other characters on VOY; either Dax character on DS9) and thus those characters do nothing other than detract from their shows.
Even worse, the producers/writers of those shows seems to use the "diversity" card as an excuse not to write real stories in the first place (i.e. the endless holodeck filler episodes in TNG & VOY, which have nothing to do with SciFi). Why bother to write a good story when they can bank on people claiming their shows without good stories are good anyway solely because they play the "diversity" card?
So no, affirmative action/"diversity" is not the key to Trek, and nor has it ever been. The opposite is true: it's the bane of modern Trek shows.
The real key to Trek is creative, interesting & new SciFi stories that have never been told before. For the most part, that's been absent from Trek ever since TOS ended. And it will probably remain absent for the entire future of Trek, since apparently no one cares about that anymore. Much easier to fill race & gender quotas than to write creative & unique stories.
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As Dennis said, TOS was about two characters. The others were interchangeable spear holders who could be plugged into any story. Might as well have named them Scottsuluhurachekov.
All the characters had some purpose on paper. The trouble was making them work on the stage and on the screen. Their failures as characters has nothing to do with the gender or race of the actors and everything to do with the ability and desire of the writers and in some cases the actors.
What in Rod's name does the holodeck have to do with diversity? It's an excuse for the actors to play gangster or cowboy. And for writers to play with those toys out in the open. And please, once you open the holodeck door you're in SciFi territory, no matter what happens on the other side of that door.
Star Trek and especially TOS has never been about "creative, interesting & new SciFi stories that have never been told before.". It cribbed heavily from westerns, the classics and every trope since Gilgamesh. "SciFi" has never been high on its list of story must haves. The TOS Writer's Guide has little to say about "SciFi" and everything to say about telling entertaining stories,
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Yep.
No.
No, it really isn't. GR wanted an optimistic future were all races were included. It's ridiculous, and disingenuous to label diversity as a "check sheet" when TOS was produced at a time when stereotyping was very quite high.
Also, if we want to get Star Trek "back to its roots" then it needs to be driven by profit and telling entertaining stories, not necessarily original ones.
As a fan of ENT, I call BS on this notion. Not an ounce of truth there.
That's Trek in a nutshell, I'm afraid.
That said, the writers' myopia has nothing to do with the desirability of diverse cast and representation. And, in fact, inclusivity in no way damages any TV series, movie, novel etc. Any complaints about poor writing or other production issues are completely separable. The anti-diversity crowd would be hard-pressed to find an example of any Trek show being poorly written as a result of having a diverse cast.
The one example that comes to mind is probably Chuckles. They few episodes that explored his "Indianness" were all total stinkers. But I think that was in fact due to a lack any real diversity in his character. They intentionally made him as vanilla and inoffensive as possible. Instead being a representative of the Native Peoples and their heritage and tradition, he was a stumbling buffoon of cliche--to the point were I half-expected him to great his captain with the obligatory "How! White woman."
So the episodes just boiled down to "Look at the nice Indian man playing with his mystical Indian things."
So the episodes just boiled down to "Look at the nice Indian man playing with his mystical Indian things."
Firstly, I'm sure you can provide a source for the 'race and gender quota' that the shows were working to.
Secondly, I live how you flip around the fact that minority and female characters get poorly written or written out of whole stories as evidence that Trek went overboard on diversity.
Kim is no more an inherently pointless character than Paris, the writers just decided to give Paris a life and stories involving and developing him, and not Kim.I think Voyager was successful in depicting its characters as personalities with roles on the ship, you absorbed their ethnic roots without defining them by it. Same with gender. Janeway was a bloody good captain, because she knew her stuff. If her gender counted for anything different I think it was an asset. Not so sure Picard would've liked being stuck in a quadrant on his own with the 'family' environment he engendered on his ship, but to be fair who would know. Given the challenge of the Delta quadrant he might have morphed all fatherly too with the whole crew to nurse and fight their way home.
Tuvok was simply and not so simply, a Vulcan. Kim wasn't padding on the bridge. He was an ensign and if there were flaws in his growth that was his character's personality, not that he needed to represent a better version of a raw ensign because of the actor's ethnicity. I don't get the Chakotay issues. When his spirituality was introduced into a story it was as organic as Tom being a flirt or Tuvok and his meditations. The basis of the Chakotay character did refer to his culture but essentially his role was as an ex-Marquis side-kick for Janeway.
Voyager (yeah I'm a fan) was made successful by the ease of its characters' diversity (and genders) not being in competition but in creating a family.
Tuvok was simply and not so simply, a Vulcan. Kim wasn't padding on the bridge. He was an ensign and if there were flaws in his growth that was his character's personality, not that he needed to represent a better version of a raw ensign because of the actor's ethnicity. I don't get the Chakotay issues. When his spirituality was introduced into a story it was as organic as Tom being a flirt or Tuvok and his meditations. The basis of the Chakotay character did refer to his culture but essentially his role was as an ex-Marquis side-kick for Janeway.
Voyager (yeah I'm a fan) was made successful by the ease of its characters' diversity (and genders) not being in competition but in creating a family.
Didn't it also turn out that their Native American consultant on the show was a fraud?
They had a consultant!!!!!????
In name only.
Wow. I had no idea. It takes a certain kind of asshole.
If you don't have time to read up on it, just watch SF Debris review of "Tattoo." Basically, a charlatan who was taken way too seriously.
I will. Thanks!
One of the reasons I always grate against fans who want a dolphin for a captain and a Ferengi security chief and a Light Of Zetar as a ship's councelor is because I think modern Trek has generally focused too much on diversity of thought by showing it through the alien crew members and not enough by showing it through the diverse-looking cast they've put together.
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