Bryan Fuller: Diversity is key

[Nyotarules]

Star Trek is based on a fleet of military officers/explorers dominated by human Caucasians defending a multispecies, multigendared etc Federation. Why not have a show with human crew that reflects the real racial makeup of humanity? In the future where are all the billions of Chinese, Indians and Africans? In the future don't they have a recruitment offices in Bejing, Lagos and Dehli? Or has Earth become a WASP wet dream where they numerically rule the roost?

 

[Awesome Possum]

I'm sure there are settings in which completely equal representation would be pretty unrealistic but Star Trek isn't one of those.

Again, this isn't even about every single specific show out there but about general trends. And while Discovery is a specific show it's definitely also part of a general trend (Trek shows being shit about equal representation) that could easily have been broken this time around.

Yeah. There aren't likely to be any women in gay porn either. But Star Trek doesn't have that excuse.

Although the case could be made that actual historical events could be altered for dramatic purposes. It happens all the time in movies about some historical black figure, studios need to cram in some white person who isn't a racist. Apparently white audiences don't like being reminded that white people were shockingly racist in the past.

 

[{ Emilia }]

white people were shockingly racist in the past.

Umm... in the past?

 

[Nyotarules]

Umm... in the past?

Yesterday is the past lol

 

[Awesome Possum]

Umm... in the past?

Shockingly racist, it's been dulled a bit. We used to have segregated cemeteries.

 

[Nyotarules]

I'd be more impressed with Discovery if all the aliens were pale and all the humans were brown.

 

[Nyotarules]

Shockingly racist, it's been dulled a bit. We used to have segregated cemeteries.

Cos a white skeleton is different from a black skeleton. Its in the Bible.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I'm sure there are settings in which completely equal representation would be pretty unrealistic but Star Trek isn't one of those.

Bingo.

 

[Awesome Possum]

Cos a white skeleton is different from a black skeleton. Its in the Bible.

I'll give them points for being such dedicated racists that they literally take it to the grave.

 

[Jedman67]

Would work with the Gulf wars not so much the World Wars

WWII had hundreds of thousands, if not millions of women entering the workforce for the first time in history to such a degree, as most of the men were drafted into the military. A WWII movie can easily show how women coped in environments that were previously exclusive to men.

 

[Myko]

Regardless of your fictional setting you'd also have to justify hiring 2/3 male actors over women in reality.

 

[MadeIndescribable]

Regardless of your fictional setting you'd also have to justify hiring 2/3 male actors over women in reality.

Actually, the problem is that you don't. At least not to any degree that bothers the studios.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

What you could do is if you want a setting (place and time) where there just wasn't a lot of women or minorities being treated fairly/given opportunities, you could do a whole bunch of AU TV shows. I'm surprised people aren't painting the history they wish they could have seen by doing that.

So World War II with women generals, etc.

 

[Spot261]

I'd argue that WWII in many ways represented a massive opportunity for women's rights, at least in the UK. Mass conscription left huge swathes in the employment market which had to be filled, with women becoming far more readily represented in industrial and non combat military roles in particular. It may have been largely menial stuff, but it clearly blew the idea of women only being useful out of the water.

It's hardly what you'd call true progress of course, with women temporarily filling the gaps while the men were off getting shot, but the fact that a country on a war footing could demonstratably succeed on such a monumental level with a largely female nationalised workforce can't have done workplace equality any harm in the long run.....

 

[Nyotarules]

WWII had hundreds of thousands, if not millions of women entering the workforce for the first time in history to such a degree, as most of the men were drafted into the military. A WWII movie can easily show how women coped in environments that were previously exclusive to men.

Yes but my original point was about a movie set on a WW2 battleship. You might see women when the sailors get shore leave...

 

[MadeIndescribable]

What you could do is if you want a setting (place and time) where there just wasn't a lot of women or minorities being treated fairly/given opportunities, you could do a whole bunch of AU TV shows. I'm surprised people aren't painting the history they wish they could have seen by doing that.

So World War II with women generals, etc.

Considering how Hollywood WWII films give all the glory to the States and ignore their allies, they're pretty much AU anyway....

 

[Nyotarules]

WWII had hundreds of thousands, if not millions of women entering the workforce for the first time in history to such a degree, as most of the men were drafted into the military. A WWII movie can easily show how women coped in environments that were previously exclusive to men.

Millions of white woman might have been entering the workforce for the first time, however millions of black women and I suspect Latino women always worked. This myth about World Wars and women and work needs to tell the full story.

 

[jamestyler]

WWII had hundreds of thousands, if not millions of women entering the workforce for the first time in history to such a degree, as most of the men were drafted into the military. A WWII movie can easily show how women coped in environments that were previously exclusive to men.

Reading that, I kind of wish the Crown was set just a few years earlier to show Elizabeth II's military service...

So World War II with women generals, etc.

....and reading that, I am utterly sold. Every time a film has had a female nazi they've been absolutely more terrifying than the men. I'd pay to watch a film with a female nazi leader taken down by Hayley Atwell (I can't think of anyone more British at the moment ) as an RAF pilot.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Generally, people are more interested in doing allegories to history (setting this on an alien planet and switching the gender, etc, of the major players, or having animal characters/species stand in for people/groups) than changing real history as we know it. It achieves the same effect, or tries to.

 

[Nyotarules]

Fact
"During the war the British Empire and Dominions raised a total of 8,586,000 men for military service. More than 5 million came from the British Isles, 1,440,500 from India, 629,000 from Canada, 413,000 from Australia, 136,000 from South Africa, 128,500 from New Zealand and more than 134,000 from other colonies."

Fantasy
An AU movie would get my vote if the soldier taking on the Nazis was a female Indian.

When was the last time any world war movie featured anyone but pale people in the British and American ranks????