Code of Honor - Racist?

[Melakon]

Are you suggesting that "Black Guards" meant the guards were specified as black and the assumption would be that everyone else cast would be white?

Yes, that's sort of how I'm interpreting it. Based on what behind the scenes info I've read, as well as Wheaton's review of it, seems the director thought that way. Perhaps the writer only intended for 'Black Guards' to mean their uniforms, I've not read the script.

 

[t_smitts]

Are you suggesting that "Black Guards" meant the guards were specified as black and the assumption would be that everyone else cast would be white?

Yes, that's sort of how I'm interpreting it. Based on what behind the scenes info I've read, as well as Wheaton's review of it, seems the director thought that way. Perhaps the writer only intended for 'Black Guards' to mean their uniforms, I've not read the script.

The article on the Ligonians on Memory Alpha suggests the original concept was that the Ligonians would be reptilian with a samurai-like culture.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Ligonian

 

[Guy Gardener]

If that was the case, all that lizard make up, why not just simply use the fucking Gorn and give the audience a massive nostalgia boner?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Probably because the Gorn would just attack en masse. And they're much larger than humans - too much effects to show them onscreen.

 

[t_smitts]

If that was the case, all that lizard make up, why not just simply use the fucking Gorn and give the audience a massive nostalgia boner?

While I suspect it was more a budgetary thing, I doubt Gene would want any OS aliens on the show. He was pretty insistent about that. Notice that Klingons (other than Worf) and Romulans were nowhere to be seen in the first half of the first season.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It was episode 4, they had money to burn and no guarantee of a second season.

1. Tasha winning a fight with a Gorn twice her size because she's a smarter better fighter.

2. "So, Deanna, if I have to #### this guy, how exactly do I #### this guy... They don't have pants, I know he's got no junk, what exactly is expected of me..."sexually"."

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

We know what the Gorn are like. There's no way any human (not even Tasha) would win in hand to hand combat. A Gorn would snap Tasha's neck like a twig.

And like I said, the Gorn would attack all at once. We saw what they like to do to humans in TOS. They'd destroy the Enterprise if even slightly provoked. And they certainly wouldn't give the crew any of the medicine they were looking for.

 

[Anwar]

The Teaser for "Code of Honor" says:

"There are four extremely tall, elegant Black Guards who form a square."

Why specify this for the guards (non-speaking roles) and not the rest of the characters? I suspect the intention of the shooting script was that the Ligonian people be black. It really makes no sense to specify the race in this context otherwise.

The term "Black Guards" was referring to them being the Elite, it has nothing to do with race. Black Guard was a term used for an elite army in Morocco and an army of German Mercenaries from the 16th Century.

 

[Maurice]

They did not have money to burn. The show was actually kinda low budget for what it was.

The term "Black Guards" was referring to them being the Elite, it has nothing to do with race. Black Guard was a term used for an elite army in Morocco and an army of German Mercenaries from the 16th Century.

While that makes sense, how do you know for a fact that's what the writer meant?

 

[Anwar]

Well, it says "Black Guard" as description. Not "Black guards". The capitalization makes it seem like they were going for some more than just "Guards who happen to be Black".

 

[suarezguy]

Perhaps what also may have been perceived as racist was the stereotype of the oversexed black man out to steal the white man's women

Thing is, Lutan didn't grab Tasha because he found her sexually attractive, he saw her fighting skills and wanted to arrange events so that Tasha would kill his wife, thereby giving Lutan power and wealth.

It felt like both factors led to his actions, IIRC her fighting skills and why those were advantageous were underemphasized relative to that he just found her attractive and thought he had a right to take her.

 

[cultcross]

Perhaps what also may have been perceived as racist was the stereotype of the oversexed black man out to steal the white man's women

Thing is, Lutan didn't grab Tasha because he found her sexually attractive, he saw her fighting skills and wanted to arrange events so that Tasha would kill his wife, thereby giving Lutan power and wealth. Nothing in the episode suggests that Lutan was a "oversexed Black man," or that his selection of Tasha was because she was White.

Has anyone else picked up on this?

This is an interesting comment. Maybe the view of racism says something about our racist notions.

It makes me wish those people who make fan fic videos of Star Trek would make one where they act out this script but with the races and maybe even the sexes changed. Imagine Lutan being a light-skinned young queen who fancies Yar, a foreign dark-skinned woman. She goads the men into a fight to the death. It could be the same story but take a on a different meaning, just because of our notions of race and sex.

Well stereotypes are only stereotypes because of our notions of race and sex. Racism only exists because we have created racist ideas. Productions and stories can be racially insensitive without meaning to, by adhering unknowingly to stereotypes associated with race or gender. Yes, it creates scenarios where the same story is stereotypical and as I believe kids today say, 'problematic' with one combination of races/genders and not with another. But that's the effect of having those stereotypes in our culture.

 

[T'Girl]

But that's the effect of having those stereotypes in our culture.

So if you come from a culture (or "pocket culture") without that particular stereotype, then the perception of racism would be absent. I'm not deliberately trying to be obtuse when I say that I honestly doesn't see the racism in this episode that others do.

It's like where the major character Cardassians are all played by White actors, I don't see that as "racist."

I watch this episode a think it's great that the planet's population, or at least it's ruling group, was cast with Black actors. Is this because I'm not White and I'm not seeing something that others do? As mentioned, I've talked with other Trek fans who are people of color and the perception of racism isn't there. Black fans point to this episode with a " it's about time" observation.

The view of racism can't be because a Black actor is portraying the episode's villain (can it?), we've seen other Trek cultures with dueling, we've seen other people maneuvering for power at the cost of others lives, we've seen kidnapping before too.

For those who see it as racist, with respect, where are you coming from that you see it?

 

[t_smitts]

But that's the effect of having those stereotypes in our culture.

So if you come from a culture (or "pocket culture") without that particular stereotype, then the perception of racism would be absent. I'm not deliberately trying to be obtuse when I say that I honestly doesn't see the racism in this episode that others do.

It's like where the major character Cardassians are all played by White actors, I don't see that as "racist."

I watch this episode a think it's great that the planet's population, or at least it's ruling group, was cast with Black actors. Is this because I'm not White and I'm not seeing something that others do? As mentioned, I've talked with other Trek fans who are people of color and the perception of racism isn't there. Black fans point to this episode with a " it's about time" observation.

The view of racism can't be because a Black actor is portraying the episode's villain (can it?), we've seen other Trek cultures with dueling, we've seen other people maneuvering for power at the cost of others lives, we've seen kidnapping before too.

For those who see it as racist, with respect, where are you coming from that you see it?

First of all, Mel Johnson Jr. played Broca on DS9.

Second, the problem was combining the all-African American cast with the tribal mentality of the characters.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Actors of a certain race being used to play aliens? That's not inherently racist. Some times it just seems like a cost saving move - for example, in TNG, African-American actors were often sought after to play Klingons, since the Klingon race is "naturally" dark-skinned anyway (established in the original series, simply because that's all TOS could do with what little money they had for Klingon design). If you can get an actor who has naturally dark skin, to play an alien which does, it saves money on makeup.

As for the Cardassians? That's even less racist, I should think. Cardassian skin is completely unlike any human skin color, so even if most Cardassians have been played by white actors, obviously they're not being hired because they're white, since any actor playing a Cardassian would have to endure so much makeup anyway, it'd be irrelevant which race the actor belongs to.

 

[Guy Gardener]

If Cardassian flesh had a pigmentation spectrum, what other colours could we find?

Turquoise?

Of course maybe Cardassians are post stratification on the pigment front because it's been half a million years since their planet looked like Earth in the middle ages?

Clumps of uniform pigmentation is about regionalism and limited breeding circles over the course of thousands of years under an identical climate (If Chinese people keep fucking other Chinese people, and they never leave China, their children, and children's children, etc, etc, are never going to look like Australian Aborigines.) which kinda becomes difficult to maintain after masstransit is invented and people start living wherever the damn hell they want globally and not just a days walk from where their greatgrandparents used to bone.

Canon says that Cardassia and Bajor have been around for a couple hundred thousand years as sophisticated societies, where global and (eventually) interstellar travel was piss easy that possibly every former racial classification of Cardassian kept ####ing (omnipollination?) until no one was white, black, orange or blue anymore, and every new born Cardassian baby was universally gray... Until they started ####ing aliens.

Bajoran d'jarra's may have kept the differently hued Bajorans separated, which is why there are black Bajorans in the 25th century, or maybe (Candyman-)Jake's wife was already fractionally human or Vulcan?

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Korena

Of course, maybe I'm being intolerant and ignorant, and Cardassians are very opinionated and intolerant about a racial cast system separated by shades of gray?

 

[CaptainStoner]

But that's the effect of having those stereotypes in our culture.

So if you come from a culture (or "pocket culture") without that particular stereotype, then the perception of racism would be absent. I'm not deliberately trying to be obtuse when I say that I honestly doesn't see the racism in this episode that others do.

It's like where the major character Cardassians are all played by White actors, I don't see that as "racist."

I watch this episode a think it's great that the planet's population, or at least it's ruling group, was cast with Black actors. Is this because I'm not White and I'm not seeing something that others do? As mentioned, I've talked with other Trek fans who are people of color and the perception of racism isn't there. Black fans point to this episode with a " it's about time" observation.

The view of racism can't be because a Black actor is portraying the episode's villain (can it?), we've seen other Trek cultures with dueling, we've seen other people maneuvering for power at the cost of others lives, we've seen kidnapping before too.

For those who see it as racist, with respect, where are you coming from that you see it?

Film history is one angle. I dont think youve discussed this with enough nonwhites to give authentic perspective. And may also be ignoring assertions by mr Burton.
The episode panders to old stereotypes that younger people may not be aware of. Then you have accounts of comments made along those lines on set. It all adds up to something.

 

[MikeS]

The episode panders to old stereotypes that younger people may not be aware of.

Isn't that a good thing? That old stereotypes are dead.

Or are you suggesting we should remind the younger people of what they should be offended by?

I'm with T'Girl on this one. Never understood the racism angle here. But I have always assumed that is due to UK vs US attitudes to race.

 

[Not Herbert]

Weather the episode is racist or not isn't the issue. The fact is that it comes off as racist to many people. Obviously this wasn't the intent. Trek has always been good about attempting avoiding racial stereotypes, at least amongst humans.

As far as I'm concerned, the only good thing about Code of Honour is the score. The only TNG episode to use TOS composer Fred Steiner. I wish Steiner had done more TNG and they had also hired other TOS composers still working in the late '80s/ early '90s. Gerald Fried was still working in filme/TV through 1990. Sandy Courage worked through 2000. George Duning lived until 2000 but retired in 1984. Kaplan and Mullendore both died in '90, Fielding died in 1980, and Matlovsky died in 2004. I have to assume that only Fried and Steiner would have agreed to do TNG episodes as Courage was orchestrating big features for John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith. He would have had to take a paycut to do TNG, and because they used his Enterprise fanfare, he was making money from TNG through royalties.

Any, I got off-topic. Yes, Code of Honour seems racist even though it's not meant to be. Also, if you remove any of the racist elements, the episode isn't very good anyway.

Strange how TOS season 1 and 2 where their best, whilst all of the spinoffs didn't find their stride until they reached season 3 or 4.

 

[suarezguy]

Something that's kind of sad is, in my view, this was one of the best episodes in terms of using Troi, she seemed a lot more capable and beneficial than she quickly became and generally was, especially in her controversial getting Yar to admit some attraction to Lutan and refusing to apologize for it.