Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

[Ssosmcin]

It always surprises me that Star Trek fans want an intelligent show that deals with social and political issues, but want the good guys to be saints. Isn't that a little too easy? Have the bad guys be all racist 'n shit, and then have the good guys, who are perfect by the way, swoop in and educate the savages.

I loved the racist main cast in TUC. It made sense given their personal history with the Klingons and StarFleet's cold war with them for the past century. Personally, I wanted one of the main cast to be in on the assassination plot -- perhaps Kirk himself.

Not saints, certainly not. Just not bigots. There's a lot of room in between. The outright racial slurs are what people find distasteful and it shows that the characters learned nothing from the experiences last film. I get that at the time TPTB were trying to erase Star Trek V from memory, but too bad. Big deal, one bad episode and everyone freaks out. However, it did take the characters forward. While it was an isolated pocket of peace, the crew, the main characters, should have at least realized that Klingons aren't all douchebags. To fire off nasty racial comments after that is off and does them a disservice.

It's a case of, "these guys are okay, but as a race they suck." Apply this to whites and blacks and you'll better see why many fans (and Roddenberry) were up in arms.

As for Nichelle Nichols not speaking a line, I think the one in question never made it into the film. Something like "but would you want your daughter to marry one?" I see her point, honestly. The script was a little too on the nose with this stuff. Subtlety was not Meyer's stronger suit.

 

[Nerys Myk]

So green blooded, pointy eared hobgoblin isn't a slur directed at Spock's racial origins? The slights directed at humans by Spock were not slurs? Lets not pretend that the TOS characters were not capable of "casual racism" directed at those of other species.

 

[Ssosmcin]

That was really only Bones and I'm not saying you're wrong because it WAS addressed once or twice as being bigoted to make an issue out of it (Day of the Dove, All Our Yesterdays, etc.). But - most of the time - these were "friendly fire" jabs from McCoy toward someone who professed to have no emotions. They weren't born of hate, it was needling, Bones trying to get a reaction out of him. He and Spock apparently had an understanding, because when Lt. Stiles and Mr. Boma went off, all hell broke loose. There's a difference between the Spock/McCoy relationship and all out racial hatred.

There are a lot of union workers at my company and there are always racial jokes being tossed around. But none of it is nasty and everyone involved have the kind of relationship which allows for it.

Again, I never said the Enterprise crew were saints; they just weren't rage filled or flat out racists.

 

[Mr_Homn]

Not saints, certainly not. Just not bigots. There's a lot of room in between.

Exactly. They crossed the line in 6 and it was out of character given what we had seen before. Completely bigoted and unevolved.

Your assessment of the bones/spock relationship and it's uniqueness is spot on as well. Those guys were friends, not total strangers. Gigantic difference


The "Guess whos coming to dinner" line is no different than all the "cheesy" humor at the expense of the characters that so many fans hate ST5 for. It's just that the overall movie is better so people try to rationalize it.

 

[Lance]

That was really only Bones and I'm not saying you're wrong because it WAS addressed once or twice as being bigoted to make an issue out of it (Day of the Dove, All Our Yesterdays, etc.). But - most of the time - these were "friendly fire" jabs from McCoy toward someone who professed to have no emotions. They weren't born of hate, it was needling, Bones trying to get a reaction out of him. He and Spock apparently had an understanding, because when Lt. Stiles and Mr. Boma went off, all hell broke loose. There's a difference between the Spock/McCoy relationship and all out racial hatred.

There are a lot of union workers at my company and there are always racial jokes being tossed around. But none of it is nasty and everyone involved have the kind of relationship which allows for it.

Again, I never said the Enterprise crew were saints; they just weren't rage filled or flat out racists.

Absolutely. As an example, a colleague of mine at work and I have this very acerbic relationship, but we're the best of friends. The ability to trade barbs with each other is merely a projection of that; that we feel comfortable with each other enough that we know no matter what we say, the other person won't take offense (and will most likely simply throw another remark back).

That's how I've always read the Spock/McCoy relationship. I think it's how it was intended to be. McCoy and Spock each give as good as they get. It's a mutual thing between the two of them, but in reality they're as close as it is possible to get to another person. The only times when it seriously felt like there was genuine animosity between them was usually an isolated circumstance due to a unique situation presenting itself -- the away mission in "Galileo Seven", the isolation/degeneration in "All Our Yesterdays".

It's one of the reasons why the attempt to replicate the relationship in Pulaski/Data on The Next Generation was such an abysmal failure. Not only did it come across as derivative of the McCoy/Spock thing (without retaining any of it's charm), but Data's inability to be "in" on the joke meant that Pulaski simply came across as a harridan and a bully, as she would call Data a useless bucket of microchips and Data was forced to just stand there with a quizzical look on his face. Pulaski's racism ('technophobism'???) is far worse than McCoy's ever was.

I agree with the general point about ST VI though. While I'd hardly expect the TOS crew to be immediately pally with the Klingons, some of the implicit racism that comes out of their mouths does feel a little out of character.

 

[T'Girl]

Double Post.

 

[T'Girl]

You actually took that comment/question literally?

Hey, I was twelve at the time.

To be honest, although I didn't get the reference, I was far more bewildered by the sudden out-of-character racist turn of everyone after happily sharing drinks with Klingons at end of Star Trek V.

The Trouble With Tribbles
KIRK: How close will we come to the Klingon outpost if we continue on our present course?
CHEKOV: One parsec, sir. Close enough to smell them.

TUC
Crewman #1: They all look alike.
Crewman #2: What about that smell?

The behavior of the crew in TUC was more consistently in character with what went on during the TOS series and the events of the other TOS movies, than what we saw at the end of TFF. But TFF could be put down to "cocktail party polite," than actual being friendly with the Klingons.

Errand of Mercy
Kirk: They've invaded our territory, killed our citizens.
TSFS
Kirk: You've killed my son! ...You Klingon bastard!
TVH
Sarek: Your vessel did destroy U.S.S. Grissom. [snip] Do you have the right to commit murder?

The senior officers had every reason to act disdainful towards the Klingons.

 

[Timo]

..And the Klingons at the end of TFF had very little reason to feel good about being friends. They had basically been ordered to be nice at gunpoint, after all! Korrd had overruled Klaa aboard his own ship and humiliated him in the most disgusting way possible - ultimately even making him apologize for being humiliated. That little drinking party probably ended in bloodshed right after the camera left the scene, which is why our heroes once again had plenty of time to camp at Yosemite: the purple bloodstains are a bitch to remove.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

That little drinking party probably ended in bloodshed right after the camera left the scene

Likely if Sulu and Chekov got a chance to double bang that head Klingon chick ... lots of opertunity for blood letting there.

CRAIG'S LIST

Klingon female want for some hot MMF action, contact "Pavel."

 

[zephramc]

..And the Klingons at the end of TFF had very little reason to feel good about being friends. They had basically been ordered to be nice at gunpoint, after all! Korrd had overruled Klaa aboard his own ship and humiliated him in the most disgusting way possible - ultimately even making him apologize for being humiliated. That little drinking party probably ended in bloodshed right after the camera left the scene, which is why our heroes once again had plenty of time to camp at Yosemite: the purple bloodstains are a bitch to remove.

Timo Saloniemi

I never thought about that. Poor Klaa. He was probably stripped of his command after the events in STV and spent his years in a drunken stooper, hating on Kirk and Koord.

# Ughh... stupor

 

[BillJ]

..And the Klingons at the end of TFF had very little reason to feel good about being friends. They had basically been ordered to be nice at gunpoint, after all! Korrd had overruled Klaa aboard his own ship and humiliated him in the most disgusting way possible - ultimately even making him apologize for being humiliated. That little drinking party probably ended in bloodshed right after the camera left the scene, which is why our heroes once again had plenty of time to camp at Yosemite: the purple bloodstains are a bitch to remove.

Timo Saloniemi

I never thought about that. Poor Klaa. He was probably stripped of his command after the events in STV and spent his years in a drunken stooper, hating on Kirk and Koord.

# Ughh... stupor

I hope he spent the rest of his days wondering around Kronos without the cash to buy hair care products.

 

[DonIago]

Well, we know by TUC he was a Court Reporter.

 

[-Brett-]

It always surprises me that Star Trek fans want an intelligent show that deals with social and political issues, but want the good guys to be saints. Isn't that a little too easy? Have the bad guys be all racist 'n shit, and then have the good guys, who are perfect by the way, swoop in and educate the savages.

I loved the racist main cast in TUC. It made sense given their personal history with the Klingons and StarFleet's cold war with them for the past century. Personally, I wanted one of the main cast to be in on the assassination plot -- perhaps Kirk himself.

Earlier in the series, maybe. For their very last adventure, for one of the cast (especially Kirk) to go out a traitor wouldn't have gone over well.

 

[Kelthaz]

Earlier in the series, maybe. For their very last adventure, for one of the cast (especially Kirk) to go out a traitor wouldn't have gone over well.

Hey, it's better than getting crushed by a bridge.

 

[BriGuy]

So green blooded, pointy eared hobgoblin isn't a slur directed at Spock's racial origins? The slights directed at humans by Spock were not slurs? Lets not pretend that the TOS characters were not capable of "casual racism" directed at those of other species.

And humans were still making "racist" cracks about Klingons - their smell - in Voyager's time.

 

[BriGuy]

Not saints, certainly not. Just not bigots. There's a lot of room in between.

Exactly. They crossed the line in 6 and it was out of character given what we had seen before. Completely bigoted and unevolved.

Your assessment of the bones/spock relationship and it's uniqueness is spot on as well. Those guys were friends, not total strangers. Gigantic difference


The "Guess whos coming to dinner" line is no different than all the "cheesy" humor at the expense of the characters that so many fans hate ST5 for. It's just that the overall movie is better so people try to rationalize it.

Again, ST V was the out of character movie, not VI.

"Guess who's coming to dinner" is a turn of a phrase, an expression, one of shock and disgust. Never saw it as "cheesy humor" at all. TUC is a far, far superior movie to TFF, and that line certainly doesn't need any rationalization.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Well, we know by TUC he was a Court Reporter.

Well, we know that the same actor played the Court Reporter. The Klingon forehead bumps were different. Or was he disguised?

Or are you saying he was also the disguised, young, blondhaired human engineering cadet in ST II, too?
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Todd_Bryant

 

[DonIago]

Clearly he was a spy aboard the Enterprise in TWoK, then captained his own BoP in TFF and bore Kirk a grudge for disapproving of him during the prior movie. After he botched the Nimbus mission he was clearly demoted to being a court reporter.

I smell novel!

 

[starburst]

The Klingons were the enemy of the Federation and had been from since before Kirk and his crew were born. When you have had your entire career fighting a specific species, seeing your friends and family die horribly at their hand I think few would be able to not build up a deep hatred for that species.

I understand where viewers as well as cast and crew like Nichelle Nichols were coming from and why she in particular did not want to say lines which once were a racial slur towards likely people she knew and loved.

This is all very different to how this is depicted in real life back in the time where there was no equality and the racism which these lines bring back painful memories and images of. We cant compare the two though as in our world racism was aimed at a group of people who just wanted to live and were denied basic rights just because of the pigment of their skin.

There are likely hundreds of examples where you could class the heroes of a story as racist, comments in Battlestar Galactica referring to Cylons as Toasters, the already mentioned 'green blooded' comments by McCoy through out the series and films, any film or series involving evolved or genetically engineering (X-Men, SeaQuest, Heroes, Lost, Smallville) ... even attitudes towards the German general population during and shortly after WWII could be looked upon as racist.

At the end of TUC the tone of the crew seems to have changed, at least Kirks, toward certain Klingons such as the late Gorkon...in some ways I wish Uhura would have said the line instead of it being given to Chekov, as it would have shown that racism can be overcome and we can work at living with people we previously could'nt (which it seems Star Trek is at least partially about).

There is a deep hatred yes, racism on some level possibly as their view on the Klingon species is based on those they have fought. This is no where near the same level of bigotry that we have seen in the past and still do today between some groups of the same species.

 

[BillJ]

I found the crew to be portrayed consistently with what came before.

They're not perfect, they're human.