I hate all the racially correct places Trek visits

[Good Will Riker]

misskim86,

I am Korean American myself, but I take a different view when it comes to this. I actually like seeing diversity within alien societies depicted in Star Trek.

Instead of seeing all Vulcans that look like Leonard Nimoy, for example, I actually liked seeing different ethnicities such as an Asian Vulcan towards the end of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and of course Tuvok from "Star Trek: Voyager."

And the whole homogenized planet episode was done before in the TNG episode "Code of Honor," and it was derided by a lot of the fans. Besides, Star Trek isn't reality...it's television. A complete fantasy. And, I don't mind a future that depicts a meltingpot like today's contemporary American society. Infact, I welcome it.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Good Will Riker said:
Besides, Star Trek isn't reality...it's television. A complete fantasy. And, I don't mind a future that depicts a meltingpot like today's contemporary American society. Infact, I welcome it.

For those of us who don't live in the United States, it doesn't look like "a complete fantasy", it looks like the United States.

 

[HRHTheKING]

I'd like to see a wider range of accents in Star Trek.

Particularly British accents.

I'm sick of tired of the "oh cheerio old chap" type of accent.

 

[misskim86]

Good Will Riker


Hey Good Will Riker, that's cool to meet another korean I'm not a token anymore!

Anyway you didn't really understand my rant. I also like racial diversity, and I think it's purely logical that in the future, most societies has a wide diversity.

My rant was that societies that lived in what would resemble earth about year 1300 has a big racial diversity, because logicly they shouldn't have that.

Now about black vulcans etc, I really like that, I think it adds a HUGE realism to show that not only Earth has different races, I always thought it was stupid that an entire planet is the same race with the same language etc, I'd love to see other Klingon races for exampel.

Again, my gripe is a big diversity in small villages resembling our midieval times, when it should be practicly impossible.

Showing that there exists other races is just great imo, aslong as it's not done in a "see we included some blacks too!" -way

And if you think you got it bad being latinos try being asians

 

[Stormrage]

HRHTheKING said:
I'd like to see a wider range of accents in Star Trek.

Particularly British accents.

I'm sick of tired of the "oh cheerio old chap" type of accent.

I want West country and Irish accent. I love them.

 

[Balthier the Great]

I don't think the racial make up of the aliens is nearly as off-putting as the lack of diversity of thought and opinion amoung the aliens themselves.

Every Klingon everywhere believes in Kahless and the honor cult. They all dress in roughly the same way, they all think the same way. Honestly, it's fairly stupid when you think about it. Even in just the US culture of Earth, you'll find diversity. There are athiests, Hindus, Catholics, Muslims etc. in the religious realm. There are cultural subgroups ranging from Goths and Metalheads to New Age Hippies. So why shouldn't there be a Klingon somewhere that doesn't follow Kahless, and doesn't give a fig for honor. Heck, where are the Klingons who believe in honor and don't associate honor with the klingon-bushido code?

Go down the list of aliens, and it's the same idea. All Vulcans are logical and follow Serek -- otherwise they're Romulans. All Bajorans love the Prophets, and for that matter follow the Kai (What? no Protestants?), All Kazon are hunters.

They need to take a few cues from how Earth cultures are. It's not a monocultural group-think.

 

[misskim86]

Balthier I agee with you, but the amount of races who are culturally the same aren't as many as the ones they encounter every other week with some new ridges on their nose or ears or fore heads.

I agree with you completely though, the Vulcan, Klingon and most likely Bajorans to be 100% culturally homogenic and in the klingons also racially is kinda stupid, altough that's way off topic.

 

[A beaker full of death]

BalthierTheGreat said:
I don't think the racial make up of the aliens is nearly as off-putting as the lack of diversity of thought and opinion amoung the aliens themselves....

I agree that it doesn't work with modern Trek. However, in TOS it did make sense. Going on the Horatio Hornblower model, they weren't so much visiting different planets as new lands. New countries. One (or at best two) tribe at a time.

 

[DrGojira]

I want some Japanese characters that actually know and can pronounce the Japanese language correctly.

 

[Apogeal Alpha01]

Red Ranger said:
Helmgirdle, Apogeal,

You both raise some interesting views. Let me take helmgirdle's objections first.

You know it would be nice if casting could be more colorblind. But let me go into more detail about why I'm concerned with the lack of Latinos in ST, although I'm going a bit off-topic here. (In fact, I started a thread awhile back on this subject, and got quite a few harsh reactions, far more extreme than your little rant).

In the U.S., there has been discrimination, and continues to be, against people of Latino origin, due to the U.S.’s history of paternalistic relations with their neighbors south of the border. This has led, in some cases, to stereotyping of Latinos in mainstream media. Too often, the default types for Latinos are maids, custodians, and criminals. While changing, there aren’t enough such positive role models. So it would be nice to see a future where Latinos aren’t consigned to such roles.

And I hate to burst your bubble or your high horse, but I’ve heard that even in places like the Netherlands, as more folks emigrate to European countries who aren’t of European background, they’ve encountered intolerance even in places like your country. So please, spare me.

And Apogeal, when you say casting reflects a desire by people to see those who look like them, that’s exactly what I’m saying. I’d like to see a heroic young Latino officer, who wants to be a starship captain, serving as a junior officer. Or I’d like to actually see a Latino starship captain who is the star of the show.

While we’re on the subject of demographics, it isn’t that far-fetched that a show produced in the U.S. ought to have better representation of Latinos. After all, Latinos in 2005 surpassed African-Americans as the largest ethnic minority in the U.S.

You can argue you kind of have that with Edward James Olmos in Battlestar Galactica, but that’s more an example of what you’re talking about, a Latino playing a character. That’s fine. It’s just I’d like to see someone named Diaz in charge of a Galaxy-class starship sometime.

And I am grateful that you had two Latinos on VOY, Beltran and Biggs-Dawson, playing interesting characters who weren’t maids or thieves, thankfully, the ugly stereotypes unimaginative TV showrunners -– aided and abetted by short-sighted writers -- foist on the public.

Red Ranger

I can't disagree, but the ability to play characters of differing ethnicity is of great advantage to an actor. While a studio might not want to write a particularly Latin character, they don’t mind casting Latino actors who can portray a character. Not that there aren’t those Latino roles, seen Cane?

Speaking of the Netherlands, I don't know of any society on Earth who can claim complete color blindness. Neither brown, yellow, white, black, or red. (Miss anyone?) The Dutch are known to be liberal and very tolerant, but you can be certain people will become intolerant when emigrants murder the natives because of their political views. Intolerance breeds intolerance. Some emigrants are trying to impose a reverence for religion the Dutch are not quite willing to incorporate into their society.

 

[Apogeal Alpha01]

DrGojira said:
I want some Japanese characters that actually know and can pronounce the Japanese language correctly.

I'm a fan of Hero, and of Hiro. :thumbsup:

 

[hellsgate]

You're free to compose a work of Fan Fiction & deposit it at my site (see the link below in my signature line,) & design a civilization that isn't so politically-correct, & a problem to resolve. I'd love to see what you'd imagine & how you'd deal with it.

 

[misskim86]

hellsgate

Wow I wish people would read my initial post better, I am NOT complaining about political correctness, I think it's just realistic to have racial diversity but NOT when the civilisation isn't evolved enough to have the required technology.

A fanfiction isn't needed, all you need to do is to take all the villages a Trek ship encounters with technology resembling Earth about year 1300 (like the village with the two ferengis in Voyager) and make it all white, black or asian instead.

 

[Nebusj]

What are all these medieval villages starships keep running into? I remember them mostly being of some not-quite-specifically defined technological era usually capable of shooting down a starship if they need, but who in the Modern Trek era confine themselves to making shuttles crash.

 

[AlanC9]

misskim86 said:
hellsgate


A fanfiction isn't needed, all you need to do is to take all the villages a Trek ship encounters with technology resembling Earth about year 1300 (like the village with the two ferengis in Voyager) and make it all white, black or asian instead.

OK, but how often did this actually come up? How many mixed-race villages have there been?

 

[misskim86]

enough to make me post a scolding post on the trek bbs! And that's just from VOY

 

[Helmgirlie]

Apogeal Alpha01 said:

Red Ranger said:
Helmgirdle, Apogeal,

You both raise some interesting views. Let me take helmgirdle's objections first.

You know it would be nice if casting could be more colorblind. But let me go into more detail about why I'm concerned with the lack of Latinos in ST, although I'm going a bit off-topic here. (In fact, I started a thread awhile back on this subject, and got quite a few harsh reactions, far more extreme than your little rant).

In the U.S., there has been discrimination, and continues to be, against people of Latino origin, due to the U.S.’s history of paternalistic relations with their neighbors south of the border. This has led, in some cases, to stereotyping of Latinos in mainstream media. Too often, the default types for Latinos are maids, custodians, and criminals. While changing, there aren’t enough such positive role models. So it would be nice to see a future where Latinos aren’t consigned to such roles.

And I hate to burst your bubble or your high horse, but I’ve heard that even in places like the Netherlands, as more folks emigrate to European countries who aren’t of European background, they’ve encountered intolerance even in places like your country. So please, spare me.

And Apogeal, when you say casting reflects a desire by people to see those who look like them, that’s exactly what I’m saying. I’d like to see a heroic young Latino officer, who wants to be a starship captain, serving as a junior officer. Or I’d like to actually see a Latino starship captain who is the star of the show.

While we’re on the subject of demographics, it isn’t that far-fetched that a show produced in the U.S. ought to have better representation of Latinos. After all, Latinos in 2005 surpassed African-Americans as the largest ethnic minority in the U.S.

You can argue you kind of have that with Edward James Olmos in Battlestar Galactica, but that’s more an example of what you’re talking about, a Latino playing a character. That’s fine. It’s just I’d like to see someone named Diaz in charge of a Galaxy-class starship sometime.

And I am grateful that you had two Latinos on VOY, Beltran and Biggs-Dawson, playing interesting characters who weren’t maids or thieves, thankfully, the ugly stereotypes unimaginative TV showrunners -– aided and abetted by short-sighted writers -- foist on the public.

Red Ranger

I can't disagree, but the ability to play characters of differing ethnicity is of great advantage to an actor. While a studio might not want to write a particularly Latin character, they don’t mind casting Latino actors who can portray a character. Not that there aren’t those Latino roles, seen Cane?

Speaking of the Netherlands, I don't know of any society on Earth who can claim complete color blindness. Neither brown, yellow, white, black, or red. (Miss anyone?) The Dutch are known to be liberal and very tolerant, but you can be certain people will become intolerant when emigrants murder the natives because of their political views. Intolerance breeds intolerance. Some emigrants are trying to impose a reverence for religion the Dutch are not quite willing to incorporate into their society.

Agreed. It is a great advantage for the actors to play characters of different ethnicity, no matter what ethnicity they are originally from. I wouldn't know why that wouldn't be possible.
I don't see why a person of Latin origin would always need to play a Latin character. He/she can play a character. I do see that people of Latin origin often play gardeners and maids. That is sad. And that unfortunatelly is Hollywood. I do like to see movies where there's room for each others cultures. And I like that to be shown. But not in a stereotypical way.
About some emigrants who try to impose a reverence for religion. It's not the religion and the emigrants the Dutch don't tolerate. It's the violence against others that isn't tolerated. (think 9/11)
If you discriminate on purpose here, you can be sure you are reported and actions are taken against you. But I do agree that unfortunatelly there is less tolerance against moslims because of what happened on 9/11. Also more against people who are moslim and who are against violence, which is 99,9 % of the Moslim people.
But indeed here is not Utopia, never has been. And we do have a few nazi-like politicians right now, who fortunatelly aren't respected much by the gross of the people.

 

[Forbin]

I often wonder how various Asian actors feel about playing nationalities other than their own. For instance on shows like MASH, where Chinese, Japanese and Korean actors all played Koreans, or Kung Fu where they all played Chinese. How did the average Chinese person feel about a Japanese actor playing a Chinese, considering the two countries' mutual hatred in WWII? How did the average Japanese feel about a Chinese actress starring in Memoires of a Geisha? For that matter, how would an older Chinese actor feel about being hired to play a WWII Japanese soldier? That sort'a thing.

 

[misskim86]

I think an actor or actress welcomes any roles that is challenging. If I was a professional actress I would love to play as a Japanese Geisha or Chinese immigrant etc even though I'm korean.

It's like saying an Irish should be disturbed about playing a German

 

[DarthTom]

HRHTheKING said:
I'd like to see a wider range of accents in Star Trek.

Particularly British accents.

I'm sick of tired of the "oh cheerio old chap" type of accent.

The French Captain who speaks with a British accent. Or the Dr. on DS9 who was born on another world who speaks with a British accent. Or the Irish engineer.

Or that the world government is located in Paris but everyone for the most part speaks with an American accent.

If anyone should be pissed it's the French.