Most Offensive Star Trek Movies and Episodes

Star Trek has been lauded as a very progressive franchise, but there have been entries in this franchise that could be considered offensive.

Which episodes or movies do you consider offensive?

Personally, I think Code of Honor is pretty offensive, sexist and racist, it comes off as dated even when it was released back in 1987.

 

Code of Honor is definitely on that list. Check Katharyn Powers' other writing credits too. She did an episode of Stargate SG-1 called 'Emancipation' which is basically the same episode! The SG team arrive on a planet ruled over by Mongol overlords and Sam has to fight to get out of it. That episode is again both sexist and racist, although this time she's targeting Asians...

However, I think Turnabout Intruder goes high up on that list for sexism. I can think of a few other TOS episodes that are sexist by today's standards.

 

The Cage begins as kind of sexist when Pike says he can't get used to a woman on the bridge. That may not have been too bad for 1965 though.

 

The Cage also had Number One, a female first officer that actually got to be in command for a good portion of the episode. The women wore pants and tunics that were similar to what the men were wearing, instead of the ridiculous minidresses that would appear early in the first season. So, relatively progressive and ahead of its time in some ways.

 

STID is offensive to my senses.

 

Of the films, Insurrection is the only one I can think of that's offensive on a thematic level, for having a moral message that's essentially "a few hundred people are more worthy of life than billions because the former are more in tune with nature, while the latter have lost something by choosing to use technology in their lives."

 

This.

Also the problems of "Code of Honor" fell down with the director.

Also a few Chuckles episodes from VOY were unintentionally stereotyped and broad with Native Americanism bullshit.

And Scotty and Chekov are overblown national caricatures by today's standards (and to a lesser extent so was Picard arguably in the first season , but that quite quickly went by the wayside).

 

She did however, write a handful of good episodes of SG-1

She isn't a bad writer, just misguided sometimes.

 

I can't fault the Insurrection aliens for not wanting some assholes to come destroy the planet they'd lived on for 300 years. That planet should have been studied and the effects duplicated in a lab somewhere. They say they could have got the stuff from the rest of the Briar Patch but Dougherty was just being a cheapass prick for the Sona and wanted to get the job done now so that he could hide his collusion with them. Starfleet has all kinds of dumb tech that can create all kinds of miracles. Remember when Bones grew that old woman a new kidney. What about that anti-time stuff that grew Geordi some new eyes. Everyone's probably got cloned organs or artificial limbs like Nog. This film just deals with everything on a superficial level so they can do some half-assed stunts and comedy. That to me is why it's offensive. If you want to be an action movie or a comedy movie then so be it, but do it well. This film is just boring.

 

I've never been comfortable with the underlying sexism of TOS Metamorphosis, where a whole female character is introduced & written off solely to be the vessel for some dude's freaky symbiotic space creature tryst.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's offensive, but it is pretty insensitive. I feel the same about TNG Code of Honor. It's not blatantly racist, but it's mighty racially insensitive.

 

What? So it's ok to deplace the indigenous population because they have something the more technological people want? So the Federation can just get rid of the natives on any planet that has the resources they want? I think you might want to rethink that.

What's offensive is that the plan to get rid of the Baku was stupid and the evil Admiral of the Federation trope was overdone.

 

Where to start!

We have Sisko and his war crimes in For the Uniform.

Up the long ladder - killing is fine, so long as it's your clone. Not to mention the offensive Irish stereotyping.

Galaxy's Child - Geordi is outraged that the woman he's been stalking is married and just not that into him

Data’s supposed to be one of the smartest beings in the known universe? So who does he turn to for comedy advice?
Joe Piscopo.

Elaan of Troyius. Let’s not mince words: this episode is about as sexist, chauvinistic, and borderline racist as original series Star Trek gets. It plays on stereotypes of women in general and Asian women in particular, and it depicts Kirk’s slapping of Elaan as a righteous act.

Man, I could go on and on with TOS.... here are some fun ones of general sexism:

"Please sit and entertain me" - Khans chat up line in Space Seed

"suspect preys on women because women are more easily and more deeply terrified, generating more sheer horror than the male of the species.€" - Spock, Wolf in the fold

"The, er, impostor had some interesting qualities, wouldn't you say, Yeoman?" - Spock To Rand after being assaulted by Kirk in the enemy within.

"That unit is defective. Its thinking is chaotic. Absorbing it unsettled me.€" - Nomad to Spock
"That unit is a woman" - Spock explaining women to Nomad - The Changeling.

""it's better to be dead than to live alone in the body of a woman." - Janice Lester, Turnabout Intruder.

 

It's a television show. I don't find any of it "offensive."

 

Although, in "A Man Alone", Odo states that killing your own clone is still murder.

 

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You've never found an episode of Star Trek to be objectionable?

 

For me to find something offensive, I would have to take it seriously enough to allow it to affect me in that way. So no. There are real things in life worth being offended by. I'm not going to worry about a tv show.

We live in a world where everybody is offended by everything. I choose not to be.