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The New Humans

So how could Star trek be utilized to depict the future acceptance of public nudity and help change current taboos? In other words, how do we depict this change without causing viewers to switch off their TVs?

Sell the next series to HBO? :D
 
So how could Star trek be utilized to depict the future acceptance of public nudity and help change current taboos? In other words, how do we depict this change without causing viewers to switch off their TVs?

Sell the next series to HBO? :D

Or FX or even Syfy. Nudity is creeping into even basic cable these days.

And, back in the day, mild nudity could be found even in PG-rated scifi and fantasy flicks: See LOGAN'S RUN, FANTASTIC PLANET, PLANET OF THE APES, SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER, DRAGONSLAYER, etc.
 
There was a time when it was considered obscene to bare the leg of a table, because of the naughty thoughts that the word "leg" could inspire. (Although that may be apocryphal.)

OK, this seems really weird. But for the sake of argument, let's assume that it's true. In that case, what were table legs generally covered with?
 
That's actually a myth that was started when an author in the 19th century, Frederick Marryat, supposedly went to a girls' seminary in the US where piano legs were covered in miniature pantaloons to “preserve in their utmost purity the ideas of the young ladies under her charge.” However, either he made up the story or the school was just a really weird school, because there's no evidence that it ever actually happened as a widespread phenomenon; his book "Diary in America; With Remarks On Its Institutions" is literally the only reference for it ever having happened in practice, but the British press loved the anecdote as an example of puritanical America and spread it everywhere, and it ended up twisted in the 20th century as a story that Victorian England used to do it.
 
^"(Although that may be apocryphal.)" I admitted up front that I could be wrong, because that's just basic intellectual honesty. The very first person to question one's beliefs should always be oneself.

Anyway, I knew nothing about "miniature pantaloons"; I'd heard the story as an explanation for why we had floor-length tablecloths.

I also heard that the reason we refer to "white meat" and "dark meat" in poultry is because calling them breast and leg meat was considered shocking. I would appreciate insights on whether this is accurate or apocryphal.
 
^"(Although that may be apocryphal.)" I admitted up front that I could be wrong, because that's just basic intellectual honesty. The very first person to question one's beliefs should always be oneself.

Anyway, I knew nothing about "miniature pantaloons"; I'd heard the story as an explanation for why we had floor-length tablecloths.

I also heard that the reason we refer to "white meat" and "dark meat" in poultry is because calling them breast and leg meat was considered shocking. I would appreciate insights on whether this is accurate or apocryphal.

I can't find anything definitive, but the Online Etymology Dictionary implies that's likely apocryphal too.

Dark meat, white meat popularized 19c., supposedly as euphemisms for leg and breast, but earliest sources use both terms without apparent embarrassment.
The choicest parts of a turkey are the side bones, the breast, and the thigh bones. The breast and wings are called light meat; the thigh-bones and side-bones dark meat. When a person declines expressing a preference, it is polite to help to both kinds. [Lydia Maria Child, "The American Frugal Housewife," Boston, 1835]

And yeah, I wasn't meaning to call Christopher out or anything, just confirm that yeah the leg thing is almost certainly an apocryphal story.
 
Okay, so scratch the Victorian apocrypha -- there's still plenty of evidence that American nudity taboos onscreen and in public have eroded considerably over the past few decades, albeit with occasional backslides along the way. When the original Star Trek was on, you couldn't show women's bellybuttons on commercial TV (though TOS did get away with it a couple of times). These days you can show almost anything short of genitalia and female nipples. And of course there are plenty of other countries and cultures in the world where public nudity is more acceptable and seen more matter-of-factly than it is in America.
 
But I suppose that would be the point. Not to have nudity done in a "hubba hubba" way, but just matter-of-factly.

Yes, exactly. Nudity could get a G or PG rating if it wasn't in a sexual or prurient context. For instance, Danae nursing baby Perseus in Clash of the Titans.
 
That's actually a myth that was started when an author in the 19th century, Frederick Marryat, supposedly went to a girls' seminary in the US where piano legs were covered in miniature pantaloons to “preserve in their utmost purity the ideas of the young ladies under her charge.” However, either he made up the story or the school was just a really weird school, because there's no evidence that it ever actually happened as a widespread phenomenon; his book "Diary in America; With Remarks On Its Institutions" is literally the only reference for it ever having happened in practice, but the British press loved the anecdote as an example of puritanical America and spread it everywhere, and it ended up twisted in the 20th century as a story that Victorian England used to do it.

Ah, OK. Thanks for the explanation, Idran!
 
I always assumed that in early TNG Gene thought the whole human population were meant to be New Human and they evolved in the time between TOS and TNG to be able to serve in starfleet!
 
I always assumed that in early TNG Gene thought the whole human population were meant to be New Human and they evolved in the time between TOS and TNG to be able to serve in starfleet!

Nope. That was simply his "24th century Starfleet people don't argue among each other" concept.
 
To be fair, it wasn't just Starfleet he saw that way, it literally was all humanity.

No, I recall him saying "Starfleet officers wouldn't act like that..." GR still acknowledged that not all of humanity was perfect yet, although it was a goal. But conflict in scripts couldn't be among the main cast (all Starfleet people), and Michael Pillar often spoke about trying to get around GR's restrictions.
 
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