News Trans character announced

[Lord Garth]

If you want to attack an 89 year old, who isn't all there and has a short time left, you have that right. Stay classy

He probably won't be around much longer... but his Twitter followers will. And they'll still insist cis is a slur when it's not. I think they would've thought what they think no matter what, but William Shatner is stoking the flames. And he has a large audience while he stokes the flames, so those flames keep getting fueled. If he had no audience, his opinion would stay the same but this wouldn't keep going on because he wouldn't have anyone to double-down in front of as they cheer him on. It's theater on the Internet.

 

[BillJ]

...but William Shatner is stoking the flames.

Is he still talking about it? I don't use Twitter, at all.

 

[Lord Garth]

Is he still talking about it? I don't use Twitter, at all.

Looks like he's moved onto other things that he's being not-so passive-aggressive about. I should cut and paste some of these...

 

[JulieYBM]

Love to be accused of being ableist when I'm the disabled, depressed, socially anxious, PTSD-suffering trans girl who is too poor to afford to see her therapist and Bill 'William' Shatner can afford to see one without even thinking once, let alone twice.

Okay, okay, I wrote this post mostly to just post this gif.

 

[John Constant]

I dont want trans people to be tortured, killed, or discriminated against in any way shape or form. Does that mean we are allies?

 

[Lord Garth]

William Shatner tweets from the past two days
"Children seem to think I care about their attempts at trolling me with their pseudo intelligentsia mindset. Many cannot seem to understand that as an actor I have played many roles but the only care I had for the character was how I portrayed the character at the time."

"They seem to be bored children who want to troll. They’ll grow up and become a burden to society one day."

"Not an insult at all. They are apparently showing they are woke and, I imagine, using image sizes as a measure of “wokeness.” Personally, I’d rather be sleeping" Referring to CBS All Access and the Star Trek Day Poster.

Someone asking William Shatner how he feels about Lower Decks:
"You mean a basement? we don’t have many basements in LA"

"They have George Takei and Wil Wheaton booked to celebrate the day. That should cover everything."

.
.
.

I'll stop there. That's just some of the stuff from the last two days. If you want more, check here.

Not very good. At all. Like I said, I've really had to mentally separate Shatner from Kirk.

 

[BillJ]

William Shatner tweets from the past two days
"Children seem to think I care about their attempts at trolling me with their pseudo intelligentsia mindset. Many cannot seem to understand that as an actor I have played many roles but the only care I had for the character was how I portrayed the character at the time."

"They seem to be bored children who want to troll. They’ll grow up and become a burden to society one day."

"Not an insult at all. They are apparently showing they are woke and, I imagine, using image sizes as a measure of “wokeness.” Personally, I’d rather be sleeping" Referring to CBS All Access and the Star Trek Day Poster.

Someone asking William Shatner how he feels about Lower Decks:
"You mean a basement? we don’t have many basements in LA"

"They have George Takei and Wil Wheaton booked to celebrate the day. That should cover everything."

.
.
.

I'll stop there. That's just some stuff from the last two days. If you want more, check here.

Not very good. At all. Like I said, I've really had to mentally separate Shatner from Kirk.

He's an old man shaking his fists at the virtual clouds because the world has passed him by. I pity him more than anything.

 

[John Constant]

I pity him and disagree with him. I don't hate him

 

[UssGlenn]

Clearly the episodes have yet to air but I'm not expecting a truly accurate depiction of trans and gender non-binary peoples' political positions.

This, combined with your desire for characters to be human rather than alien, is setting yourself up for continual disappointment. Since the series is set in the future, the conditions for early 21st century social and political positions no longer exist. Traditionally Star Trek has used alien allegory to represent present day issues, but you've made it clear that is unacceptable.

Star Trek simply can't give you what you are looking for.

 

[BillJ]

Clearly the episodes have yet to air but I'm not expecting a truly accurate depiction of trans and gender non-binary peoples' political positions.

Should probably wait and see first, before declaring the game fixed.

Star Trek simply can't give you what you are looking for.

Maybe it can, or can meet them halfway? We're kinda in a wait and see position at the moment.

 

[BillJ]

Michelle Paradise seems like the intellectually smart type, so I wouldn't yet sell her short until we actually get a look at season three.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Paradise

 

[Mudd]

This, combined with your desire for characters to be human rather than alien, is setting yourself up for continual disappointment. Since the series is set in the future, the conditions for early 21st century social and political positions no longer exist. Traditionally Star Trek has used alien allegory to represent present day issues, but you've made it clear that is unacceptable.

Star Trek simply can't give you what you are looking for.

For reasons I've explicated uptopic I don't think allegory is a useful tool for Trek these days. When they fall back on it they usually fuck up.

Fortunately they've always been able to tell dramatic stories about human problems and issues within a world analogous to ours. Analogy is not allegory.

 

[JulieYBM]

If I had been watching new Star Trek during the revival era of the 1980s-mid-2000s I would still be expressing the criticisms I am of current Trek. That I take a sigh and not bother harping on 16-30 year old episodes for the sake of conserving my time and energy does not change my feelings. It takes zero effort to take the right position of "Allegory and stroking the egos of cishet white people can go to Hell."

People constantly on the defense don't have the luxury of chuckling and calling their oppressors scamps.

 

[Lord Garth]

While not the same thing as being either transgender or non-binary, Michelle Paradise is a gay woman. The showrunner for the third season of DSC isn't a straight white male.

And there's a possibility the actors playing these new characters spoke up if they thought there was something wrong with the way the characters they're playing were being written. And the writers might've corrected what was pointed out to them, if that's the case.

I'll wait to see what's actually in the season itself.

 

[UssGlenn]

Fortunately they've always been able to tell stories by constructing analogous situations to the real world. Analogy is not allegory.

While I'm aware of the basic differences in the terms, I'm not sure I see the difference in the context of a narritive, and how that would improve things. You wouldn't mind explicating further would you?

 

[JulieYBM]

While not the same thing as being either transgender or non-binary, Michelle Paradise is a gay woman. The showrunner for the third season of DSC isn't a straight white male.

And there's a possibility the actors playing these new characters spoke up if they thought there was something wrong with the way the characters they're playing were being written.

I'll wait to see what's actually in the season itself.

Disclaimer: I don't know anything about Paradise and am NOT passing judgement at this time. I'm waiting for the episodes to air. Even then I would also defer to what non-binary people and trans men think considering how they are the ones being portrayed and not lil' ol' girls such as I.

Paradise isn't the only person who is going to be involved. She still ultimately answers to the same corrupt system that has always been in place. Furthermore, there are plenty of transphobic cisgender gay people.

 

[Lord Garth]

Furthermore, there are plenty of transphobic cisgender gay people.

True, but I'm going to guess it was either Michelle Paradise's idea to have these new characters or, if a writer working for her came up with the idea, she didn't shoot it down. So I'm leaning toward she's not transphobic.

I'm waiting for the episodes to air.

Agreed.

 

[BillJ]

People constantly on the defense don't have the luxury of chuckling and calling their oppressors scamps.

I haven't seen anyone here chuckling and calling oppressors scamps.

 

[Mudd]

While I'm aware of the basic differences in the terms, I'm not sure I see the difference in the context of a narritive, and how that would improve things. You wouldn't mind explicating further would you?

Well, first off I stated that even more sloppily than usual, and I've edited the sentence to clarify it somewhat:

Fortunately they've always been able to tell dramatic stories about human problems and issues within a world analogous to ours.

To use a couple of examples from early TOS:

"A Taste of Armageddon" is a sort of allegorical or symbolic storytelling about events specific to that era which the show dared not criticize directly. It is, arguably, about the damage of the Vietnam War dragging on year after year and endorsing draft resistance - refusal of potential combatants to participate - as both moral and a potential solution. The computer simulated war stands in as a symbol of the physically distant Vietnam conflict - "People die, but our society continues" - and refusing military conscription is symbolized by rejecting the "societal duty" to step into a disintegration chamber.

"Balance of Terror" is largely about racial hatred and bigotry. Guess what, there's a guy in it who's a bigot and a guy who's the target of his bigotry, and the story dramatizes the wrongness of this guy's thinking. There's nothing symbolic or allegorical about making a Vulcan officer instead of a Japanese-American officer the target of the hatred.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Moderator Note:

While I know it's difficult to remain strictly on-topic due to the lack of further news regarding the casting and the wide-ranging issues that connect to trans rights and trans representation in media, can we please make an attempt to keep things a little more relative to Discovery and not on stuff that would be more appropriate for a thread in MIsc. or TNZ? I don't think the casting is going to have any relation to "defunding the police" for example, and his childish comments about the prefix "cis" aside, William Shatner has nothing to do with anything on Discovery besides a peripheral connection through Trek.

Also, even when used in the context of making a point with a pro-LGBTQ message, can we please refrain from using homophobic or other slurs in the forum?