No. Harry Kim was 10,000 times more interesting and had 10,000 times more stuff happen to him. Travis was a guy who should have been Voy's Ayala, but they started giving him lines and then they had to pretend he was someone.
Travis Mayweather
- Thread starter Taylirious
- Start date
It's a tough call, there's never enough concrete proof to label people as bigots just b/c they go after those particular guys, but when they repeatedly get singled out, yeah sure it does raise questions. I myself hated Sisko during the early years of DS9, not b/c he was a black dude but b/c I didn't like the way he blamed Picard for the death of his wife and I didn't like how smug and serious he was. Over the years I started to really like Sisko though, so if someone critisized my dislike of the early years of Sisko as bigotry on my part I know I wouldn't appreciate it.
Uhura was just a supporting player on TOS so she never drew fan ire and it was a breakthrough having her on the bridge during the 1960s. Then you had Geordi in TNG, but LeVar Burton was playing a blind nerdy engineering type, and actor Michael Dorn playing Worf could be written off as a Klingon. But when you had more leading players like Sisko and Tuvok, I have seen fans go after them over the years and I don't always get why. I didn't like early Sisko, but I think the writers really took off with the character as time went on. I do remember back in the 90s some fans were irritated that there were black Vulcans now with Tuvok, b/c all Vulcans we had seen up to that point where played by white actors (though there did seem to be some Asian Vulcans in The Search for Spock). But it seemed odd how much people fussed over something like that.
I think b/c the writers decided to give Travis nothing to do, it may have unconciously put poor Travis as a "token minority character" in the minds of some viewers, thus drawing out fan resentment. Harry Kim was also another good looking minority character, this time an Asian guy, and he wasn't given much to do, though granted he got more developed then Travis. But both guys may have been seen as characters who just have to be there to satisfy some racial quota, but it was neither the actor nor character's fault that the creators fumbled him so badly.
Interesting and Kim don't go together well in the same sentence. He did have more happen to him, but I wouldn't call that good.
Kim manages to get rejected by just about every female on Voyager, gets beaten with giant dildos on a planet full of females. Has nightmares about clowns chopping his log in half, has nightmares about Seven just having sex with him, and is the only char in the Trek franchise to get a STD. Oh and he gets the normal goldshirt beatings/alternate universe deaths too.
Mayweather managed to avoid all this negative attention at least.
People were pissing all over Travis back in 2001-'03, by '04 and '05 I guess no one cared.
Yes I do agree that fans have softened their stance on ENT considerably. Unlike VOY which is generally still thought of as not all that good, ENT tends to get a bit more fan support. Back then a lot of people were just sick and tired of Rick Berman and Brannon Braga and ENT got a lot of the blame for turning the franchise stale.
The thing I liked most about Travis was that he was totally game for anything. Here's a guy who spends his whole life on a cargo ship in space, so what does he do whenever he makes planetfall? Master rock climbing. One of my favorite scenes is from 2Days2Nights where he's describing how he got injured: So there are these, like, COWS, and they LOVE MELONS! . . . His enthusiasm makes me smile every time. Whatever Archer asks of him, he doesn't hesitate. Love that.
Enthusastic after seven years of being an extra. That does take talent!
Jesting aside, that's a good point and one I hadn't really thought on. Guess he would want to try new things at every given opportunity since apparently all he got to do was have sex on cargo ships.
If I was on a cargo ship for years the last place I'd spend shore leave was a cave.
That's why I decided to add the word "subconscious", because the commenters themselves may not even realize it. I deliberately didn't single anyone out, though I made the suggestion while the Tuvok hair kerfuffle was raging, so the inspiration should be obvious.
1950s? No.
But if Mayweather had just once said, "DYN-O-MITE!" or "Watcha ya' talkin' 'bout, Archer?" I would have been a fan.
1950s? No.
But if Mayweather had just once said, "DYN-O-MITE!" or "Watcha ya' talkin' 'bout, Archer?" I would have been a fan.
I hear ya.
I used the 50's because I was born in '51, lived through the Eisenhower "Whites Only" era, saw changes that occured during the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s, and had never even met a black person until I was 18 and went to college (and still remember his name). I actively tried to change how I related to people, but there are some folks who are just unwilling to make the effort.
Honestly, no.
By far the posts written by folks negative regarding any particular character are usually critical across the spectrum. That is to say that I've not seen an instance of one person saying, "I love everyone on Voyager except Tuvok" Or "Everyone on DS9 is awesome save for Sisko and Worf."
My standard of experience has been that if someone is critical of a particular incarnation of Trek then there are a couple of characters they love, a couple they tolerate, and a few they dislike. Sometimes I've come across individuals who either love or hate all the characters of one specific series' but that has really been rare. Usually it is all a mixed bag.
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