(
Well done, boy, go to the top of the class. You can have a gold paper star and her favourite boys will pull your posh jumper off at break time which will serve you right, you little know-all. Join the melee (that's french, by the way. She can speak it from seven and you can''t)While I see the point on code of honour...some of it I don't. The clothes don't seem stereotypically African to me, though I suspect they may have done to the director. The story as written does play into some 'noble savage' stereotypes, but Picard does not result to violence or gunboat diplomacy. The quasi-matriarchal society flips a few things in regard to stereotypes too... this could have been aTOS episode, but Yar would have been Kirk and that aspect dropped.
The conversation between Troi and Yar objectifies Lutan...problematic because of the casting, but also depends greatly on the viewers own politics or prejudices. Depending on which interpretation of feminism you apply, it could be a failure by our modern standards (the infamous Bechdel Test.) or a forerunner to the sex-positive Emancipation celebrated in something like Sex And The City (something that crops up with Troi and Crusher a lot... even if they are doing yoga at the time. We will see them Sex And The City it a ton of times, even as far as the infamous 'boobs firmer' scene of Insurrection, and pretty much any time one of them starts a relationship. It's something rarer in the male characters...though not unheard of for the emotionally open ones like LaForge and Riker.)
All of the 'can't grasp our modern ways' stuff is also an interpretation that depends on the lense applied...on the one hand, they are advanced enough to be in contact with the federation and to have something they need (this is not a new contact, they are a known civilisation) but there is a massive cultural divide. As to whether that is an advancement question is something else... are the Klingons less advanced? The Ferengi? Or simply culturally different? At which point should that cultural difference be respected or decried for not being as enlightened as 'our' federation?
Compare it to 'Justice' where you have a very 'Aryan' looking group (arguably as uncomfortably monocultured as Lutans people here.) who are again objectified sexually at points, and the flaw in their society is deeply authoritarian whilst presenting as extremely liberal. The Edo are a first contact situation however, so it's a very different set up to here.
The Federation are not meeting Lutan for the first time, nor are they there to help...they are there to trade, for a desperately needed resource. It's actually Lutan who holds all the power in that arrangement, and acts in accordance with that somewhat bizarre made up culture (but Yar isn't the first kidnapped Starfleet officer taken for bizarre reasons, and she won't be the last, male or female....off the top of my head Spocks Brain is fine example of a truly bizarre example, and there are plenty of others backwards and forwards in Trek. Sideways too, if you count Krall nabbing half the crew in Beyond.) because the real power in the episode lies with his wife.
In fact, the two characters with most power in the episode are Yar (physically) and Lutans wife (I won't lie...I only remember Lutan name because people mentioned it up thread, I don't remember details like names in this episode, because I do t much like it either xD) while the 'Patriarchal' figures basically have to sit on their hands throughout (let's not forget Picard was often referred to as a patriarchal figure in a positive way before the word became more heavily loaded across contexts rather than just one area. He was a father figure, this is particularly true of Yar.) who are basically in what once have been the Kirk and Guest Star roles.
Now I could be mistaken, but there was no 'rape' subtext...Yar was portrayed as physically powerful enough to kill Lutan, even if he had political power on his world... but then Yar is also a Starfleet officer, with a starship in orbit and the Federation behind her. The only thing preventing her from basically walking away was getting the medicine for the other planet. Ultimately Lutan is the villain, and is defeated, not only by Yar and the Starfleet crew (specifically Beverly Crusher pulling a Bones in Amok Time, but also Troi who consistently advises on the situation. Picard may be signing everything off, but this is oddly an episode where the female members of the crew basically actually do everything.) but by his wife...who holds the real power.
It's a mess of conflicting ideas, and I do think the director had some serious issues...that's really where the problem comes from. He pushes for a certain kind of portrayal from the guest stars, he made decisions that from his viewpoint appear to be motivated by some kind of prejudice. There's nothing inherently wrong in portraying Lutans group as very....monotone, to a certain extent. The same happens with other planets in Trek, it's just a different shade of monotone. The way the director piles certain things up make it clumsy and uncomfortably icky. That is then magnified by an audience, particularly a modern one, (and I think particularly a modern American audience) bringing different viewpoints to it (and helped by a snowball effect, where the episode gets heavier accusations heaped on it as time goes by. Star Trek VI is as problematic in many many ways, but it's snowball only just started moving really.) When you put it alongside the idea of 'whitewashing' when we get films casting Ancient Egypt, Ancient Persia.....this seems an odd inversion, especially as it's a fictional race, and one that is essentially portrayed as neutral in the narrative (Lutan is a villain, his planet however is not a villain race like say the Klingons were, or, again, the Edo.)
Personally, I don't like the episode for many of the same reasons discussed here... but think it's important to be objective, not least as you can end up with a polarisation between people's opinions and angry division.
To me, the costumes consisted of a more Middle Eastern influence, and Near East for the awful turban things on the men. The female costuming was Classical Greek for the hair and pure eighties California for her jumpsuit. Granted, the Director then went straight for 'Coming To America' which makes the costumes then spin into Sunday Best for Little Old Ladies in the African Church....but it's worn by the men, which makes it lean Middle/Near East again. (Also, it has nowhere near enough bright colours for real Sunday Best)
I actually don't recognise many of the 'Black Stereotype' accustations the episode gets, but only because the negative stereotypes I am familiar with are different...different people get different stereotypes around them. That doesn't discount them...I definitely think they are there, and that the director brought those to the table. I am just not sure how they apply to the episode, and how much is actually there, and how widespread those stereotypes are in the first place. Given Treks past, I am surprised they were allowed to have two 'white' women basically perving on a 'black' man in the time period.
Its a mess, and I think it's squarely on the director.
In summary...Code of Honour...fucking awful, but not as absolutely fucking awful as it has a reputation for, and unlike some other low points, it's far from objective as to why that is. (I return to my mention of The Child. That has some objectively bad shit in that's present in the writing 'who's the father?' In precisely the way Code of Honour doesn't.)
