Was Deep Space Nine Politically Correct? - Precedence for Future Star Trek?

First, I’d like to say Deep Space Nine was a work of art, if you binge watch from first to last, instead of remembering week to week views…

Yet, I do have to wonder about… The fact that Star Trek does tend to have alien races represent political occurrences, it sure seems that way…


As such, based on nose structure, the Ferengi feels like the most offensive example I can think of…

Wiki: The Ferengi and their culture are characterized by an extreme mercantile obsession with profit, trade, and exploitation for gain, in which greed, extortion and scamming are considered praiseworthy behaviors and acquisition is raised to the status of a near-religion.


And it felt like, the justification that Ferengi wasn’t a metaphor for anti-Semitic descriptions, was the story of the beautiful Bajorans


Then again, it felt like there was the same attempt between Deep Space Nine crews and Klingons…

I’m guessing the core formula is:

If I’m human, I’m not allowed to be Klingon

If I wanted to emphasize with the Klingon then I’d be imagining I was them, which I am not allowed to do

Thereby empathy towards Klingons is punished, as it does not represent them and their beliefs.


I’ve been imagining creating alien cultures, and I have to admit, the formulations of … birth by self through redesign of cybernetic self, as a means of new emerged self procreation… these are the concepts that float by my mind and feel enjoyable now… Etc.


It’s like 7 of 9, I think I’d have made 7 of Nine realize that her designation was like council to Queen, as they all connect so Borg Queen has fuller conscious, so within Voyager capturing 7 of 9, they’d have gained a literal fraction of all borg technology… and then made it maybe more about the borg universe… yet maybe writers thought… naa .. its own series


Anyhow cheers

 

What? I'm not sure I understand your point, but I'll just mention that Jadzia would partake in Klingon culture often and hope that it is relevant to your point. I know she's not human, but close enough.

 

To be fair, the Ferengi and the Bajorans both originated on TNG. Same goes for all of the other races you mentioned. DS9 may have expanded on them, but they were building upon pre-established work.

Otherwise, I'm with Tosk.

 

I'm also not sure I understand the point. But the Ferengi on DS9 were a deliberate move to make them a more sympathetic race, not the dehumanized stupid smelly little trolls depicted on TNG.

 

DS9 worked to flesh out the likes of the Ferengi, Bajorans, Cardassians and Trill in a way TNG never did. They each have their core beliefs but how members of their respective species approached them varied, giving nuance and differing perspectives (e.g. Quark is a "stereotypical" Ferengi, who is looking to gouge his customers and exploit his workforce for his own good, but even that softens over time; Rom wants to do the same, but realises his family is more important and embarks on doing what he wants; Nog comes to the realisation he is much like his father so wants to do something meaningful with his life by joining Starfleet; even Zek, the most Ferengi Ferengi in the series shows his progressive side by extending rights to females).

 

God no. Political correctness ruins things.

 

True, but overreactions to political correctness ruin things even more. It leads to people being openly racist or misogynist and dismissing all offense as 'Political correctness gone awry'. Need to find the middle ground where we can both not be racist and also not get excessively offended by things we don't agree with.

Star Trek has a lot of races that represent one aspect of humans. *Some* of those things are going to be close to negative stereotypes applied to one group of humans, and it doesn't mean that was the intent.

 

I am not sure what the OP was trying to say but I will say I don't think the show did anything super racist via the aliens. I also don't buy into the idea the Ferengi are suppose to be a slur against Jewish people. I see why people might think that but to me I think they were Roddenberry's comment on 80's "Greed is good" Reaganomics more than anything else. He made them ugly on the outside as he felt their views were on the inside. Even in their first episode we get a reference to Yankees or how they won't look like, Uncle Sam.

Let's not forget the gold press latitnum wasn't even invented until DS9 but by then I think they just needed to invent some reaccurring money since they were going to have a Ferengi regular and the name sounds kind of cool and the humans can relate to the gold part and the rest is just different enough to sound futuristic.


Jason

 

Being vague or exaggerated doesn't make fictional alien races either representative of racial stereotypes in and of themselves, nor is it necessarily supportive of stereotyping in general. There have been some poorly constructed alien races and cultures in Star Trek. However, they aren't there to construct how we are supposed to see "the other:" they are lenses on our lives, our actions and our values. And I think that Deep Space Nine did it better than the other series by looking at how people with different worldviews interacted with one another, sometime with difficulty, but still living side-by-side: Bajorans, Ferengi, Humans, Klingons, etc., all pursuing their interests as determined by their cultures while belonging to the same community. Armin Shimmerman and Avery Brooks never saw eye to eye, but they remained professional and dedicated to the work (the same can be said for Quark and Sisko). Compare that to Voyager, where people from various walks of life were compelled to uphold Federation values.

 

DS9 was stuck with the look of the Ferengi since they were established on TNG. The big ears and the big noses. According to the late Herbert Wright, a first season producer on TNG, the Ferengi were modelled on sleazy hollywood producers and lawyers. In an interview with Cinefantastique Brannon Braga expressed distain for the Ferengi, stating that they were based on ethnic stereotypes. On DS9 Ira Behr said the Ferengi represented 20th century humans of all races with all of our greed and avarice.

 

Really? I've not heard that.

 

It's true! Quark and Sisko didn't get along.

 

Serious answer: Brooks had some heated professional disputes with some of the other actors on matters to acting. No one has said whom, but by process of elimination, it was Shimmerman and Auberjonois.

 

Very interesting, thanks.

 

I wonder what he said. Shimmerman and Auberjonois were two of the better actors on DS9.

 

I read in Mark Altman's book that Brooks and Siddig weren't very close. I felt like I even noticed it when they shared a scene. I think Brooks was only really close to Lofton for the most part and they had a almost real father/son realtionship.


Jason

 

Siddig says he was close to Brooks for a good few seasons, but had some sort of falling out. I think that at the stage they filmed Past Tense, there is actually a decent rapport on display.

I think that the key is that Brooks, Shimmerman and Auberjonois were the more intellectual actors. Notice that all three teach extensively?

 

In case anyone was wondering how professional these fights could be (although nerdy might be a better description):

 

Very nice story! Thanks for posting the clip.