Spoilers Was Picard Season 3 an Allegory for anything?

The true Next Generation are the friends we make along the way.

 

I've seen the argument--from both the "woke" and the "anti-woke" side--that there's a message about "woke culture" here.

Like when Jack complains about broken systems, poverty, bigotry and all the other illnesses of the world, shortly before running away to find a place that's welcoming, not broken, without suffering or fear. And then Picard talks to him about how Jack always felt different and pushed others away so that they'd never "see the real you", in a possible allegory for being LGBT+.

The supposed allegory being that young people flee from the illnesses of the world into woke harmonious safe spaces with like-minded other young people, but it's also fleeing from life or something. Turns out the solution isn't to stay with the hive mind of young people who rebel against their elders and destroy the world, but to return to his parents and join Starfleet. It's the older generation who was right.

I don't find this far fetched, I did get "don't worry, this isn't Woke Trek" vibes throughout the season. This season is also sometimes celebrated as a supposed "fuck you to Kurtzman Trek" (as in the latest RedLetterMedia video), and among other things Kurtzman Trek is often associated with (and lambasted for) "wokery".

I don't think this is necessarily what they had in mind, but I also don't think it wouldn't fit.

 

^^Although that's not the specific example that jumped at me, I did see a sort of "anti-woke" message in the final two episodes that made me realize may that's why people like RMB and his ilk praise the season so much. Specifically, once the assimilated virus takes hold and all the young people become under the control of the Borg, Shaw the white male in authority is killed. It is then Ensign Esmar, the non-binary character who sits in the Captain's chair from there on, effectively being in symbolic command of the Titan. Which seemed to me like they were sending the message that everything is okay while the white man is in charge and then the non-binary person takes charge represents the collapse of society. Then, Picard, a white man is the one who goes to the Borg cube to convince Jack, another white man that only he is capable of saving the world. Maybe that wasn't the intentional message, but when you do look at it like that and consider the context of this season's popularity amongst RMB and others like him, most of whom are bitter middle-aged white men, well...

 

Really, what scares me about this season isn't that this kind of message could be discovered in it (hell, I couldn't help but think of the Borg DNA written into the human genome as an accidental allegory for the "woke mind virus" when the plot unfurled), but rather the sheer volume of self-professed megafans actually cheering for it online. As though progressive ideals were a demon possessing the body of Star Trek, a well known conservative and anti-woke franchise, that Saint Terry came and exorcised.

 

People see what they want to see.

 

Perhaps this one is coincidental. I had not made the connection between the character and the debate over trans identity because the character was so much in the background. It's too minor of a detail. I know that there are people who frequent this platform who applaud almost all honest portrayals of LGBT persons, even when the character is shown to be flawed and evil. Indeed, many interpret Seven of Nine as a trans character. Nevertheless, this could still be seen by conservative viewers as folding into a particular narrative.

 

(Who is RMB, for those of us not in the know...?)

 

Robert Meyer Burnett. Purported entertainment journalist and documentarian. Would be director of Axanar: has been butthurt ever since.

 

The importance of family.

 

Allegory done really well... the Borg transporter DNA alteration could be about the "woke mind virus taking over Gen Z" or "Fox news brainwashing Boomers", or "creative constraints in current Hollywood" ... or sometimes a plot point is just a plot point. It gives something for you to think about, without taking a side or telling you what you should think.

Granted, there is a stronger message that yes the past and legacy do matter. So it could be anti-presentism...

 

Robert Meyer Burnett, who ran a successful production company specializing in special features for DVD/BluRay releases amongst other geek culture-related projects. He did quite a few for the Star Trek films and built a bit of a following as a Big Name Fan, and he's friends with people like Inglorious Treksperts podcast hosts Darren Dochterman (visual effects guy and Big Name Fan who's worked on several ST projects, most famously the Director's Edition of TMP) and Mark Altman (author of numerous Star Trek-related books, entertainment journalist specializing in geek culture in the 1990s, showrunner of The Librarians on TNT and creator/showrunner of Pandora). He's become infamous in recent years for his frankly toxic hatred of most modern Star Trek productions, and for, in spite of his professed claims of being a liberal Democrat, some extremely misogynistic and racist statements he's made on Twitter.

 

I think many can agree that TOS reflected secular humanism, new frontier modernist social liberalism, meritocracy, etc of the 1960s. But the debate now is whether the current state of "progressivism" is a natural extension of modernist liberalism, or an illiberal diversion. The Star Trek franchise has many liberal, moderate, and conservative fans. Progressive activists are only 6-8% of the population of the franchise's home market. It comes down to how broad or how narrow an audience a production would want to target.

 

Yeah, this.

It reminds me a bit of when you hear a song and you're sure you know what the lyrics mean as you decode them, and then you read an interview with the writer and it turns out to be something completely different.

You can make anything seem like a narrative you want to see or hear. I don't think there are any overriding allegories in season 3, short of people doing the song lyrics thing. Compare that to "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", for example, which is very unambiguously examining the cost of prejudice.

 

This is a really important point. And that's why, to your point earlier, allegory is a powerful tool: it's subtle and often examines a topic without feeding the answer, and generates thought. It isn't there to scream "YOU'RE WRONG!" - as though anybody previously opposed would suddenly change their mind because an entertainment show told them off.

What you are saying here, which I agree with, is that there isn't consensus on what liberalism now looks like. And in that context, we need to get back to examining issues; assumption from any side that they are solely right really is a rather Borg perspective.

 

Miscalibrated, it's likely to backfire and alienate the median decision makers against your cause.

Especially in a democracy...

 

The only people who are confused about liberalism these days are conservatives—but just like any species that can't adapt, they'll be extinct soon.

 

Completely agree, as well as the tendency to malign those who don't align perfectly with our own views of what a political stance should look like.

 

On the other hand, there are a lot of people who use that exact rhetoric to rationalize taking stances that systemically harm minority groups without recognizing that such harms occur.

 

I'm sorry, I didn't understand your point (I'm probably reading it wrong!) - could you give me an example to illustrate it?

 

To be fair, Jesse Gender seems to agree with RMB that the allegorical message of Season 3 was anti-Woke, anti-Feminist, and anti-LGBTQ... Yet, this season was incredibly popular and well-received... uniting fans.


To me, I found the allegory on social media/technology detrimentally mindwiping and corrupting Gen Z quite telling. Perhaps a commentary on the TikTok generation and the massive mental health decline of that generation. Breaking free of the collective was portrayed as a very empowering moment.

I also enjoyed that they portrayed the previous generation as the better one, and raised them up as the example for the next generation to emulate. It left the 25th century in a hopeful place if this story is ever continued.