Since Discovery, despite the Star Trek writers repeatedly beating us over the head with this, I still somehow didn’t catch onto the pattern. If there is a through-line to all the new shows, the notion that acknowledging one’s own vulnerability is a sign of individual strength, and that showing support when others are being vulnerable around you, is also a sign of individual strength.
This may not feel “woke” in the way it’s usually understood, but I really think it’s pushing a long overdue envelope, and one that is arguably more important to our times than a half-black half-white face representing the “illogical” nature of racism.
For example: when I read the angry tweets about the new series (ie; the “pussification of men”, etc.) I can’t even force myself to see them as coming from anything other than weak, scared people who are too afraid of what the world would think of them if they expressed their authentic selves. They want to scare the rest of us into being as scared as they are, because they believe it will make them feel less alone. But loneliness can only be fixed by showing vulnerability.
And that’s the root of the problems in our modern era, isn’t it? Deeply insecure people hurting others in a desperate effort to not be hurt themselves. They haven’t always portrayed this concept in a graceful way, but kudos to Star Trek for keeping up the tradition of asking its audience: “What is it you’re so afraid of?”
Why are you even listening to the opinions of CHUDs?
The problem with new trek isn’t “wokeness”, too little or too much. It’s that they abandoned what made Trek so unique: It’s supposed to be a time after humanity has dealt with all of the stupid in-fighting and conservative BS. It’s supposed to be about a time when the drama doesn’t come from inside the house. When humanity is exploring the stars, not having a moment.
It’s just a complete lack of imagination. It’s not like Trek has ever been wanting for drama. They just decided to write new Trek in the lamest, same-old Hollywood way possible.
The problem is it’s action and drama scifi now, and not a real vision of a better future. It’s no longer unique or enlightened. It’s just drama with Trek paint.
It’s supposed to be a time after humanity has dealt with all of the stupid in-fighting and conservative BS. It’s supposed to be about a time when the drama doesn’t come from inside the house. When humanity is exploring the stars, not having a moment.
Though they clearly haven’t, even if they think so. For example, if you’re not an organic humanoid, it’s very much up in the air whether you’ll be treated as a person, or as an inconvenience.
The Measure of a Man was constrained to apply to that one instance, in Data’s case, and he had the Sutherland automatically assuming the worst of him and nearly comm itting mutiny. Both the ExoComps and the EMH suffer from people thinking they’re malfunctioning and factory resetting/lobotomising them.
If you’re in a war with the Federation, it’s equally ambiguous whether they’ll stick to their own rules of conflict. The moment they feel threatened, they’ll do things like unleash a deadly bio-weapon/memetic-weapon against your species, start laying self-replicating mines, or just make plans to blow up your homeworld. At best, your fate is left to the whims of a handful of admirals and captains.
Even within the Federation, Admiral Satie was not a isolated instance. She only made two mistakes, in going up against an unusually accepting crew that would bat for one of their own, and losing her composure in front of another admiral. If she hadn’t, her crusade against Romulans in Starfleet would have continued unabated.
The fact that she could start it would suggest that those attitudes exist and are underlying within Starfleet. At least, on a significant enough level that she wasn’t treated as being unusually paranoid about a non-issue.
Also, – watching at the age I am now – it’s hard for me to not notice how much carceral justice is taken as a given rather than anything remotely more restorative.
And treatment of mental disability still unfomfortably mirrors our current system than anything I’d hope for so far into the future.
I think we can accept that the premise is we’ve made astounding strides and there are still areas of improvement; I don’t think that tarnishes the hopeful and utopian dream at the heart of Star Trek.
I think we can accept that the premise is we’ve made astounding strides and there are still areas of improvement; I don’t think that tarnishes the hopeful and utopian dream at the heart of Star Trek.
It doesn’t, but it also shows that even in the future, they’re not free from the foibles of being a person. Achieving and maintaining something like the Federation needs active, constant work. They can’t just go bang, Federation, and be done with it for good. Constant vigilance is the price we must pay for our freedoms.
It’s an angle that I’m honestly disappointed that hasn’t been tackled yet, since it seems perfect for a Star Trek story. Early Picard seemed to be going that way, with former Borg drones being mistreated, and the Federation outlawing reproduction for inorganic beings, but then it veered off for the Season 3 plot.
There’s a really juicy three-way conflict between people who think that the Federation is too soft to survive, those who think it’s fine as it is, and those who think it doesn’t go far enough, and should be expanded to cover more, that could easily come into play, and show how much work it took them to get and stay there.
That is a small thing. Meanwhile in Picard you have have the most boomer takes you can get : technology bad, young are brainwashed, fate,… I haven’t seen any science after season 1, and I haven’t seen any progress.
Let’s give Picard some credit, it spent most a season giving us a look at the challenges of building a community while evading immigration officers, and the heartbreak of losing someone whose only crime was being “illegal” or undocumented.
Yes indeed. But the season before that it showed us a planet were romulan migrants took over the planet they took refuge on and made an apartheid for them.
There are a few good things in Picard. There are also a lot of terrible things.
migrants took over [an area] they took refuge on and made an apartheid for them.
That sounds familiar.
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I don’t think that planet was portrayed as a particularly idyllic place…
That is irrelevant to the matter.
The implication is that the portrayal of bad things is somehow an endorsement of bad things, so it most certainly is not.
You’re wrong. This is a depiction of something that doesn’t exist and hasn’t existed in the last 2 centuries. Yet this is what the far right is obsessed about. That is called propaganda.
That is a small thing.
I extremely disagree but I’d be curious to know your thought process behind saying it. To me, it seems like the biggest thing and that every social issue ever addressed in every Star Trek series has this at it’s core.
By this I mean that it’s a step forward and a step backward. The good things don’t remove the bad ones.
I seems like your combining two separate groups and their separate criticisms. I’ve definitely criticised the new shows for not doing woke well. I think TNG era trek also covered vulnerability but in a more subtle way, were new Trek seems overly dramatic and forced to me.
I think anyone who complains about characters being pussies is probably a conservative who is just looking for something to complain about today lol.
I really don’t think I am. Star Trek has always wrapped social topics in a scifi setting. It just took me until now to recognize what social topic they’ve been advocating this time, and it isn’t “nonbinary people are people too”, or “Black women can be a main character”. It’s “Not being ashamed to expose your vulnerabilities is a sign of strength more powerful than the mightiest Klingon warrior”. And “Standing up and showing support to others being vulnerable” is a sign of strength too.
The way we are quick to dismiss those expressing their vulnerability as “being dramatic” is exactly the topic they’re addressing. They’re trying to make us ask WHY vulnerability makes us uncomfortable. Facing it dead on takes extreme courage.
