• Zephorah@discuss.online
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    19 hours ago

    This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Star Trek is the original woke.

    A black woman was part of command staff on the bridge.

    They entertained TVs first interracial kiss.

    Their society doesn’t involve money.

    They have a no interference policy as the prime directive, completely opposite the bottom line of the United States.

    Roddenberry knew Takei was gay.

    For an example of TOS’ level of woke, please refer to Season 3, Episode 15: Let That Be Your Last Battlefield

    • SaraTonin@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      They entertained TVs first interracial kiss

      This is not true, in several ways.

      Firstly, it needs the modifier “American” in there. The UK’s first interracial kiss on TV, for example, was in 1962.

      Secondly, if we’re defining “interracial” as specifically between someone Black and someone white, then Nancy Sinatra & Sammy Davis Jr. preceded Star Trek by a year.

      Thirdly, perceptions of race change. The studio which made I Love Lucy was extremely hesitant to allow Ball & Arnaz to portray themselves as a married couple, precisely because the fact that Arnaz was Cuban meant that the marriage was “interracial”. The kiss they shared in the first episode - in 1951 - would have been seen at the time as an interracial kiss.

      Fourthly, even without a changing definition of race there had been previous interracial kisses on the lips on US television - William Shatner himself had previously twice shared a romantic on-screen kiss with someone of Asian descent, once actually in Star Trek.

      None of this is to diminish the importance, impact, or progressiveness of the Uhura/Kirk kiss, but it is often overstated. It doesn’t need to be the first ever interracial kiss on TV to be significant. If it really does have to be the first ever something, then it’s the first ever kiss on the lips on US television between a Black person and a white person.

    • drcobaltjedi@programming.dev
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      12 hours ago

      Yeah it’s a profoundly stupid take.

      There’s the famous Whoopi Goldberg quote about how as a little kid she saw it with a black woman not beimg a maid and running around the house screaming about it in celebration

      There’s the famous story about Nichelle Nichols wanting to quit to do plays until MLK jr told her that she needed to stay for black people everywhere to be represented as an equal member of the crew, and it was the only show he’d let his kids stay up late to watch.

      From its inception it’s been “woke” by daring to put both a black woman and an asian man in roles where they were to be treated as equals and valued members of the group.

      I’d like to add more examples, but it’s been so long since I’ve watched any star trek.

      EDIT: I just remembered the not at all subtile jab at racism with the two guys that had half black half white faces.

      • Mirshe@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        Even into the later series, people had to fight to do interesting things with it. IIRC the network was skittish about Voyager because nobody would possibly be interested in a scifi show with a female lead.

      • JustTesting@lemmy.hogru.ch
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        10 hours ago

        DS9 has lots of stuff against racism, either with aliens or black people in time travel episodes. And the one where Quark transitions for an episode and it’s not just milked for laughs or similar, for the 90s that was handled pretty tactfully. lots of womens rights topics, especially with Ferengi.

        And in a way that whole show was a critique of imperialism/colonialism

      • rainwall@piefed.social
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        12 hours ago

        Another example : roddenbury wanted the 1st officer to be a woman on TOS, and shot the pilot with Majel Barret in the role, well before they were married. The studio shot it down and ordered a new pilot.

    • pheonixdown@sh.itjust.works
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      16 hours ago

      Conservatives do not understand subtext, satire, or allegory. They don’t assign what they like or don’t based on any meaningful understanding of the message it conveys. They get told what to like and believe by authority and follow it, constantly dismissing or dissonancing any message from what they consume that doesn’t align with their instilled beliefs.

    • SocProf@masto.aiOP
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      19 hours ago

      @Zephorah And all of this is pretty obvious to anyone with their brain turned on. But even that seems a bridge too far for some.