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If anything, you could complain that it is copy pasted from modern culture, and doesn’t imagine the history of the timeline up until then, such as bell riots, eugenics wars, world wars, vulcans, establishment of the federation…
It feels disconnected from the world. Like an American microcosm snapshot of 2023 dropped into the world of the Star Trek future.
THAT I can understand as criticism.
Just calling it woke because “woke is bad” is just political trolling as it is everywhere. Like a cheap bot.
My favorite thing is to have them define “woke.” When they can’t because it’s only a buzzword to them, I explain it means “waking up” to the idea that you’re not the only human being with a purpose-filled life, that there are others for whom the system is built to deal a bad hand, and that the most ironic part is that 9 times out of 10 the individual I’m speaking to is not on the list of the “system’s chosen.”
To me, woke is when identity politics issues are intentionally inserted into a piece of media not to improve the quality of the story, but to push the creators political opinions. Even when I agree with them it annoys me, because it takes me out of the story and makes me feel like I’m being preached too or I’m consuming propaganda.
Disclaimer, I don’t watch star trek. I found this post browsing c/all
So gay characters should only be in media to tell stories about gay people problems? Is that how you think the real world works, like a gay person never accomplished anything other than progressing the gay agenda. Why can’t there just be a story of a man who does a thing and then goes home to his husband. You know, like how real life works lol.
Well that’s not what it means. It means being aware of and opposed to systemic injustices in our society, that’s all it means.
I watched season 1 of Picard and discovery and they just didn’t feel like Star Trek to me. The people complaining about how “woke” it is just distract from legitimate criticism. A lot of it for me was the sets. Their design was dark, gloomy and had an air of oppression that, while present in various forms across trek, wasn’t previously baked into the design of the federation. It was all moody lighting and permenantly frowning actors. That temperament translated into the writing as well but you’ve already addressed part of that. And I’ve got a bone to pick in general with season 1 of Picard but that’s a whole other rant lol
TNG was close to having a transgender episode, “The Outcast”, but they were stuck in their time and didn’t really make any kind of statement.
TOS made several comments on religion and running into powerful beings. In particular “Who Mourns for Adonais?”, which would’ve been a great take if not for Kirk saying “Mankind has no need for gods. We find the one quite adequate”.
I thought having Riker fall in love with one of the enby people was about as close to a statement of support as they could get in the 90s.
That’s the problem with woke as a term. No one can agree on what woke actually means, a bit like fascism.
Does it mean hyper left politics shoved in existing IPs? Sure, a lot would agree with that. How about overly corporate content that has as much soul as a lug nut? What about just generally bad content, or overdone content like the current round of superheo movies? I wouldn’t call them woke, but many would.
The problem with Star Trek and wokeness is that TNG/DS9/Voy was filled with 80s/90s era wokeness. Most people can get behind that. But 2020s era wokeness is a different beast, and it doesn’t seem to fit with the older content.
Both terms are clearly defined and people choose to use them wrong, like you did with your examples.
People where always upset with the level of “wokeness” in Star Trek. The difference being that less where aware of it and if you wanted to complain you had to physically write a letter, go down to the post office, buy some stamps, and mail it in. Today you can just tweet some bullshit from your couch.
Those of us who can remember the UseNet, AOL and BBS rants against LaForge, Sisko & Janeway can vouch that it was no less toxic in the late 1980s and 90s. It was just less of a mass conversation.
The point I was making there is no set definition for woke. And I probably shouldn’t have brought up fascism as a term, because while it’s a similar issue, it’s just not an argument to make. (For the record, fascism does not refer to 1930s Italy anymore, it’s evolved overtime)
Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular meaning “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination”. Woke has been used this way for decades and anyone using it differently is using it incorrectly.
Language evolves. Just ask anyone with a they/them pronoun.
No one can agree on what woke actually means
Truth. Word trends take some time to spread around the world, and by the time it reached me it was used mostly as a derogatory term. I could not figure out what it meant from context. Initially I thought it was related to red-pillers because it was used by the same kind of angry people.
I had to look up the definition eventually.
That’s what bothers me for a long time now and I’m glad I’m not alone: I like the stories but a black woman on the bridge? Really? But it’s ok, she was born in Africa so she’s not necessarily a former slave. What bothers me more is a later development: A Russian on a supposedly American ship! Even if it’s not explicitly American, there are Americans on the bridge and they sure as hell won’t serve with a Russian! What do they think? The cold war is over? But I have great hope in the planned new series. I hope the Next Generation won’t be that woke.
Just imagine what they could come up with in the future. A female captain? A black station commander? No way, Star Trek has gone down the gutter. I’m not watching TNG. They can stick their wokeness where the sun don’t shine.
Go back even further! The cage almost canceled the entire show because a woman was merely implied to be captaining the ship for a quick while 😰😰
And NBC threw a tantrum because of Uhura’s and Kirk’s kiss, which was made more ridiculous because the backlash they expected never came. I wonder how often they self-censored without any reason.
The wasn’t just implied to be anything, she was second in command. Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally for inclusion and diversity and stuff but a woman second in command is where I draw the line.
My favorite TOS episode was the one where they showed the clear superiority of the aliens with the white/black faces over the aliens with the black/white faces. The genocide part went a bit far, but in the end those black/white face guys had it coming.
You almost make it seem ridiculous by calling it black/white faces. It was the whole body! They wear gloves so you didn’t see it but it wasn’t just the face. That in mind, the white/black skinned were totally in their right. The genocide didn’t even happen, it’s just made up like most genocides are. The black/white people just prevented worse from happening.
I’m all for the idea of wokeness, but there are those that take it to an extreme. Those that would silence a black man making a honest case for color-blindness, calling him racist. Those that won’t put in any thought before declaring anyone who disagrees with them a racist/transphobe/xenophobe etc etc etc.
There is room for honest discussion and critical thinking, but there is this mob mentality ultraleft (and yea this exists in the right too) that seems incapable of critical thought and only capable of hating anything that opposes the groupthink.
Maybe just keep to the porn, eh?
you can always tell when someone has said something terrible and got called a fascist/nazi for it because they say stuff like this
It couldn’t be that I watched a talk like this:
https://youtu.be/QxB3b7fxMEA?si=_HLVoBr0moJg6Mkb
And liked the ideas, but then see that it’s being used to call the speaker racist and attempts at silencing him. Plus the unwillingness to even have a conversation.
https://youtu.be/KKZlb-MdzKo?si=bohTJwhwMD9QehI-
You vilify the idea of “just asking questions” to the point that no one can ask questions. That leaves me standing here, not understanding your position, but unwilling to blindly accept everything I’m told to think.
Sure, there are people who weaponize “just asking questions”, but is the solution really just to call every person with a contrary opinion a fucking nazi?
Edit: is anyone willing to tell me how the ideas in the first video are racist and worthy of silencing the person who speaks them?
Can you give us a good example that is exclusive to the ultra left, which doesn’t involve bigotry or “just asking questions” talking points?
Otherwise, the whole groupthink problem is a much wider issue, and why the two party system in the US is a problem.
Oh, no it is an everybody issue. It’s just what puts me off from people I otherwise frequently agree with.
buT BoTH SidEsYou know, it’s possible to be a leftist and still not agree 100% with the everything.
The response to my comment is precisely what I hate about the left. And yet, I’m still so much more aligned with the left that I could ever be with the right.
Removed by mod
Kirk made out with Uhura on prime time network television. Proportional to that time, it was probably the wokest thing ever.
Or just having a black woman on the bridge as a senior officer next to the captain
Or a Russian as a helmsman
Or a Japanese asian man next them
Or a freaking Scotsman yelling nonsense from the boiler room
It was the first televised interracial kiss.
At least in the USA if not the world.
It was the second actually.
Still pretty woke though.
People being free to do as they see fit is great. People being constrained from hurting others’ feelings not so much.
I haven’t seen the new star trek so I don’t know what kind of wokeness is being referred to, but if it were a matter of an interracial relationship I doubt people would be calling it woke.
Sounds like they were never a Trekkie to begin with.
They rarely are. They’re usually just someone who watched Star Trek and thought it looked cool. When it comes to the actual ideas and equality and giving people chances? Nah. The amount of “Trekkies” I’ve met who are aggressively for the death penalty for people who they politically disagree with or who are disgustingly racist? Phenomenally high.
Speaking only for my own experience, my exposure was with TNG as a kid before streaming and everything. It was always on in syndication daytime and late night and it was more interesting to me than other choices.
I didn’t know or understand anything about the message of the series. The more recent movies didn’t really highlight it for me at all either.
Now, however, we watched all of Strange New Worlds, we’re halfway through Discovery and just finished Picard and in retrospect it’s obvious that it’s always been a core part of the show.
Without the prior exposure and context? It might seem a little heavy handed but anybody who would consider it “woke” or too PC is likely a hard-right conservative, not a Trekkie.
My only thing is I disagree with the whole “complete dictatorial police state, but it’s cool because at least they’re a benevolent dictatorial police state” thing. Like yes every government other than the federation is worse, but just you try to have your own laws and customs contrary to Federation wishes. Better hope they can show up in time to save your ass from threats foreign or federation because no planets or people on them are allowed to have weapons, for instance.
I’ll bet (without knowing for sure) Roddenberry’s idea of the Federation didnt start out as a police state. But like with currency, it is hard for many writers to imagine humanity evolving past the need for policing our own and enforcing laws.
I could see that being the case.
Roddenberry didn’t imagine a moneyless future; that was an invention of “The Voyage Home”, which Roddenberry had no involvement with.
Ronald D. Moore commented, “By the time I joined TNG, Gene had decreed that money most emphatically did NOT exist in the Federation, nor did ‘credits’ and that was that.”
“Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” - release date: 26 November 1986
“Encounter at Farpoint” - original air date: 28 September 1987
“The Bonding” - the first episode of TNG Ronald D. Moore wrote, and sold as a spec script before getting hired as part of the writing staff, original air date: 23 October 1989There is plenty of references to money in TOS, and not merely as a figure of speech.
As a rather left leaning Person I have no problem with New Trek beeing “woke” in general.
I fucking hate Discovery, to a point that I had to give up on it after season 3. Picards first 2 season where almost as bad (I like the third season, more or less).
The problem is not so much the wokeness of those series, it’s that it’s just bad storytelling.
The way how “woke” ideas are implemented just feels like pandering to the audience. Homosexualyity, Non Binary characters, enviromentalism… I approve representation for all of those and would have loved to see them integrated in a meaningfull way. But the way they were handled it felt wrong to me, as if they were forced into the story rather than emerging from it organicly.
Well, as someone who’s gay, I’d say that the representation from Stamets and Culber didn’t feel forced or unnatural. If Stamets were straight and Culber were a woman then nothing would change. If Adira wasn’t non-binary then nothing would change. If Grey wasn’t trans then nothing would change. Stamets was on screen for like two episodes before you ever find out that he’s gay. Culber on for one. Adira doesn’t mention that they’re non-binary until halfway through Season 3 and the reaction is literally just “Okay” and they move on. Grey only has two throwaway lines mentioning a previous transition. Their characters are all well established without their sexuality or identity having any impact on the show. It would all be the same characters but straight. The show goes out of its way to demonstrate that being gay, trans or non-binary has literally nothing to do with the content of your character.
I am getting slightly tired though of seeing people who aren’t part of the community saying that the representation of us ‘feels forced’. Our mere existence isn’t forced. Moreover, are you really the one who gets to judge this? After people trying to kill us for decades, and then using us for marketing purposes, now y’all wanna judge whether our existence is “forced”?
A gay couple in a series today is as forced as a black woman on the bridge in the 60s. The people who complained about the latter are the same kind of people who complain about the former today and not even notice the latter. It’s also the same kind of people who won’t notice either in the future and complain about what ever. Star trek handled political topics very well from the beginning by showing it as normal and making it a topic in allegories, sometimes making it explicit like when Kirk and Bones talk about how the “cold war on earth in the 20th century never got hot” or how wrong the Vietnam war “was”.
You want your star trek before it was political? You can’t be talking about TOS, not even the first pilot. Maybe the intro?
The relationship between Stamets and Culber felt like the single island of humanity and goodness in the four seasons I almost got through. And then they fridged Culber, only to then bring him back with mushroom trauma. Not really the woke thing to do. Adira and Gray just seemed kinda pointless from what I remember, despite the somewhat interesting backstory.
What I found forced and entirely unnecessary was Lt. Connolly in the first episode of the second season or how they handled Leeland. To me it’s just a tone-deaf, mean-spirited show overall.
Calm down.
You don’t need to go into full attack Mode here. Im happy for you, that you felt repretented. I did not feel the way they handled it felt like good representstion. I’d be happy to see more representstion in general, I just wish it would be embedded into a better told story. If you are cool with the way it’s done: Good for you.
I am getting slightly tired though of seeing people who aren’t part of the community saying that the representation of us ‘feels forced’. Our mere existence isn’t forced. Moreover, are you really the one who gets to judge this? After people trying to kill us for decades, and then using us for marketing purposes, now y’all wanna judge whether our existence is “forced”?
This is a beautiful example of heteronormativity at work. You can disagree with me on how and if Discovery did a good job of representing LGBTQI+. topic or not without assuming my sexuality or implying thst I called out for the war on gays, thank you very much.
I am calm. If I was in attack mode it would be very different.
Im happy for you, that you felt repretented. I did not feel the way they handled it felt like good representstion.
Why? You have not yet explained or elaborated that point. You’ve just went “Nah. Not good.” Meanwhile that representation has won literal awards from multiple different international organizations that are specifically devoted to LGBTQIA+ representation.
’d be happy to see more representstion in general, I just wish it would be embedded into a better told story.
There is a massive difference between “the story isn’t a good one and gay characters shouldn’t be brought down by bad writing” and “this is bad representation and feels forced”. You did not originally say that it was “embedded into a better told story” originally which is what I’m responding to.
This is a beautiful example of heteronormativity at work.
Correct. I assumed you were straight because I have yet to meet anyone from the LGBTQIA+ community who would be so self-sabotaging that they say it’s bad representation while being wildly unclear about your stance and opinion. While it’s a little on me to make an assumption, you can’t exactly blame me when for my entire life I’ve been forced to justify my simple existence to people who constantly judge me day after day by what they think the standard is. Not only that but generally I think that if someone is going to be giving the opinion on whether or not the representation is good of a particular group, they should openly be saying that they’re part of the group. Otherwise it just sounds like you’re a complete stranger looking in and judging the representation on behalf of a group that never asked for it.
Gay characters are allowed to exist. The representation was fine and probably the best representation that we’ve gotten in a while. Moreover, it’s the only representation we’ve gotten on a large scale in Star Trek at any point in history. And once again, it has won literal awards for its representation.
Edit: The amount of you who are willing to downvote me for daring to point out blatant bigotry, while upvoting that same bigotry, is absolutely disgusting. You should be utterly fucking ashamed of yourself.
I feel like often criticism of how representation is done in media is really just veiled criticism that it’s normalized in the show.
It’s like representation should only be blatant and pandering (so it can be called woke by the same people) or so far in the background it’s easy to ignore it or not catch it if you’re not who’s being represented.
I love that it’s just business as usual in these shows and the representation is organic, because that’s real life.
Exactly.
Can’t LGBT+ be included unless its meaningful? I dont like that “pandering” argument. It is too easy to misuse, too subjective.
I want them included in bad shows as much as in good shows. I want a random background person to be gay just as much as an important character. Best case would be if we didnt even raise an eyebrow on seeing a LGBT+ character and rather critizise their acting or plot instead of blaming “pandering”. I dont hear anyone call forcing a unecessary romantic straight subplot into a plot for “pandering”.
I dont hear anyone call forcing a unecessary romantic straight subplot into a plot for “pandering”.
That line needs to be screamed from the heavens. For every single person who claims that “Oh their sexuality or identity feels forced” they seem to have no problem with stuff like Hulk and Black Widow having a relationship, or baby t-shirts saying surprisingly sexual stuff (or at least innuendo). Or saying that their kids are dating someone else simply because their child dares to be friends with the opposite sex.
It’s exhausting. Everytime there is a gay character it has to meet some random standard that does not exist for any straight characters.
Best case would be if we didnt even raise an eyebrow on seeing a LGBT+ character
This is what I’ve liked about Discovery in particular. It feels to me like it’s just organic and normal. They don’t highlight or make a spectacle of the LGBT+ characters’ gender/identity and it’s just there, normal and regular, just like in real life.
As a rather left leaning Person I have no problem with TOS beeing “woke” in general.
The way how “woke” ideas are implemented just feels like pandering to the audience. Black, Asian and female characters… At least they got rid of number one after the pilot, no need to pander to the female audience with two women on the bridge crew.
-Gloomys grandfather probably
Gloomy have you ever watched Star Trek? Like not just watched the pretty lights on the TV but ingested the story? The idea of the new episodes being more “woke” than the classic, TNG or DS9 is garbage.
I was so blinded by the ‘bad representation of homosexuality’ nonsense that I missed the environmentalism aspect. Environmentalism is too much for Star Trek?! The Voyage Home (just a single example) is explicitly about environmentalism and how hunting/pollution led to the extinction of marine life. If I spent 30 seconds on google I’d probably find another half dozen episodes that are specifically about it or the impacts of it.
Im not saying Envormentalim is too much for Star Trek. Nor am I saying Queer topic are. That’s simply not what I wrote anywhere.
I said they felt tucked on. Read my comment below got some more detail, if you want to.
But thanks anyway for your input, I have done some more reading and somewhat have to agree with you.
ST:D did indeed treat Queer topic with respect. It’s still a shitty show and I see the pandering aspect of it. I do still wish it would have been embedded in a better story (and way of telling said story). But I do stand corrected in regards to their overall handling Queer topics.
It’s been some time since I watched ST:D and it was a quite negative experience overall. I suppose that lead to me not seeing the positives in it. I did some more reading now and see where you are coming from.
Thanks again for your input.
I have, yes, since I was about 10. Ive seen all of old Trek up to DS9 multiple times. Im not saying New is more woke.
Im saying that progressiv and “woke” ideas used to be told in a orgsnic way that felt natural to the world they were told in. Modern Star Trek, to me, is badly told stories with fanservice and woke ideas glued onto them in an awkward way.
Buddy at the time Sisco being Sisco was a big deal. It was not organic and it definitely wasn’t accepted by everyone. You need more context for the times when the past series came out. You don’t feel like the past series are pushing the boundaries because those boundaries have already been pushed. All of that stuff has been normalized and accepted in part because of Star Trek.
You have the right to not like the new Star Trek series but you can’t blame it on it being progressive and woke because that’s always been Star Treks MO.
Seems like your problem is that it’s normalized in the new shows and not being made to be a spectacle.
I’d love examples of how the story of the newer shows has progressive ideas “glued onto them” and how representation could be better done.
I have spend some time reading and have to agree with you. I do stand by some of my statements and am happy to provide examples:
Environmental Issus
I refer to “Sanctuary” (ST:D S3E08) here. The underlying message of the episode is, of course, pro environmental. My main issue is, that it is so very very not subtle about it. The obvious good guy of COURSE is an “empath” and OF COURSE everybody on the planet is oh so nice to animals, to a point of asking them kindly to leave again (powered by a magical space laser), instead of forcing them out. And OF COURSE they live in complete harmony with nature, because THEY ARE THE GOOD GUYS, CAN’T YOU SEE HOW F-ING GOOD THEY ARE.
It’s tiering. It’s so so obvious who are the goodies and the badies. There is no grey here, nothing thought provoking. This is, in my opinion, pandering to the left crowd.
Which I am member of. I count myself as someone, who is very much interested in the whole topic of climate chance, systems collapse and environmental movement. It’s a topic that matters to me. Here it is not driven forward. The episode isn’t showing anything new; it’s not presenting any solutions; it’s not highlighting any problems. It doesn’t trust its audience with the ability to think for themselves. It’s like getting pre-chewed food. You don’t have to question anything, don’t have to conclude anything. It’s just plane obvious how this should be viewed. The whole episode comes down to Environmentalism = Good Anti-Enviromentalism = Bad. And I agree. But this episode is using the pro Environmental stance of the characters to drive the point home how good and nice they are.
The episode would be the same if they landed on a planet where the bad guys are threatening to kill all puppies and the good guys are the only ones defending them. It’s lazy and it’s bad writing and it reduces a very important issue of our time (I’d go so far as to say the most important issue of our time) to a mere backdrop.Let me compare that to, for example, the way how the Malon are presented in Voyager. Of course the mask appears to be the same, just from the other side (pollution = bad). But there are at least some nuances to this theme. I’ll not go into so much detail, but the fact that Voyager is literally offering them a solution to their problem (of pollution) and they turn it down because there is a whole industry around managing pollution at least is a critical take on our modern society, without patronizing the audience too much.
Queerness
The “forced” aspect I was thinking about, when I wrote my original comment, mainly comes from the way how Sevens and Rafis relationship is treated in ST:Picard.
To me it felt like there was no organic build up to it. It just popped up and then disappeared again. There was no real build up to it, in my opinion (!). This is what I mean when I say tucked on. It would make no difference if one of the two has a different sex. It would still feel of and weirdly out of character. It’s very much in line with how season one and two of ST:P treat their storylines, which are often oversimplified, dumbed down and often not explored to the extend they would have deserved. Rafis and Sevens relationship felt glued on and almost like an afterthought. That’s what I mean pandering to the left crowd. It’s not organic or natural, it’s just forced into there (and the only reason I can think of is to hold up a Neon sign about how woke they are).
ST:D handled, things way better, as I have learned after doing some reading up on the topic over the last couple of hours.
Homosexual, Trans- and Non-Binary characters are treated in a positive light, and, at least in the case of gay persons, normalized, as @Stamets has pointed out upthread. I’d wish for ST:D to take this one farer, as detailed below, but hey, it’s definitely the right direction to walk in. Plus, I now do indeed feel they treated Queer topics with respect (after reading about it some more).
It’s a shame how it is embedded in a shitshow of a story, but after reading some of the comments here and doing some more research I absolutely have to agree: They handled it fine. I do stand corrected in that regard and am happy to admit so.
My remaining problem with Non-Binarity, and how it is treated, is how it is still handled as something out of the ordinary. I would prefer ST to uphold it’s utopian take on things. In a utopian world Non-Binarity would be a non-issue. I think it would have been a much more revolutionary stance if ST:D showed people choosing /changing and modifying their pronouns regularly, without it being in the spotlight too much. Because, if one thought this to its end, that’s the kind of future society that has arrived beyond the dichotomy of binary genders.
Think about how being vegetarian is presented in ST:TNG. Humanity has simply moved on from it. There are a few remarks towards this here and there, but mainly it is treated as a given. I would have loved for ST:D to take a similar approach to Non-Binarity.
Thank you for the response. I totally see where you’re coming from on the non-binary part, and I haven’t gotten to S3E08 in ST:D so I’ll have to keep this in mind.
As far as Raffi and Seven, they felt like extraneous characters after season 2 in general and I felt like Picard dragged the further I got into the series.
The stories suck and neither fanservice nor wokeness save new trek from being worse than the trek from our youth.
Take my upvote
The same people would be upset to learn that Rage Against the Machine is politically charged and not just nonsense you can bop your head to.
Anybody ever watch Earth Space Dock zone chat in STO? I last visited around the time Trump was materializing as an actual possibility as a presidential candidate. The toxicity put r/thedonald to shame.
Rule one of STO - if you value your sanity, turn off zone chat.
OG startrek was probably the “wokest” thing on TV in the sixties. And a bunch of grouchy old men that no one cared about bitched about it back then too.
TNG was woke, and DS9 was dark. What star trek is has always been.
I started with The Orville (I know, it’s not Star Trek), then Lower Decks, TNG, and now DS9. If you want woke, The Orville is very woke and I really enjoyed it, they brought up trans rights and gay rights issues. Following that, TNG isn’t really woke I don’t think, there’s still some traditional patriarchy issues in there iirc but it’s still a pretty moderate show.
In my opinion, The Orville is the startreckiest series ever made.
DS9 was also woke and fun. TNG and TOS had dark episodes. I miss the diversity in modern trek
Set phasers to … Stun
Cool, never seen a gold colored Enterprise before.
And Personal Computer?
Cool ship
Cope, seethe, dilate. New Trek sucks. And not just cause it openly takes one side in every cultural dispute but because it’s uninspired and generic. Ooooh, green evil alien lady! We eat our own shit lol! Gene the scum cleaner! Non-binary ghosts! Jan 6 caused WWIII!
Clown behaviour. Have a time out.
The meme isn’t saying that new Trek is a masterwork.
It’s saying that anyone who somehow missed the fact that star trek has literally always been very woke has the media literacy of a hamster.
