I saw "MSHEU" in the titles of the current tide of nerd rage videos, guessed it was something monumentally stupid and looked it up
These reactionary dorks are ruining hating on shitty entertainment slop
I saw "MSHEU" in the titles of the current tide of nerd rage videos, guessed it was something monumentally stupid and looked it up
These reactionary dorks are ruining hating on shitty entertainment slop
lol, Star Trek was like the original "woke" show with a black character and the first American TV show to have a black and white person kiss.
disclaimer: I've never watched Star Trek, so all my info comes through random facts.
I was just complaining about conservative Trek fans to someone a few days ago. They jerk each other off because the guy who invents the warp drive in universe did it for the wealth and prestige it brought him. They never mention that Earth went through a nuclear holocaust and eugenics war before becoming a post scarcity society.
I loathe those people. To my mind they simply don't understand what Star Trek is truly about. It's not about space battles, or technobabble, or yelling in lieu of good writing, or labyrinthine plots with no conclusion. It's not even about space per se. It's about driving home the message of "If we could just stop brutalizing each other for the goal of acquiring each others' stuff, and just start cooperating in good faith and treating other people with respect, we can accomplish wonders together." Or maybe I'm just old-fashioned about that.
I think that's why I love Lower Decks. Deep down it has that core of optimism, that spark of hope. The LD characters have some real flaws, but they don't wallow in those flaws. They try to do good. In the very first episode, when we see Mariner planet-side, she's not doing some badass combat shit and trying to show off as some sort of hero. She's smuggling free farming equipment to the locals. Her first priority is making sure their giant-spider-cow-creature is happy and healthy and able to provide milk to those farmers. That was the moment that I realized that the LD writing room really understood Star Trek.
I am a full-scale life-long Trekkie, so I can confirm this. Original Star Trek was very woke, for its day - in some ways. Mostly it was very good on the racial front. It had a Russian bridge officer during the height of the Cold War. It had a Japanese bridge officer when most Americans still had WW2 fresh in their minds. It had a black officers during the tensest part of the civil rights fight - not just Lt. Uhura on the bridge, but guest stars as Starfleet medical doctors, distinguished Federation scientists and diplomats, and other "good guy" characters. That first-televised-interracial kiss kind-of happened - it happened on set, but the camera angle hid the lip contact. Still a good step though.
Now there's a giant asterisk to all this: original Star Trek was often incredibly sexist. And I don't just mean in terms of wardrobe for women guest stars. For example, it's mentioned in several episodes that there were no women commanding starships in Starfleet, and this was treated as "normal". The final episode involves a bodyswap between Captain Kirk and a woman who was denied a captaincy in Starfleet, and Shatner-as-her plays her as the most awful stereotype of a histrionic irrational woman you can imagine. Uhura's actress was treated poorly by the writing room as the series went on and she got less and less screen time. Women regular and guest stars were not often treated as real people, but as sex objects to simp all over male Starfleet officers.
Edit: I forgive and accept simping on Spock, either in-universe or in fandom. That combination of physical, emotional, and intellectual power barely contained by sheer force of will is just magnetic. You desperately want to be the one to make them smirk or get flustered or get tongue-tied in your presence. Vulcans are incredibly sexy.