this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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Yes but the woke messages were embedded in good stories so it felt smart and natural. That is why fans of classic Trek embrace the way it is woke. Discovery on the other hand constantly puts the woke element in the center, points three spotlights at it and then paints it neon until there is no more room left for a good story and mature viewers feel treated like they were idiots. It is sad how younger fans seem to be unable to perceive this significant difference and accuse people who do of bigotry.
What about Discovery felt like it had a spotlight on it more than "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"? Or that TOS put a diverse cast front and center on the screen, including folks hailing from nations that were currently/recently enemies of the USA at the time? I grew up watching TNG, and the way Geordi turned the concept of what it meant to be 'disabled' on its head felt really pointed, even for child me. Likewise the dehumanization of Data.
I'm happy to gripe about worse writing, but if someone wrote a shoddy story that included a couple giraffes (because giraffes were more popular nation-wide), I wouldn't get mad about "giraffe messages" in entertainment, I'd get mad about shit writing.
You bring up some interesting points.
Yes and they had that diverse crew naturally work together as a team of professionals without loosing a word about it, instead of constantly reassuring each other and the viewer in dramatic pep talks with a lot of crying that it´s ok. That is exactly the understated wokeness I miss in NuTrek and appreciate in classic Trek.
Agreed but that worked so well because Geordi being a full member of the crew was presented as something completely normal. There are no tearful pep talks to reassure Geordi that he's a full fledged member of the crew. That would have been unnecessary, because it's shown as just natural that he was. Another example of the understated, smart wokeness in classic Trek. This is the opposite of NuTrek wokeness, which constantly gets overstated and rubbed in the viewers face, like the viewer would be a mentally challenged bigot, who could not grasp the concepts of tolerance an humanism on their own.
Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it.
I certainly agree that there's more crying than I'm used to in Trek, but I wouldn't call that wokeness (unless the crying was about a reason that was "woke", I guess?). Mostly I chalk that up to popular entertainment dripping with CW style shows (for the worse, of course). That said there was a fair amount of crying/emotional outbursts from Sisko and others on DS9, especially if we take the Maquis into account - like Sisko said, it's easy to be a saint in paradise. Doesn't jive with the perfect crews we've seen on the Enterprises, but like DS9 being a run-of-the-mill station that got swept up in religious politics and galactic war, Discovery was "just" a bleeding edge science ship that went through hell, so it does kind of make sense that people would be more than a little traumatized and outburst-y.
Totally agree that the casts being treated like it was normal is a great message to send without focusing on it, but they did touch on it occasionally. In the TNG pilot itself, Geordi and Crusher talk pretty openly about his blindness IIRC, and he says something to the effect of "I was born this way", and he rejects potential "cures", showing how comfortable he was with what others would consider a curse.
Also there most certainly episodes reassuring Data he was part of the crew. An entire episode reassuring him he was sentient, right? It was central to his (and others') growth over the series. Whether he was truly a sentient being or not definitely draws parallels to dehumanization in the real world, and was pretty blatant about it.
Plenty of folks on TNG had to talk through their problems - that was pretty much the point of Guinan, in a lot of ways, and even having a Betazoid on the bridge. Feelings and emotion were being pretty openly explored in a way that's just different to the way things are now. Mental illness has over the decades been normalized in a way that is kind of incredible. Again though, the amount of crying does irk me (that much I agree with, especially when shit is literally on fire). I just don't consider that to be wokeness in my face, just shoddy writing.
Sorry, you certainly have many good points. However, I am getting tired from replying to too many answers by too many people at this point, so I don´t have the energy to write you an adequate answer to your well written argument. Apologies.
Thank you for saying that: it's been interesting to see things from another perspective.