I’ve been watching the various Star Trek shows for a while now, and while not finished I saw most of them, I believe. And I cannot shake off the feeling that the messages given by these shows, especially (and almost exclusively) recent ones are pushing horrible morals that most people seem to not care about.
Slavery
I posted before, in the middle of my watching of Enterprise, that the show was supporting slavery because of the Cogenitor episode. Many comments disagreed, some even saying that they don’t remember anything supporting slavery at all in the show. That was before I watched more. The show contains a full episode that is just about showing that:
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Sex slaves are not only acceptable, they’re “sexy” and cool and negotiating with slavers is a good thing
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Sex trafficking of individuals groomed since they are born into being sex slaves is the fault of the victims for “seducing” men ???
How is this show not fine with human trafficking at this point? Is all that you need to avoid controversy, to paint the slaves in green? I still cannot comprehend the lack of reaction on this show. Add to that the frequent crimes of war by Archer and you have a nice cocktail of humanity’s finest horror.
Section 31
This is also something that seems absurd to me. When it first appeared, it was already a gestapo/kgb-like group that ignores the concept of democracy, laws, and justice - in other words a horrible group - but its existence as a starfleet element was blurry. But with modern shows, they keep on bringing it back, and directly saying that it is supported by starfleet, and a good thing, or at least a necessary one.
The thing is that what made starfleet supposedly admirable was, if not every single individual’s morals, the morality of their concept, their laws, their structure. Having section 31 be condoned by starfleet transforms starfleet from “utopian future of humanity” (which it was supposed to be) to “dictatorship that pretends to be a democracy but supports crimes of war and above-the-law groups”. In other words, it destroys the concept of starfleet.
Discriminations, sexism, and other shitty ideas, morals and behaviours
Now this one is maybe more blurry and subjective, but it is scattered all across, nonstop.
Let’s start chronologically
DS9
For this show, the constant misogyny is nothing hard to see. But they still went out of their way to put some nasty things here and there.
The episode with Quark “becoming” a woman was interesting. Quark discovers a different point of view, gains insight and empathy, that’s nice! Until the end of the episode directly says “no nevermind, he was like that because of hormones, and was just an overly emotional woman because of that”. Because after all, women are hysterical, right? .
Other than that, we have the toxic relationship between Keiko and O’Brian, the toxic relationship between Dax and Worf, the toxic relationship between Odo and Kira, the toxic relationship between Sisco and his wife, Jake who constantly shows that when a teen boy is targeted by pedophiles, the teen is both responsible for it, and liking it (one second, I need to throw up in a corner), etc.
And of course there is the rest, between Cisco crimes against humanity, Bashir (that’s all I’ll say, nothing else needed), and the weird pro-religious message that doesn’t make sense.
Enterprise
We already talked about their view of child/human trafficking which I think gives the tone of the show.
But of course that’s not enough, so let’s put some sexual scenes about the women in particular, rape scenes with TPol because who doesn’t like rape culture, Malcolm “PoS” Reed talking like a creep about “bums”, Reed and Tucker with their “haha lol, these alien women are ugly because you can’t tell if they are women or not” and other toxic masculinity scenes, etc. Oh and I almost forgot about the sex scene between teen siblings that serve no other purpose than to show teens having incestuous sex.
Picard
What do we have here, more weird sibling sexual scenes, people getting manipulated mentally and sexually to extract information, murderers who get away with it because betraying the federation and killing innocents is fine if you’re a scenario character (reminds me of something else…AhemelnorAhem)…
Oh, and I almost forgot the amazing scene with a white Picard in his white British empire colonist outfit, going on the planet of the tan refugees who hate the federation, kicks everything around and tries to show that he’s the boss. I guess this show regrets colonies too, huh.
Discovery
Now I didn’t finish this one yet, and it’s hard.
We have klingons that start off as a weird racist stereotype of africans seen by colonialists from a century ago: black skin, tribal armors, weird “foreign” language that the show intentionally refuses to translate through the UT, and when they speak english it’s with a strong guttural accent. And they’re barbaric, scary cannibals who fight with sticks and knives, and are a bunch of disorganised tribes, with weird magic rituals that allow them to do weird brainwashing. I’m almost surprised they don’t carry voodoo dolls while dancing around a bonfire. The fact that people describe this show as “woke” is funny to me.
We have very explicit rape and gore torture scenes, for what purpose, I don’t know.
We have people forgiven of murder because it wasn’t their mind, but then it is and everyone is fine with it.
And then there’s more section 31 shit.
There’s also the vision of asylum in this show that basically says “we grant asylum whenever we want, not based on the situation but on personal preferences”, with Georgiou granting asylum despite the prime directive, and then Pike refusing asylum because of it. It’s surprising that starfleet would allow that, but at least it’s not Archer-level, sending people to death then blaming the ones who tried to help them.
SNW
As far as I remember, nothing as bad as the rest here. The take on eugenics and “augmented” individuals is really absurd though, showing starfleet hating on Una is fine because her species is augmented (like the denobulans who are in starfleet though, no?), but the stupid security officer who has DNA augmentations from a crazy evil dictator engineered to be violent and crazy, is allowed without any issue.
All of them
One thing that I struggle understanding is the constant of racist stereotypes. They’re everywhere, because all the shows use them to define their characters.
Keiko wants to eat her traditional food in a kimono, Georgiou wears a big kimono-like dress that would barely fit in a Mulan movie, Elnor is a ridiculous samurai-ninja with the fitting outfit, etc. As if in hundreds of years, after earth is united and mixed with hundreds of alien species, “cultures” would not evolve and mix but instead go back to being very split apart and caricatural.
P.S.
I’m not saying that the shows are shit, but that I am worried about the lack of discussions concerning all those subjects. Star Trek is supposed to be progressive and show a better version of humanity, one that evolved and grew, and yet morals seem to not be a consideration of the shows anymore.
The writeup on Section 31 is very good and was following along until you listed almost every couple on DS9 being in toxic relationships. Maybe you’re confusing relationship conflicts with toxicity? Maybe I don’t know what toxic means.
I’m pretty good at seeing different sides of an arguement, but you’ll have to do a lot more convincing on Kira/Odo, Jadzia/Sorf, Sisko/Jennifer/Kassidy being in toxic relationships. These relationships work for me because they are trying to overcome cultural and professional challenges. One character might not budge on something but overall they try to work things out.
Purged by creator
Sure, I’ll explain what I meant.
With Odo and Kira, Odo spent years wanting to be with Kira and making her uncomfortable; when she finally accepts, he hurries up, cheats on her and then abandon her forever. Not very nice.
Dax basically manipulated worf into being with her by waiting for him to be psychologically weak before having sex with him despite his complete lack of interest. Klingon rules then make him “forced” to stay with her, and most if not all of their relationship shows Dax not respecting Worf and constantly forcing things on him, cheating on him with a random naked dude before their wedding, forcing him to go to Risa against his will and then being mad at him for not enjoying it, etc.
And then Ezri convinces him they can be together, and breaks up because “I saw bashir in a dream so goodbye”.
Finally for Sisko and Kassidy were actually a good, relatively well written couple with challenges… Until Sisko hears the prophets tell him to not marry her, he does it anyway, gets her pregnant because he doesn’t get his shot, and when the prophets tell him to go with them, instead of telling them to fuck off he stays with them and gives up on his pregnant wife. And on top of that, he implies that he could talk to her but probably won’t, or in a few decades or whatever.
trek is not here to teach morals though. It’s here to entertain
The main interest of science fiction is to explore the moral and social effects of current, past or hypothetical events and technological discoveries. It could be basically called “philosophy through futurology”, and sci-fi without morals is just that, futurology.
Star Trek from the very beginning was like that, with things as simple as explaining that peace, unification of humanity, democracy and elimination of poverty and starvation are all linked and necessary to have a good world.
I guess you’re one of those “stop making shows political” people? Sci-fi shows are by essence here to teach morals, and even if it is unintentional the concept of imagining a future where humanity grew implies applying morals to the show. It’s not avoidable.
nope.
I don’t think the message of Section 31 has EVER been that it was “good / necessary.” It’s always been cautionary. Like: Even in a Utopia, this thing can exist, people will support it, people will argue it’s necessary. I’ve always thought the message was “Why do we tolerate this shit and you assholes who insist it’s necessary?? Why do we let you get away with it? Why do we pull the wool over our own eyes and look the other way?” It continues to be a good story to make Americans talk about.
In DS9, Section 31’s machinations badly backfired and stealing the cure from them and giving it freely to the Changlings is what ended the war.
In Picard, Section 31’s bullshit literally created a terrorist who brought the Borg back and set them loose on Starfleet, again.
In Disco… IDK. I don’t like Disco and I only half watched that season. They made um… an AI that tried to take over?? I guess, it was bad and Star Fleet was complicit.
One of the most important parts of the story, I think is how even in the Utopia of the Federation, we never see anyone being held accountable for Section 31’s actions. My takeaway from this is “a call to action that perpetually goes unheeded and is never heard in numbers great enough to make a real difference” which is a VERY true and tragic lens for the modern world.
I don’t think I’ve ever thought of S31 as being pushed as a GOOD thing. More like shown to us in the spirit of “Stop, children, what’s that sound, everybody look what’s goin’ down.”
I really don’t think this post deserves all the downvotes. I mean I get how you might feel differently about all or some of the topics the OP brings to the table, but it’s not unfounded and certainly an interesting discussion.
For me, especially the part about sexism in Enterprise really resonated - I have always felt that this is among the worst aspects of the show. I also see points in mpst of the other criticism, although I think part of them can be interpreted differently. For example Section 31: Starfleet has not been a pure utopia since a long time, it’s at least bureaucratic most of the time, with an even dimmer view on it in later series. Section 31 fits in there for me. I don’t require stories to see the story through moral eyes, that can be a (sometimes painful) exercise left to the viewer. I don’t know how much and when this is intended by the series, though.
In any case, I think it’s well worth the discussion and ai’d like to thank the OP for the energy they spent in laying all this out.
Looking at OP’s history and conments…yeah those downvotes happened in context.
I don’t know what you want to highlight, unless it’s “a lot of people don’t like being confronted with discrimination”. I see OP is passionate about it. But what’s the problem there?
They’re not interested in progression, or resolution, just ranting at perceived wrongs. It’s the standard outrage trope parading as morality.
Every single relationship they see is ‘toxic’. Every action is labelled as ‘toxic’. They literally rant on the immorality of actions that within the ahow itself are painted as being not only bad, but right over the moral event horizon and accelerating as if it’s some astounding revelation only they can see and must bring to the attention of the blind stupid masses. Their entire argument hinges on treating fictional characters as moral guidelines to real life as opposed to complex beings that serve a story.
We all know the fandom kind. It’s a blinkered childish media consumption that only see the most basic of surface levels and brands anything they personally dislike or can’t understand as bad.
I pointed out the fault is in their misconception that trek ‘teaches morals’, it is simply a television franchise. Their measured response was to accuse me of enabling oppression. Ain’t nobody got time for this sort of ridiculousness in fandom spaces.
Edit for others: Looks like I fell for your troll ragebait account.
(Or rather, it looks like your type of account has followed its propaganda marching orders from reddit and other places to make Lemmy shitty too.)
(For those unaware, pop fandom spaces are infiltrated by people stirring shit to keep a cultural miasma of misery going on, even for people who disconnect from overtly political/news subs as an attempt to try to avoid it.)
Still, I think what I said is useful, so I’ll leave it up for lurkers.
I’ve seen mindsets like yours coming into book fandom more and more as the years have gone on.
I’m going to say some things from a meta perspective that you might not like. And while I’m making assumptions, and they might even be wrong about you in particular, I think there’s still worth in trying to see my perspective, and trying to understand WHY I am saying what I am saying, and why I’m saying it in response to your post at this particular point in time, even if I’m wildly off base with you as an individual. You’ll probably learn more from doing that than by trying to get into a one-on-one argument with me over details. Like, even if I’m wrong with you–WHY did I choose to say this right now in response to your post? What details in your post made me react in this way?
So, as far as I can tell, looking in from the outside, it looks like takes like yours arise when someone is raised in a religious context, following a holy book of some sort (Bible, Book of Mormon, the Koran–any writing really that is supposed to be your highest moral guide), and then either has not left that religion, but is trying to understand other people’s moralities through the same lens because everyone they personally know forms their morality from the bible or another holy book (so surely everyone else must too? And maybe other people use Star Trek?), or comes from someone who HAS left but hasn’t yet examined old habits left over from that upbringing, and and thus brings them into new spaces, as you seem to be doing here with Star Trek.
Like, I see religious folks, or recently ex-religious folks who have not yet examined their inner drives to get over-involved with the media they consume. They interact with their show the same way they would interact with their church, or with the Bible or another holy book. Even if they claim they are no longer religious, they were still raised in a religious environment which has an effect on habits and thinking esp. re: the topic of morality, and emotionally fandom spaces and fandom drama can feel a lot like church from a socializing and discussion standpoint, so old habits of churchy stuff sometimes seep into fandom.
But not all people interact with stories in this way. In fact, when you look at how people actually interact with media, people often take bits and pieces here and there. They agree with some stuff, disagree or just ignore others, and transform things too. You can truth-check this by looking at your peers in school. How many times did a teacher say something, and someone next to you said it was bullshit? People take in, reject, and transform information all the time. Words are not a total telepathic mind-control, people have agency.
I’m a writer, and it’s fairly common to see a reader interact with what I said and take a totally different insight from what I said, because all of their life experiences are getting tangled up with whatever story I was trying to tell, and that MIXTURE is showing them something new that I might never have realized or thought of. And this is normal–this is how humans interact with fiction.
The idea that a work of fiction has to demonstrate moral things perfectly or else be doomed as irredeemably flawed is really in my opinion more of a religious-brain thing. And no, maybe you didn’t say that directly, but I question the drive behind why you posted this post, listing the things you did. I question your motivations and assumptions. Approaching Trek asking the questions you do doesn’t align with how people actually interact with media in my experience, but it does align with how I’ve seen people utilize religion, and holy books in particular.
I’d encourage you to look up a community college and see if there’s any ethics classes you can take. I had to take an ethics class for the degree I was working on. I didn’t actually want to, as I’m in my 40s and comfortable with my sense of morality–but it ended up being shockingly useful, because it laid out different frameworks in which people can evaluate the morality of something, and the pros and cons of each. It kind of started with the “gut feeling” a lot of people use when they feel more than think, then progressed through religious frameworks, then a few philosophers, and then storytelling frameworks, and basically gave me a lot of different and new tools to evaluate things I hadn’t explicitly had before. It was very useful, much to my own surprise, and I’d recommend the experience to everyone if they go to college.
