I mostly agree, but with shows like Starfleet Academy, the writing is bad in part because of the forced inclusive themes. You’re broadly correct: these could be handled with tact for a better show. I still think these themes are handled best when they give the audience room to consider nuanced and complex ideas. Don’t shoot me, but instead of a classic New Generation episode I’m going cite an episode of The Orville - “About a Girl”. Bortus and Klyden have a baby, who is born female. They try to argue that she should be allowed to remain female, but ultimately the court rules that she undergo the Moclan gender reassignment procedure.
This touches on contemporary issues but also doesn’t present the situation as “this side is 100% right, and this side is literally Hitler.” The audience is actually left wondering, where does this sit in the contemporary debate? If a child is born one sex, should they be given the right to remain as that sex? Or should a court be allowed to step in and reassign sex? The episode also brilliantly explores the difficult dynamic between Bortus and Klyden, and doesn’t portray one as a cartoon villain and the other as a male Mary Sue.
This is where New Trek fails horrible. Zero nuance. Everything is presented in the first 10 seconds as “this is good, this is bad. Accept the message we are feeding you are you are a bad person.” That’s not Star Trek. Most importantly, that’s not interesting. It’s not good storytelling. It might appeal to people who really like circlejerking about that particular issue, but that’s a minority of people.
That’s a lot of words to not provide a single example from a show of what makes “forced inclusion” different than “inclusion”
EDIT: Before anyone bothers clicking through the replies, he never actually explains himself or why he’s parroting a common right wing buzz-phrase to discourage the presence of minorities in media.
I thought I did a reasonable job of explaining the narrative distinction in my comment. Maybe you could be specific about which part you don’t understand, or which part with which you might disagree?
I can’t speak for the other poster, but the way I see is is that “forced inclusion” is where the script directs viewer attention to it in a protracted, unnatural manner that is not pertinent to the plot. For instance, the script may be as blunt as a character saying “Wow, I can’t believe you made it this far despite being a [marginalized out-group],” or it could be a little more subtle by offering a stereotyped representation of [marginalized out-group] without any kind of deeper exploration. i.e. Tokenism
Star Trek, for the most part, dove into social subjects deeper, more meaningful way than other media at the time. Like other users have pointed out, TOS confronted racism and gender roles head on by placing a black female character on the bridge. By never drawing attention to those traits, the show issued such a strong rebuke against racism and male chauvinism that no more needed to be said. In my view, that is inclusion that is not forced upon the viewer; it is implied, but unless the viewer is explicitly looking for it, they’d never notice.
Your explanation didn’t explain what “forced inclusion” means and what makes it different from regular inclusion. Maybe you could give an example of each from Star Trek?
I appreciate you referencing the Orville’s most pivotal episode. And honestly, the twist involving Klyden’s reasoning for reassigning Topa, as a trans sci-fi nerd, broke my heart.
Spoilers about the most crucial arc of the story
That’s the perspective that a lot of people don’t have when they see that episode. It’s easy to take Klyden’s lawyer’s argument as legitimate when he makes the point of comparing it to the cultural version of a cleft lip.
And then Haveena walks into the room. And she proves, conclusively, that she is a woman and she would never choose to be anything other than what she is. That her gender is a gift. And then, later on, we see the hidden planet of the female Moclans, and it is so radically different from Moclus that you’d hardly believe this is the same species.
We see Moclan men testing weapons anywhere they please above civilian airspace, and the backdrop is an industrial wasteland because they never developed ecocentrism… because safety laws, industrial regulation, and other ‘soft’ ideas went unobserved and unvalued.
Contrast the Hidden Planet, and we see Moclan women, dancing in a style that they invented, revering the planet that protects them. We see women warriors carefully watching the Orville’s crew as little girls play in the street. It feels indescribably very… honestly, African. I can’t put my finger on why, but it does.
All of those differences are deliberate. And they were set up very, very early.
I agree completely with your point about the Orville. It was really well done.
I don’t agree with your assessment of New Trek, however. I know it’s all very variable and I don’t want to generalise, but even if we accept this:
Everything is presented in the first 10 seconds as “this is good, this is bad. Accept the message we are feeding you are you are a bad person.”
Then, I have to point out the obvious: if it’s so lacking in nuance, then yes, if you don’t accept it you are a bad person. For example, if it’s saying, “gay people are ok and normal”, there’s no subtlety to that because it’s not something anyone in the future will hopefully give a shit about. And if someone in their society did, then yes, they would be in the wrong. 100%.
But this is exactly my point. “Gay people are ok and normal” shouldn’t be a plot. It’s like a “murder is bad” plot. Yes, murder is bad. We know. That’s just not an interesting theme to explore. Maybe if it were presented as a trolly problem, where a crew member were forced to kill someone in order to defend their own life, or the life of a friend, that could be an interesting plot. Forcing the viewer to explore the tension of morality between killing or being killed, or taking an innocent life to save another innocent life. That could be interesting television.
We could apply this to a “gay” plot as well. What if the crew met a civilization that were on the brink of extinction for some reason, and they had outlawed homosexuality for reasons of survival. The crew could explore the tension between individual liberty and existentialism. Someone might argue, “our civilization doesn’t deserve to survive if we strip people of such basic human rights.” Another might argue, “if our civilization is to survive we must make hard decisions as we have always done during war and other crises.” They might argue it’s only “temporary,” and someone else might argue, “it’s been 30 years!”
Trek expresses gay people being normal. It’s explicitly not the plot. There’s no plot point about it. The plot is about kids (for a certain Steve McQueen value of “teenager”) being in school and battling Space Foes. I’m picking on “being gay” as a point because I imagine it’s what the people who cancelled the show had an issue with, but I could well be wrong.
There was no exploration of the things the right-wing hate in Academy. They just exist. There’s no ongoing plot about anyone’s sexuality, or if you think there is then it’s dwarfed by the same plot with other straight characters.
It sounds so much like saying you can’t have a gay character unless there’s an interesting moral plot point about why they’re gay. That’s not what Academy did.
If these themes are ancillary and not the one dimensional focus, no problem. In Ko’Zeine, the entire episode arc hinges on Darem being gay. It is the plot. To make it worse, there was never any ambiguity. The writers telegraphed the “correct” outcome from the beginning and never let the viewer stew in any kind of reflection or moral dilemma. We knew exactly what the outcome would be and the only reason we watched was to see how we would reach the only “right” conclusion. That’s not good storytelling. It’s a poor choice of plot. So would be a “murder is bad” plot. The issue isn’t a gay character existing. We have plenty of examples of gay characters existing in media in which “the right” takes no issue. See Six Feet Under, Will & Grace, Willow in Buffy, Remy in House, and a thousand other examples.
The issue is the poor writing. I levy similar criticisms of any writing like this. If these episodes revolved around “I’m short,” or “I’m ugly,” or “I’m fat,” they would also be uninteresting. There needs to be more complexity and moral ambiguity to provoke thought. I don’t watch Star Trek for the flashy lights. I watch it for the interesting dilemmas. Academy is the very lowest brow Netflix slop I could imagine.
None of that episode hinges on Darem being gay, though? What would have changed if he was straight? It’s not the plot. The plot is that he has responsibilities to his home world and has new found family with Star Fleet.
I mostly agree, but with shows like Starfleet Academy, the writing is bad in part because of the forced inclusive themes. You’re broadly correct: these could be handled with tact for a better show. I still think these themes are handled best when they give the audience room to consider nuanced and complex ideas. Don’t shoot me, but instead of a classic New Generation episode I’m going cite an episode of The Orville - “About a Girl”. Bortus and Klyden have a baby, who is born female. They try to argue that she should be allowed to remain female, but ultimately the court rules that she undergo the Moclan gender reassignment procedure.
This touches on contemporary issues but also doesn’t present the situation as “this side is 100% right, and this side is literally Hitler.” The audience is actually left wondering, where does this sit in the contemporary debate? If a child is born one sex, should they be given the right to remain as that sex? Or should a court be allowed to step in and reassign sex? The episode also brilliantly explores the difficult dynamic between Bortus and Klyden, and doesn’t portray one as a cartoon villain and the other as a male Mary Sue.
This is where New Trek fails horrible. Zero nuance. Everything is presented in the first 10 seconds as “this is good, this is bad. Accept the message we are feeding you are you are a bad person.” That’s not Star Trek. Most importantly, that’s not interesting. It’s not good storytelling. It might appeal to people who really like circlejerking about that particular issue, but that’s a minority of people.
That’s a lot of words to not provide a single example from a show of what makes “forced inclusion” different than “inclusion”
EDIT: Before anyone bothers clicking through the replies, he never actually explains himself or why he’s parroting a common right wing buzz-phrase to discourage the presence of minorities in media.
Someone asked that question two hours ago and I replied with two examples. It’s underneath my comment. I’m not sure which application you’re using to browse Lemmy but you should be able to see it.
I saw that but I didn’t see anything about what makes inclusion “forced” in one series but not in another.
I thought I did a reasonable job of explaining the narrative distinction in my comment. Maybe you could be specific about which part you don’t understand, or which part with which you might disagree?
yeah sure so im curious to know what “forced inclusion” means and how we’re supposed to tell it apart from regular inclusion.
I can’t speak for the other poster, but the way I see is is that “forced inclusion” is where the script directs viewer attention to it in a protracted, unnatural manner that is not pertinent to the plot. For instance, the script may be as blunt as a character saying “Wow, I can’t believe you made it this far despite being a [marginalized out-group],” or it could be a little more subtle by offering a stereotyped representation of [marginalized out-group] without any kind of deeper exploration. i.e. Tokenism
Star Trek, for the most part, dove into social subjects deeper, more meaningful way than other media at the time. Like other users have pointed out, TOS confronted racism and gender roles head on by placing a black female character on the bridge. By never drawing attention to those traits, the show issued such a strong rebuke against racism and male chauvinism that no more needed to be said. In my view, that is inclusion that is not forced upon the viewer; it is implied, but unless the viewer is explicitly looking for it, they’d never notice.
Ok makes sense but did SFA do that? If so, when?
Which part of my explanation did you not understand or disagree with?
Your explanation didn’t explain what “forced inclusion” means and what makes it different from regular inclusion. Maybe you could give an example of each from Star Trek?
I think it did. If you disagree please tell me how. I provided two examples.
I appreciate you referencing the Orville’s most pivotal episode. And honestly, the twist involving Klyden’s reasoning for reassigning Topa, as a trans sci-fi nerd, broke my heart.
Spoilers about the most crucial arc of the story
That’s the perspective that a lot of people don’t have when they see that episode. It’s easy to take Klyden’s lawyer’s argument as legitimate when he makes the point of comparing it to the cultural version of a cleft lip.
And then Haveena walks into the room. And she proves, conclusively, that she is a woman and she would never choose to be anything other than what she is. That her gender is a gift. And then, later on, we see the hidden planet of the female Moclans, and it is so radically different from Moclus that you’d hardly believe this is the same species.
We see Moclan men testing weapons anywhere they please above civilian airspace, and the backdrop is an industrial wasteland because they never developed ecocentrism… because safety laws, industrial regulation, and other ‘soft’ ideas went unobserved and unvalued.
Contrast the Hidden Planet, and we see Moclan women, dancing in a style that they invented, revering the planet that protects them. We see women warriors carefully watching the Orville’s crew as little girls play in the street. It feels indescribably very… honestly, African. I can’t put my finger on why, but it does.
All of those differences are deliberate. And they were set up very, very early.
I agree completely with your point about the Orville. It was really well done.
I don’t agree with your assessment of New Trek, however. I know it’s all very variable and I don’t want to generalise, but even if we accept this:
Then, I have to point out the obvious: if it’s so lacking in nuance, then yes, if you don’t accept it you are a bad person. For example, if it’s saying, “gay people are ok and normal”, there’s no subtlety to that because it’s not something anyone in the future will hopefully give a shit about. And if someone in their society did, then yes, they would be in the wrong. 100%.
But this is exactly my point. “Gay people are ok and normal” shouldn’t be a plot. It’s like a “murder is bad” plot. Yes, murder is bad. We know. That’s just not an interesting theme to explore. Maybe if it were presented as a trolly problem, where a crew member were forced to kill someone in order to defend their own life, or the life of a friend, that could be an interesting plot. Forcing the viewer to explore the tension of morality between killing or being killed, or taking an innocent life to save another innocent life. That could be interesting television.
We could apply this to a “gay” plot as well. What if the crew met a civilization that were on the brink of extinction for some reason, and they had outlawed homosexuality for reasons of survival. The crew could explore the tension between individual liberty and existentialism. Someone might argue, “our civilization doesn’t deserve to survive if we strip people of such basic human rights.” Another might argue, “if our civilization is to survive we must make hard decisions as we have always done during war and other crises.” They might argue it’s only “temporary,” and someone else might argue, “it’s been 30 years!”
The issue is driven by one-dimensional plot.
Trek expresses gay people being normal. It’s explicitly not the plot. There’s no plot point about it. The plot is about kids (for a certain Steve McQueen value of “teenager”) being in school and battling Space Foes. I’m picking on “being gay” as a point because I imagine it’s what the people who cancelled the show had an issue with, but I could well be wrong.
There was no exploration of the things the right-wing hate in Academy. They just exist. There’s no ongoing plot about anyone’s sexuality, or if you think there is then it’s dwarfed by the same plot with other straight characters.
It sounds so much like saying you can’t have a gay character unless there’s an interesting moral plot point about why they’re gay. That’s not what Academy did.
If these themes are ancillary and not the one dimensional focus, no problem. In Ko’Zeine, the entire episode arc hinges on Darem being gay. It is the plot. To make it worse, there was never any ambiguity. The writers telegraphed the “correct” outcome from the beginning and never let the viewer stew in any kind of reflection or moral dilemma. We knew exactly what the outcome would be and the only reason we watched was to see how we would reach the only “right” conclusion. That’s not good storytelling. It’s a poor choice of plot. So would be a “murder is bad” plot. The issue isn’t a gay character existing. We have plenty of examples of gay characters existing in media in which “the right” takes no issue. See Six Feet Under, Will & Grace, Willow in Buffy, Remy in House, and a thousand other examples.
The issue is the poor writing. I levy similar criticisms of any writing like this. If these episodes revolved around “I’m short,” or “I’m ugly,” or “I’m fat,” they would also be uninteresting. There needs to be more complexity and moral ambiguity to provoke thought. I don’t watch Star Trek for the flashy lights. I watch it for the interesting dilemmas. Academy is the very lowest brow Netflix slop I could imagine.
None of that episode hinges on Darem being gay, though? What would have changed if he was straight? It’s not the plot. The plot is that he has responsibilities to his home world and has new found family with Star Fleet.