I can't be the only one who strongly suspects the Klingon Empire is a matriarchy run by scientists and social workers and that all the war stuff is a sandbox they provide mostly for dumb boys. I can't be the only one who strongly suspects Star Fleet is just a kindly meant outlet for sociopaths and a-types who simply can't get with enjoying life in a sustainable fair post-scarcity multiculture.
Star Trek Story From BBC
ReplyDeletePublished on Jun 18, 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk3ECOIqTw0
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13:53/51:07
(Peter David, sci-fi writer and Star Trek novelist)
I have a theory that you can really get sort of a glimpse
of America's state of mind by looking at Star Trek.
They were always right, they always knew exactly what to do,
they would go in there with guns blazing, the Prime Directive --
the non-interference directive -- was the thing that Kirk
quoted right before he always then ignored it. . .
14:22
(Henry Jenkins, co-author Science Fiction Audiences)
Kirk continually intervenes, he continually disrupts and
destabilizes governments. . .
14:38
He seems to embody the Viet Nam War era idea of America as
a policeman who interferes in other people's business. . .
(Peter David)
15:02
The Enterprise went out into space and kicked ass and took
names. That's what the show was about because that's what
America was about.
. . .
(Robert F. Justman, Joint Producer, Star Trek original series)
16:28
Gene Roddenberry would drop everything he was doing when it came
time to approve a costume. Especially if it was a costume on
a female. He had an eye for the ladies. It didn't matter what it
was -- a story conference, cutting a film, the daily rushes,
whatever -- he would stop and he would immediately proceed to
make it better. And by "making it better" one means that -- making
it more revealing and less voluminous.
17:07
(Dr. Elyce Rae Helford, co-editor Enterprise Zones)
There is something subversive about costumes which show the entire
side of a woman's body or that show a cross section of her breasts
but not any parts that will get it censored, yet those are always
done in the service of turning women into sexual objects. . .
17:57
(Peter David)
Both Beverly Crusher and Yeoman Rand in the series bible are described
as walking "with the natural poise of strip-tease artists", and I
think that language evokes the ways in which Roddenberry saw women
as "equals in mini-skirts".
20:21
People felt Uhura made an impact simply by being there -- that's what
Martin Luther King said -- that simply seeing Uhura on that ship
gave representation of the fact that his dream for an integrated society
had come true, at least by the 24th century. On the other hand, she
was simply a glorified telephone operator who said over and over
"hailing frequencies are open, Captain".
20:51
No program on American television has promised so much and delivered
so little. Star Trek's promise of a utopian society which draws on
many traditions of utopian fantasy in science fiction -- a world of
trememdous tolerance, of "infinite diversity in infinite combination"
as the Vulcan philosophy would place it, and yet a world which
continually fell back on stereotypical treatment of race, gender,
and increasingly sexuality -- a world that reflects the fantasies
of a liberal LAPD cop.
21:23
(Elyce Rae Helford)
So it is a utopia for yuppies, for megacorporate America, for
the lovers of the military and folks who live that way -- people
who are satisfied with superficial tokenistic representations
of gender equality, racial equality, multiculturalism -- it
pays some lip service to those things; it seems to feel it needs
to. . .
====
Ouch!
noH QapmeH wo' Qaw'lu'chugh yay chavbe'lu', 'ej wo' choqmeH may' DoHlu'chugh lujbe'lu'
ReplyDeleteKlingon Translation:
Destroying an empire to win a war is no victory, and ending a battle to save an empire is no defeat
Star Fleet as an outlet/attractor for sociopaths is especially true for the reboot, with Pine's Kirk as the exemplar.
ReplyDeleteI sort of imagine Klingons as space faring Joe Rogan fans.
ReplyDeleteJoe is rather clingy.
ReplyDeleteEspecially in the "alternate reality" of movies we have going now when a Woman taking off clothes in front a white heterosexual man is apparently the same to the writers as the first black female in a main cast on TV.
ReplyDeleteThough as a trekkie and swede, I want to point out that I always felt there was a massive difference between how Kirk interfered and how America has as a police state. One never invades and conquer territories but instead just tries to help them with humanitarian aid or similar things. Doesn't change the fact that it always for me seems like Kirk was a walking fantasy of masculinity for Roddenbarry.