Okay.... Star Trek:TNG is racist and sexist....

[DudeistBelieve]

I'm sorry, and someone probably can prove me wrong, but I'm sitting here watching "Genesis" from Season 7

all of the crew have basically de-evolved back to their primal states.... and of course that means it's made Worf into an animalistic brute intent on raping Troi.

Now look, yeah Worf is a klingon but for fucks sakes, I'd be a moron to not see the racial subtext there either intentionally or unintentionally. (Though a thought occurs, since everyone on the enterprise was basically an animal with no sentience... can an animal rape another animal?)

Worst of all? At the end of the episode where things magically go back to normal... What's Troi's response? After all its made pretty clear she was already raped presumably once by Worf... Apathy and joke that she should clear her calender for a while. Credits.

I'm sorry what?!?! Okay fine, maybe she doesn't remember being raped by worf, but clearly Crusher/Picard/Data must've told her what the fuck happened to her and she doesn't feel the least bit violated?

 

[latiasracer]

...

I'm not sure i follow.


Worf devolved into a reptilian ancestor of a Klingon (Their form of dinosaur?), That's hardly 'Racist'. Assuming we still have some rough trace of DNA from that era (Even just back to cave-man era) We'd probably be pretty intent on spreading our seed and generally being violent.

I'm not sure i follow on how this is Racist or Sexist though...

The worst thing about that episode was the goddamn Barclay spider monster thing, That made me almost shit myself!

Mind you, the ending was pretty funny. Crusher endangered the lives of everyone onboard, people could have been killed and she's just like "whoops lol"

 

[Heronblade]

The episode was one of the worst of its series to air, particularly if you only compare it to post season one episodes. It also definitely over emphasized the fiction part of science fiction, completely violating a ton of biology rules.

That stated, no, I don't really see racist or sexist undertones here. If Troi was indeed raped, no one could have been aware of it to tell her later. And Worf becoming what he did was no more racially offensive than Riker becoming an apish thing, or Troi a mermaidish thing. Its just a part of the respective genetic heritage of their species.

Mind you, the ending was pretty funny. Crusher endangered the lives of everyone onboard, people could have been killed and she's just like "whoops lol"

People did get killed. At least one bridge officer had been killed. They don't explicitly state as much, but I very much doubt that there were not other casualties, especially with Work doing his Predator impersonation.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Worf devolved into a reptilian ancestor of a Klingon (Their form of dinosaur?), That's hardly 'Racist'. Assuming we still have some rough trace of DNA from that era (Even just back to cave-man era) We'd probably be pretty intent on spreading our seed and generally being violent.

I'm not sure i follow on how this is Racist or Sexist though...

You've got the animalistic black man raping a white woman. In the context of a zillion other depictions of blak men as animalistic rapists preying on white women, there's an issue.

Mind you, the ending was pretty funny. Crusher endangered the lives of everyone onboard, people could have been killed and she's just like "whoops lol"

People were, there was the guy on the bridge with his neck snapped.

And yeah, the Barclay spider was scary.

 

[FalloutJack]

Tell ya what, fella. If Michael Dorn comes out with a book or some memoirs that states that the show was racist or something, I'll listen. But if nothing ever comes of it, like it hasn't, then I'm going to leave this on the wayside. Deal? Deal.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

...

I'm not sure i follow.


Worf devolved into a reptilian ancestor of a Klingon (Their form of dinosaur?), That's hardly 'Racist'. Assuming we still have some rough trace of DNA from that era (Even just back to cave-man era) We'd probably be pretty intent on spreading our seed and generally being violent.

I'm not sure i follow on how this is Racist or Sexist though...

The worst thing about that episode was the goddamn Barclay spider monster thing, That made me almost shit myself!

Mind you, the ending was pretty funny. Crusher endangered the lives of everyone onboard, people could have been killed and she's just like "whoops lol"

It's subtext. The black actor becomes a violent raging brute. By comparison, the white Will Riker becomes a caveman but no where near as dangerous. Really the entire Klingon race itself carries this subtext by virtue of the fact it's people have a darker skin color...

It's like Mark Henry in WWE, right now hes this big strong brute. He's not doing anything different then Brock Lesnar (who's white) and in truth any wrestler of his size would be behaving the same way.... but the fact that he's black, and theres a whole history of demonizing the black race with sterotypes.... well anything that reinforces those sterotypes is kinda uncomfortable.

Mind you, I'm being super political correct on the subject... but for fucks sakes, THEY HAD WORF RAPE TROI, so my outrage is justified.

and Crusher is a God damn mad scientist sometimes. She's like Princess Bubblegum.

The episode was one of the worst of its series to air, particularly if you only compare it to post season one episodes. It also definitely over emphasized the fiction part of science fiction, completely violating a ton of biology rules.

That stated, no, I don't really see racist or sexist undertones here. If Troi was indeed raped, no one could have been aware of it to tell her later. And Worf becoming what he did was no more racially offensive than Riker becoming an apish thing, or Troi a mermaidish thing. Its just a part of the respective genetic heritage of their species.

Mind you, the ending was pretty funny. Crusher endangered the lives of everyone onboard, people could have been killed and she's just like "whoops lol"

People did get killed. At least one bridge officer had been killed. They don't explicitly state as much, but I very much doubt that there were not other casualties, especially with Work doing his Predator impersonation.

Picard and Data where the two to discover she had previously been raped by worf (or at least bitten in a sexual way)

Secondly, well theres Crusher. She's a fucking Doctor, and certainly Troi must of been checked out for the bite on her neck which would of lead to other things.

I mean, I mentioned before... Will Riker, a white man becomes a beast worst thing he does is attacks Picard. However, Worf as a black man nearly kills Crusher and Rapes Troi and is presented as this unstoppable monster. There is a racial subtext here.

Tell ya what, fella. If Michael Dorn comes out with a book or some memoirs that states that the show was racist or something, I'll listen. But if nothing ever comes of it, like it hasn't, then I'm going to leave this on the wayside. Deal? Deal.

Don't be like that. you have a brain, think for yourself.

 

[FalloutJack]

Sup

My brain tells me that in this age, everyone wants to make a big stink about what's sexist when it probably isn't or doesn't even matter. Everyone wants to jump on everyone else for things that may not make sense and will not change anything even if they managed to prove a point. The show's been out for how long? Bigger fans have been arguing about it how much? People have debunked and rebunked and restated everything how many times? No. That path is not for me. It's not important to me. I'm demonstrating the notion of letting it go, unless one of the actors has some big issue with it, because they made it and their opinion is the one that matters here. So, if Michael Dorn wants to fight the good fight, then cool. But if HE doesn't have a problem, then exactly what is everyone else getting upset about? He's a big man. He can handle himself.

 

[Barbas]

(Snip).

I don't know about that last bit. It's a shame when interesting threads get locked because of a lowering of the tone of the discussion.

 

[Thaluikhain]

But if HE doesn't have a problem, then exactly what is everyone else getting upset about? He's a big man. He can handle himself.

What's it got to do with him? He didn't write it, he was just the actor.

Now, of course, in of itself the idea of a black man raping a white woman isn't such an issue, it only is with the context of depicting black men as such.

 

[FalloutJack]

But if HE doesn't have a problem, then exactly what is everyone else getting upset about? He's a big man. He can handle himself.

What's it got to do with him? He didn't write it, he was just the actor.

Exactly. If anyone should feel angry about a scene he or she has no say in and make a big gesture of irritation about it, it's the actor. Moving on...

 

[Thaluikhain]

If anyone should feel angry about a scene he or she has no say in and make a big gesture of irritation about it, it's the actor.

Why? Why is it not an issue because that one person hasn't publicly stated it was?

 

[JoJo]

To be honest, I haven't seen the episode itself and so I can't fully judge but from the description you've given, it doesn't really sound like there's much in there. Not everything involving people of different races or genders has to have a racial or gender subtext. In this case, a black actor happens to transform into a marginally more violent creature than a white actor when some science fiction regression takes place? More likely just a coincidence than anything else. Considering black people, like any type of person, are sometimes violent and yes, even in rare cases rape white women, I don't see how it's racist to depict that occurring as long as you don't make out that it's typical of all black people.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Considering black people, like any type of person, are sometimes violent and yes, even in rare cases rape white women, I don't see how it's racist to depict that occurring as long as you don't make out that it's typical of all black people.

The problem is that there is a disproportionate amount of that kind of stuff in fiction, which is a result of and feeds into, the view of black men doing that.

 

[FalloutJack]

If anyone should feel angry about a scene he or she has no say in and make a big gesture of irritation about it, it's the actor.

Why? Why is it not an issue because that one person hasn't publicly stated it was?

Because...when other people decide it's a problem, they only think so, not know so. Only the people there can decide if it IS so. SO, if one of the few black men of the main cast of the show seems fine, maaaybe people who only think they know something's wrong are jumping the gun. People do that, yanna, quite a bit.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Because...when other people decide it's a problem, they only think so, not know so.

Again, why is this the case?

Sure, if the writers had said to Dorn "You'll be raping Troi in this ep, because you're black", yes, then he'd be able to say there was racism. But just because that didn't happen doesn't mean there's no issue.

 

[JoJo]

Considering black people, like any type of person, are sometimes violent and yes, even in rare cases rape white women, I don't see how it's racist to depict that occurring as long as you don't make out that it's typical of all black people.

The problem is that there is a disproportionate amount of that kind of stuff in fiction, which is a result of and feeds into, the view of black men doing that.

I'm not sure if that is true, but even if there is a disproportionate amount of black violence in fiction, that doesn't automatically mean any individual work of fiction depicting black violence is racist itself, as the title of this thread suggests.

 

[FalloutJack]

Because...when other people decide it's a problem, they only think so, not know so.

Again, why is this the case?

Sure, if the writers had said to Dorn "You'll be raping Troi in this ep, because you're black", yes, then he'd be able to say there was racism. But just because that didn't happen doesn't mean there's no issue.

If you have to ask, you've already decided, and that's why it's a problem. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a ship to attend to. Au revoir!

 

[Thaluikhain]

I'm not sure if that is true, but even if there is a disproportionate amount of black violence in fiction, that doesn't automatically mean any individual work of fiction depicting black violence is racist itself, as the title of this thread suggests.

That's true. However, I think it's fair to say that even if the writers weren't being racist, they should have been paying a bit more attention to the issue.

 

[JoJo]

I'm not sure if that is true, but even if there is a disproportionate amount of black violence in fiction, that doesn't automatically mean any individual work of fiction depicting black violence is racist itself, as the title of this thread suggests.

That's true. However, I think it's fair to say that even if the writers weren't being racist, they should have been paying a bit more attention to the issue.

I can agree with that to an extent, though who knows, perhaps they did consider that but in the end decided that for narrative reasons the idea was worth using despite the potential connotations? No way to be sure without asking the writers.

Anyhow, the thread title has been debunked and my work here is done. JoJo away! *flies off into the sunset*

 

[shrekfan246]

(Though a thought occurs, since everyone on the enterprise was basically an animal with no sentience... can an animal rape another animal?)

Yes, they can. Ducks and dolphins in particular are infamous for the fact that the males of the species frequently engage in what we would call rape, or at the very least extreme sexual harassment. As do dogs, if you want to get really technical.

The show is twenty years old. The subtext of the episode today is all but meaningless, if it even existed in the first place; Things aren't "racist" or "sexist" just because the people involved happen to have a certain skin color or be a certain gender, and this entire thread just screams of making a massive issue where one never existed. Klingons don't embody "black people", they embody the primal, reptilian urges of the human psyche. The fact that they have a different skin color shouldn't matter in the least. The Ferengi and Cardassians do as well.

And if that's not good enough, then it's worth noting that many Klingons, both pre- and post-TOS films when they got their visual overhaul in the first place, have been portrayed by white actors.