Re:Why did science fiction stop moving forward?
by eesmith on Monday September 25, 2017 @03:55PM
(#15333546)
Points which are raised in the article, at least somewhat:
> yes, there was diversity on the bridge, but not that much of it, not really. Uhuru was a service worker and Worf was a punching bag; when the show made a black captain, was it a coincidence that the show also became “darker” and less optimistic, when its characters started to be “flawed” and “ambiguous”? Voyager had a female captain, but it marooned her to the farthest reaches of the galaxy (and the less said about the garbage politics of the reboot movies, the better). But the point is this: Star Trek has always wanted to be more progressive than it ever really managed to be, because it wanted its cake and also to eat it. The future was a human race that had perfected itself, but which also felt comfortable—for white men—because not so much had changed. We were still in charge.
> yes, there was diversity on the bridge, but not that much of it, not really. Uhuru was a service worker and Worf was a punching bag; when the show made a black captain, was it a coincidence that the show also became “darker” and less optimistic, when its characters started to be “flawed” and “ambiguous”? Voyager had a female captain, but it marooned her to the farthest reaches of the galaxy (and the less said about the garbage politics of the reboot movies, the better). But the point is this: Star Trek has always wanted to be more progressive than it ever really managed to be, because it wanted its cake and also to eat it. The future was a human race that had perfected itself, but which also felt comfortable—for white men—because not so much had changed. We were still in charge.