Another notable show that tried to represent the future 'as it should be' was Star Trek.
It had a Russian and a black woman as officers an 'alien' as 2nd in command etc...
It's a nice fantasy, but completely unworkable.
There are certainly valid criticisms of the quasi-utopian vision of society in Star Trek, but that one ship was not meant as a model or microcosm of how the whole of their society was run. Just one aspect.
That's correct, but the Enterprise was clearly written as a metaphor for the perfect society. I've also seen it referred to as such by people wanting to create the perfect society.
My perspective: I grew up in and around the military, I understand military command structures and I see them as distinct from our overall society. That doesn't mean that there is no place for that sort of structure within a society. Star Trek always appeared to me as representing that military structure within the overall structure of the Federation's society. In fact, most members of the Federation were not members of anything military-like (or so it's claimed in the show, you don't really see too much outside the ship and non-Federation planets). The ship, the Enterprise, never seemed like a metaphor for anything (the Federation, on the other hand, was clearly meant as an analog to the the US and most of Western Europe, or the direction Rodenberry thought they were headed).
> I've also seen it referred to as such by people wanting to create the perfect society.
I do not doubt that you've seen this. But I've, personally, only heard and read people reference the Federation as a perfect society, not the Enterprise. Until today.
Not much is ever seen of the Federation in ST. But the parent I replied to, and its parent, are referring to the Enterprise.
Also, when I've seen references to ST as the model of utopia, Captain Kirk is often talked about front and center. Clearly, they are referring to the society on the Enterprise.
You can also see in this article cited later in this discussion:
http://grantland.com/features/next-generation-turns-25/
with quotes like this:
"and Picard’s personification of enlightened humanism"
Although I find your criticism to be fair for TNG itself - when Roddenberry had greater creative control and the Federation began to be developer as having evolved beyond petty human desire and conflict, although there were some exceptions because sometimes the writers didn't get the memo (Barclay's OCD tendencies and Geordi keeping a holographic girlfriend come to mind) and it's just impossible to write good drama where all of the characters are just insufferably perfect. Even Superman has to have kryptonite.
But TOS is the series where McCoy is pretty openly racist towards Spock and where people get into fistfights all the time - it's a lot more grounded in plausible reality.
* The Next Generation (starting point, but be prepared to sit through the slower first seasons).
* DS9
* Voyager (however optionally skip anything from the Kess seasons that you feel like)
Star Trek Discovery was good, but is more an edgier more action packed thriller kind of series than the earlier series. I do like where they're going with rebooting the overall universe though and I feel that this brings the modern FX capacity in to the series in a way that makes sense for today.
For something you can show to your parents or if you generally don't get Star Trek, the Orville is a GREAT comedy focused take on the ideas that Star Trek (everything) classically presented, but covering modern social issues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG_A0IOCfdM
One of the important ongoing themes is the relationship between Commander Sisko and his son Jake, which this article is about:
Deep Space Nine Is TV’s Most Revolutionary Depiction of Black Fatherhood
http://www.vulture.com/2018/01/deep-space-nine-revolutionary...
Here's an interesting interview with Avery Brooks (Sisko) and Rene Auberjonois (Odo):
It's hard to know how TV has impacted the children who watched it. When I was older, I remember seeing kids watching Barney and Teletubbies and...
It goes without saying that Barney could never stand at the Emmys and taken seriously. I'm not sure who could be a Mr Rogers v2.
Unfortunately, I have no way of articulating my thoughts without sounding like a curmudgeon. I don't really know how the shows I grew up on, like Sesame Street, Letter People, and Reading Rainbow shaped my attitudes growing up, for better or worse. I just know that Mr Rogers would be the most likely to be acknowledge by an older generation without being them being embarrassed about it. He just a human; that human we all wished was our neighbor.
It moved me to tears. In fact, it still does. And I didn't even watch the show very much.
I really don't understand this criticism. On a first-principle basis alone it does not make any sense, because the same is true for any children's cartoon. I know this is anecdotal, but wanting to act out the fantasy in Transformers, Thundercats and whatnot certainly affected the playground in my childhood, why would the opposite part be any different? Also, why would people worry about the violence in those series, but not appreciate the better world depicted in this one? Fiction matters.
Where do you hear that? Shallow or ungrounded compared to what? GI Joe? Caillou? Barney?
For many people, "they" are you and me, not an object lesson to be taught about.
As I remember it, there were quite a few episodes where race was dealt with indirectly. By that I mean, the idea of difference would constantly come up in regards to things like the clothes people were wearing, or characters who wore glasses or not, etc.
Treating people the same regardless of differences was a constant theme of the show from my memory. Helping people, not holding them back. It was by no means ignoring the other-side of this, it just took the unapologetic stance that there is only one proper way to treat people, and wouldn't it be great if we could all live that way everyday?
That being said, we're very regimented in screen time. My son maybe gets 20-30 minutes of TV time per day. We've also changed the format where each family member gets a turn to pick what to watch so we can expose him to more things.
I take issue with what you say here:
a> It was by no means ignoring the other-side of this
No racist ideas ever appeared on the show. That is the definition of "ignoring the [racist] side of this."
Ignoring != suppressing. Ignoring thoroughly debunked and discredited notions is healthy, and universal. NASA isn’t suppressing flat Earthers by not presenting their views alongside their scientific discoveries. It’s the job of the flat Earthers to present their own ideas, not act as social and intellectual parasites while crying that others aren’t carrying their weight for them. Mr. Rogers, on his own show, presented his own views, and that isn’t “suppressing” anything either.
> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.
If there was some new information in the debates over race in the 60’s, then your point would stand. That wasn’t the case though, and there was nothing to suppress except a persistent, ancient, hateful ideology. This is true in the same way that balanced reporting shouldn’t boil down to giving a scientist explaining why the Earth is round, with a lunatic who thinks it’s flat. They’re entitled to their beliefs, and tell them to anyone who wants to listen, and we’re entiteld to ignore them like they don’t exist. That’s not “suppression” in a meaningful sense.
I think Rogers was not polarizing because he delivered his views in a calm, measured and reasoned manner. Polarizing statements are ones deliberately calculated to reduce someone else's view or accusing the other side of something to advance your own views.
So depicting a peanut butter sandwich might be illegal. Or it might be like marijuana, where depicting a peanut butter sandwich, while technically legal, is seen as an inducement to commit a crime and so is suppressed by extralegal means. On the other hand, depicting peanut butter and bread but no sandwich... well, obviously, a peanut butter sandwich is what would have come next, if the filmmakers weren't under the thumb of the government. Obviously
If sandwiches are contested, then showing them (or not showing them) is political. Civil rights was and is contested; Fred Rogers' presentation of a colorblind little slice of utopia to America's children was political too.
I still occasionally hear criticism of the show as being unrealistic, that it papered over things or was shallow or ungrounded. As if children's perception, compared to adults, is particularly realistic, deep or stable! What adult worries about going down the drain after a bath? Who understands the deep, existential angst a child feels looking over the precipice as the two most important people in their lives "suddenly" aren't together anymore? Rogers' genius was to take what was meaningful to a child and speak frankly about that. He never belittled those anxieties; he merely explained them and what they could do. And if there wasn't anything they could actually do, he could at least convince them the world would not end.
The show represented an idealism that you just don't see anymore. I was too young to have seen the episodes first-run where black community members were simply introduced, without fanfare, but that's exactly how he would have done it. Of course black people live in our city. Lots of people live in our city. They're just like you and me. They have the same jobs and live in the same houses because why shouldn't they? It wasn't polarized or political, it wasn't beating people over the head for not believing what he believed. It was simply matter-of-fact.
When he did the Emmys in 1997, you saw that idealism in practice. Of course there are special people in your lives who brought you to where you are today. Why wouldn't you honour them? And people obeyed, for he was right. (If you don't know this story, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Rogers#Emmys_for_programm... .)
I have a DVD of some of the episodes with a little toy cardigan wrapped around them. I was quite upset when he passed away, even with a graduate degree by then.
As a moral authority, there couldn't have been one much better in the United States.