star trek diversity. the fact that that phrase is meaningful is sad.

[cimorene]

Here's a crazy thought I had today: original Star Trek was one of the best racially representative shows in science fiction tv. It certainly did better than TNG (the only black member one of 2 black regulars on the cast was a savage alien - extra points if you've reimagined aliens who originally allegorically represented the USSR as ultra-violent, hulking black guys with a tribal bent; the other's a blind sidekick, essentially, the way he's usually written as Data's bff, whose sole romantic encounter is with one of the vanishingly-few black women they meet! And Whoopi's Guinan is a magical, sexless, ALIEN negro who tells fortunes, provides motherly advice as well as sassy straight-talking, and wears a robey-muumuu thing that I'm pretty sure is also offensive) and DS9 (one Indian, one black guy who is essentially the governor of a huge-ass COLONY and a diplomat, but is somehow militarily ranked below Picard and Kirk; a bunch of aliens, but none of them dark-skinned; of the two newly-introduced races we have Bajorans who are white, and Cardassians who are PAINTED GREY but always played by white people!)

I believe Voyager had a black Vulcan and a North American native (as well as maybe an Asian cast member? Am I remembering that right?). BSG has some racial diversity from what I've seen (I've not watched it myself), but the Stargate franchise has always been pretty abysmal (Teal'c: he's black, alien, AND a magical negro! And let's not start on Ronon and Teyla's treatment in canon).

So I mean, essentially, race has not made progress in mainstream tv sf since 1964.

Comments

sortave OT, but related.

[danamaree.livejournal.com]

I went to a convention a few years ago in London and saw the actor who plays Sisko, Avery Brooks, who is absolutely amazing. Such an interesting actor, of the Shakespeare tradition (a lot of Trek actors are).

He talked about race a bit, and has a tale of when he was on the Studio, and he went to the other ST set because Stephen Hawkings was guest starring and he wanted to meet him and he was challenged because he was black (as he believed), and he wasn't able to get on the set. That was fairly sad, and disgusting really.

But he's an amazing guy, and a good speaker. If you ever get to see him speak, do.

Re: sortave OT, but related.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I've only been to a few cons big enough to attract important media guests and tend to prefer smaller ones anyway, but I would definitely take the chance if I had the opportunity to meet him. :) Given the whole "black man can't get a cab in NYC" (borne out by experimentation!), I have to say I'm outraged, but not surprised by his anecdote.