remade meme with higher quality image
There is a Dax joke someone could make here.
It’s all about the Overton window.
While Star Trek TOS was far outside the Overton window for its time, it’s now decades later and multiple generations of people got to know it during a period when its content was entirely within the Overton window for their current time.
These people are still wrong to complain, I’m just pointing out how they get confused: they grow up never seeing old Trek challenge the current Overton window limits, and then a new Trek show comes out that DOES, and they think it’s “suddenly” political.
As both a trekie and a leftie, I must say that the conservatives who complain about modern Trek are not 100% wrong. Yes, Trek was always about social justice, but the episodes were about exploring why something was right or ethical. The new Trek takes this for granted, while half the population is not in agreement, or in a state of confusion. Instead of showing WHY something is good and just and explore it within an episode, they just present it as fact, and then they go off to some random adventure. This rubs off badly half the population. Yes, you can go all out and say that it’s the conservatives’ fault, and it is, but the reality is, the delivery HAS changed. New trek is not the same as old trek.
The Orville was a much more old trek-style show, and people universally loved it more than the new trek, despite being progressive.
Instead of showing WHY something is good and just and explore it within an episode, they just present it as fact, and then they go off to some random adventure.
This is an odd sentiment to me, because I feel like you’re describing what Star Trek always did, and is generally seen as one of its great strengths. We didn’t need to be told that black women and white men could serve together as equals, they just showed Uhura on the bridge functioning like any other officer as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
And this is one of the many respects in which I think Orville falls on its face. Topa never appears in any episode that isn’t about her oppression in one way or another. She’s not allowed to just be a character like any other, taking part in random stories about growing up aboard ship. That casual representation is missing.
The Orville was a much more old trek-style show, and people universally loved it more than the new trek, despite being progressive.
I’m an old school Trekkie and pretty leftist myself and I absolutely hated the Orville. I didn’t see it as doing anything worthy of such praise. It had a lot of tired humor and (badly) recycled story lines from Star Trek. And I have thoroughly enjoyed just about every bit of new Trek that’s come out.
I also don’t agree with your point about them just presenting things instead of subtly insinuating. The only things they present without integrating it into the story are LGBTQ characters and their personal situations. And that’s only because those things should be absolutely normal and unremarkable at this point. The fact that conservatives still have issues with this is entirely because conservatives are socially backwards. And they’ve been made that way by a constant stream of backward propaganda via Fox News and local media outlets that have been taken over by multibillion dollar corporations who have injected their conservative views onto local news outlets en masse.
In other words them not getting it or enjoying it isn’t a problem for Star Trek it’s a problem for conservatives.
Edit: I also find it hilarious that you think that old Trek was in any way subtle about their social commentary. Having the first interracial kiss on national TV on top of several story lines dealing directly with racism was far far from subtle.
You misunderstood my comment. I NEVER said that the old Trek was subtle. Your whole reply is hinging on that point, which is not true. I said that they made the focus of an episode to EXPLORE ethical issues, while on new trek, they take them for granted and then they go on to have a formal adventure.
I love how this meme glazes over the incredibly shit writing of NuTrek, or how the social presented in NuTrek are incredibly safe topics already popular on social media, instead of the some of the very controversial things that Trek has done in the past.
The most controversial thing NuTrek does is being hated by anyone who actually understands Trek, and attracting a lot of tourists.
I’m perfectly happy to ignore everything between Enterprise and SNW, except for Lower Decks. (Is there an official TLA for that?)
LD or LDS.
LDS is what we all did too much of in the '60s.
“Don’t worry, you’re in the Good Place.” - Rick Berman
Tap for spoiler
Easier to flip an actual demon than to rehabilitate Ricky B.
i used to live in a dorky society that said flip instead of fuck (the jello belt sucks) and i choose to interpret your comment in their dialect
