Why modern movies suck - they teach us awful lessons

[Mallus]

Also, been called the father of libertarian sci-fi, lol.

He's a complicated man.
But no one understands him but his woman.

(Robert A. Heinlein)

 

[Ryujin]

He's a complicated man.
But no one understands him but his woman.

(Robert A. Heinlein)

"Sha..." I mean "Hein!"

 

[Ryujin]

Also, been called the father of libertarian sci-fi, lol.

It's almost like he came to his own conclusions about stuff, without adhering to any specific ideology

 

[payn]

It's almost like he came to his own conclusions about stuff, without adhering to any specific ideology

I like sci-fi because you can usually examine some heavy hitting topics, but avoid some of the angst. Heinlein examined a lot of things and was a better writer for it.

DS9 did this masterfully.

 

[Mannahnin]

Huh. The more I read about him, the more I think he just wanted to get it on, and his political philosophy was just, "Yes, dear, now we can go have sex with other people?"


ETA- not that there's anything wrong with that.

He definitely did have some stuff he actually believed in, but your thesis is perhaps supported by the fact that in his later work he declined a bit more into sexual fantasies and solipsism.

Still one of my favorite writers, overall, but some of that later stuff is a bit yikes.

 

[MGibster]

I like sci-fi because you can usually examine some heavy hitting topics, but avoid some of the angst. Heinlein examined a lot of things and was a better writer for it.

Yeah, you have plausible deniability and can get things by the censors. Oh, my, no! This episode isn't about gay people. It's about an alien species with no gender and one of them is oppressed when they come out as being a woman. So it's totally okay if Riker bones her.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

He definitely did have some stuff he actually believed in, but your thesis is perhaps supported by the fact that in his later work he declined a bit more into sexual fantasies and solipsism.

Still one of my favorite writers, overall, but some of that later stuff is a bit yikes.

Not to be flippant or trite, but a lot of stuff people really truly believe in is motivated by the desire to get it on.

See also, every college campus ever.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yeah, you have plausible deniability and can get things by the censors. Oh, my, no! This episode isn't about gay people. It's about an alien species with no gender and one of them is oppressed when they come out as being a woman. So it's totally okay if Riker bones her.

In fairness we all knew what that episode was about when it came out.

I saw that one again not too long ago. One interesting by product of wrapping it up in the alien world thought experiment thing is it ends up tackling a lot of other topics as a result.

I don't know how much of that was getting past censors versus worrying about what the audience would think. I remember the show airing kind of early back when it came out because it was in syndication. I think if it had a prime time slot that was later that might have impacted what kind of content was in the show. I think I used to watch it at like 7 PM or something. But my feeling on this sort of thing is while I enjoy when shows and movies are clever to get around censorship, sometimes people do this weird thing where they will hold episodes like this one up as a reason for why censorship can be good (because it adds a constraint that forces people to be more creative). Personally I think we are much better off when shows are free to explore what they want to explore. But this episode does stand out as one of those interesting ones that takes a creative approach for dealing with something that might not have been able to be handled as directly at the time (I do remember shows and made for tv movies having gay characters at that time so I suspect this may have been more of a time slot and audience issue than actual censorship---but I don't know what the rules governing content were at that time even though I was watching a lot of TV then)

 

[payn]

Yeah, you have plausible deniability and can get things by the censors. Oh, my, no! This episode isn't about gay people. It's about an alien species with no gender and one of them is oppressed when they come out as being a woman. So it's totally okay if Riker bones her.

Or Dax and the first female/female kiss?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Or Dax and the first female/female kiss?

I think it's interesting that people gloss over the fairly numerous examples of Star Trek being progressive in terms of gender identity (after all, the Trill explicitly had hosts of varying genders) or through allegory (Data's trial) ... and yet complain about more recent representations (for example, Adira on Discovery) as somehow being "Not Trek."

Perhaps it's that the times have moved on, and people haven't? I honestly don't know.