Why modern movies suck - they teach us awful lessons

[payn]

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.

I do believe it has become less subtle. Americans are a very low-context culture. They like things to be slap you in the face obvious. Also, folks for the last few decades have been pushing positions over interests. So, if you even wander into political territory, it means you have an agenda and whatever show is partisan now. /shrug

 

[Paul Farquhar]

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

People have moved on in opposite directions.

I expect where those old episodes of Trek broadcast today they would be met with a bigger negative reaction.

 

[dragoner]

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.

The overton window is moving down to the "less free" zone.

 

[MGibster]

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

Oh, yeah. We all knew what the episode was about just like we did when we say the TOS episode with the aliens who were black on one side, black on the other side, and couldn't get along with one another because they were black on opposite sides. Plausible deniability isn't necessarily credulous deniability.

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 don't know either. Especially since a lot of times censors are censoring because they're worried about angering the audience.

Or Dax and the first female/female kiss?

At least in the United States, Star Trek did not feature the first female/female romantic kiss on television. LA Law did it two years before Deep Space 9 was on the air and Picket Fences did it in 1993 during DS9s first season. These were both primetime network shows. When it came to LGBTQ+ representation, Star Trek wasn't exactly on the leading edge back in the 1990s.

 

[payn]

At least in the United States, Star Trek did not feature the first female/female romantic kiss on television. LA Law did it two years before Deep Space 9 was on the air and Picket Fences did it in 1993 during DS9s first season. These were both primetime network shows. When it came to LGBTQ+ representation, Star Trek wasn't exactly on the leading edge back in the 1990s.

I didnt realize it was a race for bragging rights. I was just pointing out a good use of sci-fi writing to examine the subject.

 

[Bedrockgames]

At least in the United States, Star Trek did not feature the first female/female romantic kiss on television. LA Law did it two years before Deep Space 9 was on the air and Picket Fences did it in 1993 during DS9s first season. These were both primetime network shows. When it came to LGBTQ+ representation, Star Trek wasn't exactly on the leading edge back in the 1990s.

I don't know when the first was on American TV, but my sense is it was likely not a science fiction show and probably something on later in the evening than star trek. I do know there were a number of made for TV movies with gay characters in them around the time of early Star Trek the Next Generation (I remember one with Jim Carey for example). And there were gay characters on television shows (Billy Crystal on Soap for example, and there was an episode of Give me A Break where the cop dad's partner on a stake out was gay).

These things also aren't always a straight trajectory in one direction though

 

[dragoner]

Its weird that these are cultural milestones, I wonder if any other country does this?

 

[BookTenTiger]

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.

I think it's the easy access to echo chambers these days. I'm sure there were folks were were upset at Star Trek's progressive politics, but there wasn't as much of an economic incentive for them to jump onto YouTube, spout a bunch of reactionary stuff, and get money from ads.

 

[MGibster]

I didnt realize it was a race for bragging rights. I was just pointing out a good use of sci-fi writing to examine the subject.

You did write the following:

Or Dax and the first female/female kiss?

I didn't think you were looking for bragging rights, but it appeared as though you were under the impression that DS9 featured the first female/female kiss. I was just pointing out that this wasn't the case.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I didn't think you were looking for bragging rights, but it appeared as though you were under the impression that DS9 featured the first female/female kiss. I was just pointing out that this wasn't the case.

This stuff is hard to track. On a quick search the first on air lesbian kiss was 1991 on LA Law (but even that is hard to track depending on how you define it because I think Howard Stern might have beat them by a year if you are including stuff that isn't fictional; and 21 Jump Street had an episode where they cut away from the kiss but it happened). The movies is a different story, there was a same sex kiss as early as 1922 (and in film it seems like it waxed and waned over the decades depending on sensibilities).