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Message: <blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 8472163" data-attributes="member: 11">I think it is about more than being inspired. Here's the thing, in the United States (which is what I will speak for but this is also true of Europe and even Latin America), seeing the dominant culture or racial group reflected in all aspects of entertainment and news is so naturalized that it is not only people who belong to those groups not see it as anything unusual, but BIPOC people can come to see it that way too (esp. growing up). The simple acknowledgement that we exist and can do all the things folks of the dominant group can do may not seem like much, but growing up with that unspoken and accepted idea that it is white people's stories (both of everyday lives and exceptional ones) are the ones worth telling can have a profound effect not only on self-worth but developing a broader understanding of the world AND actually making space for BIPOC people to fulfill those roles and benefit from those material resources they have historically and systemically been deprived of. Yes, abstractly, but also literally, like Nichelle Nichols role allowed her to have a job where Black folks had few at the time (and even fewer that weren't stereotyped roles), which allowed for other Black folks to be considered for roles down the line. . . (not that progress is guaranteed or always a straight line).When you are implicitly told through popular culture, "the world is like this" (even while sometimes being explicitly told otherwise) but then see that different possibility for yourself it has the power to deflate and undermine the accepted ideological framework.Last night I was watching Star Trek: Discovery and it suddenly struck me how wonderful it was to be watching a Black woman captain having a scene with her black man paramour while she deals with the conflict of her personal feelings and her Starfleet duty. In some ways, the scene was no different than we might have seen any of the past white captains have, but that these characters were allowed to have that scene in a major franchise was powerful in itself. As was the b-plot involving designing a body for a disembodied genderqueer character. The themes of identity and personhood that many Star Trek episodes have dealt with in the past are just being explored using contemporary ideas about bodies and gender (as Star Trek should, being a show that frequently looked to current event to inform its parables and allegories) but simply seeing a show that says "This matters enough to explore" is important even without "inspiration." A viewer with a historically marginalized identity can now have the experience of reflection that the dominant group has taken for granted to such a degree, that like as you express above, it remains invisible.</blockquote>

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