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conuly
And in my thoughts, I was rantling-ing about how we keep getting these characters who are not-human, and how a big part of their development is showing them how they really want to be human. Human, of course, means NT.
And then I was thinking about how this push for normality goes beyond mental normality. Geordie's visor makes him able to see differently from other people. In some cases, this is an advantage - he can see things we can't. And yet, consistently, his big wish is to see normally. Why? Because that's better?
I can forgive Star Trek for a lot of things, like the idiotic Universal Translators (not possible, as near as I can see) and the fact that aliens all look human and have human facial expressions (cheaper, easier, kinder on the actors) and the fact that Earth culture = American culture (tell me why Picard quotes a lot of Shakespeare, but not much Moliere. I often wonder how different Star Trek would be if it had been done somewhere else) and the anti-religion bent (hey, I'm an agnostic, I'm not whining) but... this is starting to irritate me.
I don't want to re-invent the wheel here, so I went to google to see what has already been said. And can you believe that I didn't find anything? Clearly, I'm using the wrong search criteria. I cannot possibly be the only person who's wondered along these lines.
If I decide I am, expect a mild, and probably less-well-educated-than-it-should-be rant soon.
And then I was thinking about how this push for normality goes beyond mental normality. Geordie's visor makes him able to see differently from other people. In some cases, this is an advantage - he can see things we can't. And yet, consistently, his big wish is to see normally. Why? Because that's better?
I can forgive Star Trek for a lot of things, like the idiotic Universal Translators (not possible, as near as I can see) and the fact that aliens all look human and have human facial expressions (cheaper, easier, kinder on the actors) and the fact that Earth culture = American culture (tell me why Picard quotes a lot of Shakespeare, but not much Moliere. I often wonder how different Star Trek would be if it had been done somewhere else) and the anti-religion bent (hey, I'm an agnostic, I'm not whining) but... this is starting to irritate me.
I don't want to re-invent the wheel here, so I went to google to see what has already been said. And can you believe that I didn't find anything? Clearly, I'm using the wrong search criteria. I cannot possibly be the only person who's wondered along these lines.
If I decide I am, expect a mild, and probably less-well-educated-than-it-should-be rant soon.
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no subject
Date: 2005-07-03 09:33 pm (UTC)Undiscovered Country: The Klingons, particularly Azetbur, actually vocalize discontent at the human-centric outlook of the Federation as one of the reasons they aren't exactly thrilled to take aid or alliance. The scene is played for laughs.
There's a definite edge of -- I'm not quite sure I'd call it racism, exactly, but definitely a kind of imperialism -- to the Trek humans. They're benevolent about it, but they're definitely convinced that their culture is the right one. It's a species-wide character flaw that would have been interesting to play with. I Roddenberry may have been leaning that way toward the end of his career, but, well, he's dead.