The reason I loved Start Trek TNG as a child was because it represented a world that was post capitalism, post racism and post gender roles. I wanted to believe we would get there as a society eventually.
I remember one guy got angry and said their was a trans characters in TNG back then so why their in another show and it show how they don't want anyone who isn't cis to be represented
@@USSAnimeNCC- I remember a few different episodes that touched on gender. Data's child Lal who could choose their gender and the one with Riker where there was an alien species that didn't have genders. The point that was being made was that gender is a construct and we need to stop getting all bent out of shape about it. But alas 30 years later and we're still having the same damn arguments 🙄
Was it? Wasn't it always about exploring all of those things? But using alien or a.i to explore it rather than humans. Talking about real life social issues but not making 1:1 comparisons because that would defeat the purpose of having it be scifi. update: just got the part in the video where Jessie says this, so yes, it was never set in a post-problem world. which also for me is never why i understood ppl saying they wish they could live in Star Trek fiction, because it is just our world. Apart from the future tech and exploration, it is basically non-fiction.
@@USSAnimeNCC- Had a similar encounter with a guy who said it was pointless to include an NB character in Discovery because we already had the Borg. Like, bruh, there is so much to unpack....
"It should discomfort the comfortable and comfort the uncomfortable." That's a hell of a quote in a hell of a review. Well said, thank-you for your thought provoking appraisal.
Of course the right wing is bitching about Star Trek. After all, GOP legislatures are passing laws to prevent white kids from feeling "uncomfortable" by learning about history.
@@OllamhDrab The problem with the person that wrote that article for Fox News, he actually believes that it should be "Comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted".
Hearing about stories like this just pisses me off. I mean, what the hell is wrong with someone who would even conceive of critiizing ST for its "wokeness" or political activism? It's beyond absurd.
I love how David Marcus casually mentions that Star Trek "has always been credited with diverse casts" as though that were irrelevant to his argument about current shows delving into contemporary politics. _Star Trek_ gave us an integrated bridge crew, on national television, *in 19-goddamn-66* - a time when integration was every bit as controversial as voting rights are today. Man, no wonder the Klingons killed this guy.
@@colinmontgomery1956 the right for illegals to vote for democrats of course... the right for people to not provide proof they are citizens in order to vote for democrats.. duh... #BlueNomatterWho is what matters... i mean, they genuinely think black people dont know how to get an ID or drivers license, find a DMV, use the internet... ruclips.net/video/yW2LpFkVfYk/видео.html i mean, it must be true the media, public and higher education teach it as fact, also as Joe Biden said, this is also true for mexican americans and other non-white people... also, its oppressive to not allow non-citizens who are living in a country, to vote for how the country is run and who is running it... its racist, we could have avoided trump if we let every person living here vote for democrats... its not right to only allow citizens to vote or expect them to provide any proof of citizenship.... thats fascist and oppressive.
I refuse to take people who use the term "woke" unironically seriously. It's an instant red flag that you're dealing with a bad-faith actor. It's just a buzzword that people love to throw around because they know it gets their people riled up.
I have the same reaction when someone uses Mary Sue in an argument, in 99,9% of cases they call the female character Mary Sue to present their criticism as objective and not because they don't like it for some personal reasons, mostly because female character is not constantly polite to others characters especially men, she does not smile constantly or she is good at fighting or she is very intelligent and she is not afraid to show it especially towards male characters. Mary Sue has long since become a buzzword that has lost its original meaning.
@@ExtremeMadnessX perhaps so, but it does still have its uses (coughReycough). Plus, what’s more topical than a discussion about Mary Sues in a video about Stat Trek, a fanfic of which literally birthed that concept?
@@gerrye114 erm… Nope, he wasn’t. Tell me, did Luke manage to lift the X-wing with barely any amount of training? Did he end up winning every single one of his lightsaber duels in the end? Was he competent at a myriad different things for no apparent reason? Didn’t think so.
It just kills me when people complain about the progressive nature of Star Trek. What version of Star Trek are they watching? One from the mirror universe?
@@BlueBeetle1939 hell the people who complain that Modern Trek has turned The Federation into evil monsters and gone against Roddenberry’s vision clearly have only seen parts of The Terren Empire episodes. The opening of Mirror Mirror literally brings into question that The Federation could one day become evil and vice Verda The Terren Empire can one day become good
The article doesn't just miss the point of Star Trek (admittedly to a hilarious level), it misses the point of speculative fiction and scifi in the first place. The whole purpose of the genre is to **speculate** about potential futures or alternate pasts and presents to put a lens on a particular contemporary topic. This cat is just throwing around a massive Dunning-Krueger boner.
Not to mention, that in that Pike-scene there is NO MENTION of the year or concrete event during which the "riots" are happening. Nah, the dude just recognizes the footage and says: "They blame it on event XYZ"...
Niko knows words! Ordering them or putting them in context to argue a point, not so much. When you escape from your Reddit page into the wider light of scrutiny, you reveal yourself to be a complete reactionary knobhead.
When my partner and I started dating, I informed him that I was a geek, but never got into Star Trek. He launched into an impassioned diatribe about Rodenberry’s vision and how bold he was to cast a Russian man in control of the weapons, a Japanese man controlling the ship and a black woman in charge of all the communications. I sat and listened to him wax poetic about the society that Gene was showing us that we could have. After that, I became a Star Trek fan(ish). It has always been woke, before “woke” became a bad thing. P.S. we love you Jessie (shameless fangirl, here😻)
I love that he brought up how precise they were in where each character was. A Japanese man at the helm when World War 2 was still recent in peoples' minds, a Russian man controlling weapons that could devastate a planet, and a black woman being the first human voice a race hears upon contact...Roddenberry knew what he was doing.
I believe it’s back when woke was actually about rights and treatment every individual fairly. I believe the “new woke” is a tool that the elites use to divide. There’s obviously merit behind it, otherwise it wouldn’t have any following. Alternatively, there is merit behind the opposition to it as well. Have you noticed that both sides have answers that are authoritarian in nature? I believe the real battle is between authoritarian vs libertarian (not necessarily right wing) and not left vs right.
Some of my strongest memories of my childhood are watching star trek with my grandpa. It's heart breaking to see him become the target audience of that article and to hear him disapprove of my "lifestyle" Thank you for breaking down just how uninformed this article is. People always ask "what radicalized you?" And for me it might have honestly been growing up poor with a side serving of star trek.
Because he probably still sees it as just fiction and not reality that is achievable. I caught star trek marathons all the time and it definitely helped me build my world view especially being able to relate things to real life events.
@@Drownedinblood I have couple friend who see Star Trek as nothing else than "fiction". Then they cite inventions like beaming / transporters, and how that's so totally unrealistic and could never happen, and hence StarTrek is pure fiction. All the while ignoring the radical advancements where computing, communications, and many other things have gone. I like to make the communicator an example. How during airing of TOS it was UNFATHOMABLE to have a little device in your hand to communicate with over vast distances. Today, only a few decades later, we have smart-phones which do just that, not with exactly the same range though, but instead connected to the internet with pretty much 99.99% of humanities knowledge "in the palm of your hand". I guess those doubters still don't get it.
If people ask you “what radicalized you” in that context, you gotta wonder if you can’t ask them the same (seriously, here in Germany so many members of the Republican party would’ve been labeled as dangerous and radical far-right extremists)…
@@MistedMind tbh star trek was too optimistic, though technically in universe humanity had to basically nearly cause its own extinction before it leaned to calm down and cooperate. Maybe we are headed that prediction as well.
The thing is, if Star Trek IV came out today, or if Fox had been deliberately inciting a culture war in 1986 they'd absolutely be crying about it taking a partisan position in a way they'd claim that TOS didn't.
Star Trek's...woke politics. Umm, like yeah. Criticizing arguably one of the most progressive pieces of fiction in Western civilization is like a...you call whata...oxymoron. There's stuff in the TOS, cartoon, the TOS films, TNG, DS9, and even...Voyager that is more woke now than material in present media. Remember, these entities ages are respectively a Gen-X/late Baby Bloomer and three millennials. If you include Enterprise, you've got Gen Z person.
Even the Original series didn't slack on the social messages. I mean those were pretty blatant too, about women's equality, birth control, racism, Indigenous beliefs, etc.
I will point out the Captain Kirk knew by heart the Preamble to the Constitution. Which today would be consider “white Supremacy “. To my point, they tried to show a better future. Instead today they focus on divisive politics.
@@lkeke35 Definitely. One's they don't really see or acknowledge. -Different concepts of sex, gender, race, and social construction. -Not only understanding your enemies, but respect them and almost if not wholly loving them at some point. Not a Black and White situation. -Anti-Fascism/Totalitarian -Admitting mistakes and failures. -Tackles Anthropocentrism
Original star trek was probably the most hammy messeging of all of them,with picard he had that shakespearean actor making speeches more organic, but shattner so unsubtile. Also ds9 the one with anaxtual ex trrst ...?!
Notice, no one answered you. She is in there because of their "woke" agenda, of course. I'm not going to hold my breath to see a Conservative on the show.
@@dan6442 I'll say this not for you, but for anyone reading who doesn't know it: Stacey Abrams is an intense and extremely knowledgeable Star Trek fan, and that's why she's in there.
@@EleneDOM Stacey Abrams is a "loser" in politics. There are only three reasons she was in Star Trek. She's a black Democrat and female. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. It doesn't take knowledge of Star Trek to be in Star Trek. JJ Abrams proved that 😆
Every time you hear someone complain about ST not being the same because it became woke, please direct them to that TOS episode where half white half black men are in conflict with half black half white men. ST has always been about social and political issues, not just escapism.
Sadly, some people watch ST and only see SW (and even that it had political messages) in it. Some people watch it and only see OOOh starships, firefights, and aliens. They never think or see anything deeper.
The two things I will never stop laughing at from the conservative base is “suddenly woke Star Trek” and “Rage Against the Machine getting political” 😂
So, I have a theory, and this "discussion" is a good example of it. I have noticed that there are many words that conservatives do not understand. While there are a few reasons for this, the main reason is that conservative pundits, "jounalists", and media intentionally use these words in a highly incorrect manner. This is done in order to shift the meaning in a conservative mind, again this is done intentionally. The purpose behind this shift is to prevent communication. For example, you might be using "Woke" in the original sense of recognizing someone's innate humanity. A conservative is using it as an attack on their values. You can't have a conversation like that. There are many words like this, not just "woke", but Socialism, communism, patriotism, nationalism, constitution, rights, and many, many others.
A lot are just angered by the words. The meaning doesnt matter. Cis and intersectional for example gets people angry. Theyre like signifiers for teams.
I think this is an interesting example of people “aging out” of being progressive. My grandparents were absolutely progressive and woke in their time. They are an interracial couple and have always been outspoken on things like abortion and gay rights. However, as what is progressive has changed as society continues to push forward, they have not. So now they are no longer “progressive.” I see this a lot in recent conversations with older trek fans who think Trek is “too woke now”. It was always progressive and political, but they might not have noticed since it reflected their values at the time.
Yep Scott P, I'm 74 and more progressive...Not all of us didn't keep up. But I do prefer older trek (has nothing to do with being woke). But some people aren't or they do for the most part and have trouble with pieces of it (can't deal with the language changes for instance).
@@scpatl4now me too on the verge of 60. The world turns. It changes. It is far from the world I knew as a kid. If you fight this you will just create misery. Each generation changes the world. Always has.
Sci-fi & fantasy have always been tools to address social issues more honesty by using allegory to raise issues with less conflict. People will still miss the parts they disagree with if they want. You do have to agree with “one side “ see human rights & diversity as important
Sometimes you need a "brick message" because not everyone gets the metaphors (especially when you are younger, I mean teenage years) and for those who kinda understand the metaphor, they can't pretend not noticing it, they can't be ignorant about it. In my opinion metaphors are good and fine but you also need some blatant messages in order to make your side of the argument heard. Oh and thanks for keeping the spoilers to a minimum, Paramount+ won't start here in Germany and I believe France and Italy till the end of the year. Thanks a lot, CBS. Feels like the 90s when we got new seasons of any show at least half a year later. But back then there was no internet like now and spoilers were rare.
I remember heman, sea quest and so and so. Which are probably the cheesiest and brick way , having a moraö tacked on, whoch is ok. Seriously star trek is just in line with shows like heman and co. Shows were that direct with masseges. Its not new at all. And its way toned down and subtile in comparison.
I always joke that today "Let that be your last battlefield" seems like a parody of anti-racist episodes because it's allegory is less subtle then the Tsar Bomba, but in 1970, it needed to be that obvious.
But that’s the problem - they very much do understand. But their performative ignorance plays well with a disturbingly significant portion of the population.
Fox News is a puppet of the GOP, designed to stoke the fears of conservative voters so that they will go out and blindly vote for people like Matt Gaetz.
This people are freaking paid to give their shitty opinion about a show they clearly never watched. It's already intolerable from a grifters youtube channel, it should be illegal for a big public channel info. And for god sake "Star trek got woke". The new shows actually have the opposite problem, it's less woke than before because less optimistic, critical of social issue and calling for creating a better future for everyone, just for more action and edgyness. But this guys don't even know the meaning of the word "woke" and thinks that a show that let LGBTs, women and peoples of colour have a role are automaticly woke (does that mean Gone with the wind is too much woke for Fox News ?), wich just prooved than "woke" is just their political corect way to be racist, sexist and LGBTphobe.
Eeh you see the world currently, star ztek always reacted to current politics, and its would be plain tonedeaf to do that withouz agnowledging that its dark times. Its still optimidtic, just honest in whst times we live.
You both have hit on one of the reasons I have trouble with Discovery and Picard: To me, Star Trek has always been about an optimistic and reachable future. It isn't always perfect, but we've solved some problems (or think we have) in Trek's future, and we are (we hope) working on others...and occasionally, we humans are wrong and the aliens are right, so everyone has room to grow, it's not all 100% good-guys versus bad-guys. Discovery and Picard seem to have decided everything turned bad and no one could get along or get better. (That's how it comes across to me, very dystopian and nihilist, very grim-dark.) I know other fans may enjoy Discovery and Picard. But this aspect plus poor writing and a few things that just felt really off / wrong / out of character, or inconsistent to external or internal canon...It didn't do it for me. -- Yet I do like other sci-fi where the heroes are fighting in a dystopian world. I am not sure what the exact difference or tipping point is. So I like the brighter, more friendly timeline. Is it possible for there to be times when society goes bad / sour / toxic and people have to do the best they can to get out of that? Heck, we are indeed living in a world like that. But even here, not everyone is awful. People still can be good and help out. Nuts, I don't know if I'm getting my point across well enough. But I like that you all pointed out how Star Trek is, even at its darkest, versus how the always-angry-never-good-enough crowd act about it., and how the Fox reviewers don't get it and didn't even seem to pay attention, maybe didn't really watch.
@@benw9949 I have another point of view on the matter. The older shows were adapted to their times in that those times needed to show an optimistic future was even possible. But now, it's less of a revolutionary idea; I think the show shifted to something where if you want your optimistic good future, you need to fight for it. Today, too many people think we solved equality or that it's on the way, and dismiss any form of social protest as useless overreaction. I think more people need to hear the message that the world is indeed shitty, but that enlightened centrism won't lead anywhere, that we need effort and action on one side to reach that utopian future. I think that's something the shows do, but maybe not explicitely or enough? That said yea, classic trek all the way, I'm mentally not well and I've had a hard time watching the more gory/dark aspects of the new shows. I mean, I liked what I saw between panic attacks, but I've had my fair share of those as well. (Hem, not that I don't have those watching older Trek...)
@@tigaliyt I watched Trek in first run; adults were talking about missiles and mutually assured destruction and all sorts of thing a 12 year old couldn't really handle. Roddenbury showed us that we were gonna get through it. It was gonna be messy (eugenics war, WWIII, retcons), but our species would pull through and reach the Stars. For kids my age, we talked more about the hem-lines, hair-styles and does that green go everywhere? It was a welcome break from watching riots and Vietnam body counts on the nightly News.
I'm not even that familiar with Star Trek and I still can realize how absolutely idiotic that title is. Not as if Star Trek being progressive wasn't one of the most well known fact about the franchise.
One of the things I have never understood is how a person can love and extol the virtues of these kinds of shows without having their world view changed by them. My dad is the one who introduced me to Quantum Leap, Star Trek, M.A.S.H. and the 1970's Hulk tv show among other similar shows. My dad is also racist and very right wing. I genuinely don't understand how these two things happened together. As someone who feels her worldview was partially shaped by the messages in these shows, I can't imagine ACTUALLY growing up when they were at their peak popularity, being a fan of them, and still winding up acting on so much fear and hatred.
Yeah, it's interesting. A lot of the discourse that I've seen has been right-wingers acting like we're trying to bar them from watching the show, and it's like, you can watch the show and ignore the message if you want to, you're clearly very practiced at it, but that doesn't change what it's about.
I don't recall meeting any female ST fans with that contradictory conservative attitude. All such walking contradictions I've met over the years were men who only remembered the battle-heavy episodes or used descriptions like "the one with the green-haired chick in the skimpy silver outfit". The plot and social commentary in Trek wasn't what they were paying attention to.
One analysis I saw about why conservatives like more progressive media is that they view it as purely escapism fantasy. Where someone progressive looks at Star Trek and sees a world that can be built, a conservative viewer looks at it and says, "That would be nice. Oh well. Things are rough right now, but it all works out in the end. I don't have to stop being racist. There's a black man commanding a star ship some day. They'll figure that part out after I'm dead."
Because people with working brains don't allow themselves to be indoctrinated into a way of thinking by a TV show, no matter how much they might like it.
@@christophernuzzi2780 Seeing as there is a good chance this is bait I will say one thing and be done with it. Good art should make you think about your beliefs though yes, it is up to you whether you accept or discard the message. If you love Star Trek and came out of that still a racist (which I mentioned my dad is) you either chose not to think or you did think and decided looking down on others based on skin tone was the answer which says an awful lot I think. Anyway, have a nice day
Literally for as long as I can remember, people have been telling me I should watch Star Trek. Try it, you'll like it. All that stuff. This video is the only thing that made me think I might actually WANT to watch it.
I think it like the Tim pool thing where they lie and didn't look at it like their this book that Tim keep saying it teach sex to our kid when it really isn't it a book about a person journey to being ace it clear he never read the book and if I remember correctly the book is in highschool but Tim want to ban it it show how they aren't honest and people dumb enough and lack some common sense like Joe Rogan can tend to believe them
I remember when I was 6 years old way back in the early 80's I watched the original Star Trek series (reruns back then) with my mom and great-grandmother. They only watched the show for Leonard Nemoy and William Shatner but I loved the show. At 6, of course, I didn't pick up on the progressiveness of it but as I got older I recognized it more and more. Star Trek has always been progressive and has always been meant to - at least in my mind - show what the world COULD BE. I haven't finished Star Trek Discovery yet - I'm on season 4 but watching the few clips you showed of Strange New Worlds, I am going to sit down and watch that this weekend 😊😊
I think they self implode if they don't blame people with different ideologies. Their weather reports are probably like "Those damn communists are making it rain!!!"
@@mykaruest3620 The fact that culture wars are pretty much manufactured out of nothing, and thus irrelevant to the daily lives of everyone, means that the far right have an inexhaustible source of grievances in which to distract gullible people with. Not wanting to mix franchises but I believe George Lucas called it The Phantom Menace phenomena.
Growing up in an extremely conservative environment Star Trek was one of the few places where I got to see a different point of view. And while I do think there is a place for Star Trek to be less metaphorical I know who I was at the time and there is a need for the soft approach because the harder you push the harder people push back. And I don't mean idiots writing articles who clearly don't know what they're talking about. I'm talking about teenagers who are figuring out the world and need to be allowed to figure things out on their own. That said, neither of the examples he used seem to rise to that level. First off, the Stacey Abrams is only political if you know who she is and then you have to want to see it as political and showing an example of political violence to explain why that is bad doesn't seem all that unreasonable.
I remember seeing reviews of Discovery that were mad about the protagonist being black and female (some of them even straight up admitted they only liked women in the show when they were sexualized) and I was so confused... I genuinely don't understand how people like that can enjoy a franchise that is actively about progress and acceptance.
They enjoyed the show when it comforted and reassured them about their centred role in the world. That's partly why many conservative fans complain about the lack of subtlety in the recent series, because they can't comfortably ignore the social/political commentary.
@@seymssogood but that's the thing, Star Trek was never really subtle. Especially about the horrors of capitalism. It's just dedicated to "leftist" preaching and always has been.
@Tuffy Logan You're right, it has never been really subtle about its social and political stances. However, I do think that TNG created a false impression of subtlely because it didn't really allegorize the major _political_ upheavals of the time, in contrast to DS9, TOS, DIS and PIC, which definitely did/do. TNG always gave the impression that it was set 'after' any relatable political upheavals i.e. Worf as a crew member to represent improved post-Cold War relations, etc, and therefore, the show mainly focussed on _social_ issues, and general human stories. And so, a certain part of the fanbase latch onto this impression given by TNG to make their argument against modern political storylines in modern Trek, many even take it personally, like as a personal attack on their ownership of the franchise.
@@seymssogood It kind of came in a more optimistic time, just at the end of the cold war, when it kind of made sense (especially in Star Trek VI) that the Klingons were the Russians, and now we could make peace with them so we could end up with Worf on the bridge. I mean that Fukuyama book and the whole "End of History" hypothesis only made sense in the context of that 1990s euphoria of the end of the cold war and a belief that things were stabilising towards an end of big ideological conflict.
That nod to _The Day The Earth Stood Still_ and Robert Wise in _ST: SNW_ was a chef's kiss of meta-mythologizing. Yep, _Star Trek_ is a product of the Civil Rights era. In 1964, Roddenberry wrote about racism & other political issues in his show _The Lieutenant_ - unfortunately, the network refused to air those episodes & it was canceled quickly. The only way Roddenberry could get away with talking about these issues on television in the 1960s was to place them in a Fantasy Sci-fi context. _Star Trek_ was created explicitly as a platform for anti-racism & allegory that challenges capitalist/political/societal norms - that's kind of the entire point of the thing. "Wokeness", "political correctness", "bleeding heart liberalism" - the publicly acceptable terminology changes through the decades but it's always the same racist, anti-progress complaint.
I love that Pike has seen his future. That was such a cool plot twist,, that I now think they DO realize how big of a thing they did - how that changes the man's perspective completely. Pike may have been just a regular federation captain, but having seen his own "path", in such vivid detail he remembers the NAMES of the people he was with, changes him into more than just a human. Every episode touches on his altered traumatic perspective, which is such a salient point in our time, where everyone is predicting the end of our species. I feel the people who dislike these shows don't understand dialectics, metaphor, or even simple allegory. And this is to say nothing of the rest of the show where every character has a "bigger story" along the lines of Pike. You've really hit the ground Running Jessie, I can't even keep up with the series and all your videos you're producing so many of such a high quality.
Pike doesn't say "They" did this. He says "We" did this. That's the obvious and vital distinction that this gentleman in my opinion intentionally ignores.
Hey does everyone remember that TOS episode where the aliens had half-black/half-white faces? With two sides with the colours on different sides of their faces and they brought themselves to mutual extinction over it? Can you imagine if they'd put politics into that episode?
I used to have a friend who was really starting to get on the "my favourite franchises are all becoming too political" soapbox" all the time. he said he was a big Star Trek fan. But he never liked DS9 very much. that one was "always too political". lol
It’s like the anti-woke crowd forgets about the greatest Captain of them all, Benjamin Sisko. The episodes “Past Tense”, “Paradise Lost”, “Far Beyond the Stars”, and “Badda-Bing Badda-Bang” in particular always make me wonder what the modern day reception to DS9 would be.
Oh they remember alright. In fact, the excellent 'Far Beyond the Stars' has had a lot of mud thrown at it by Conservatives because it made them feel uncomfortable and exposed. But, they made excuses, such as "it was outside of the overall ds9 storyline", for example, to try to delegitimise the episode.
Jessie you are the best kind of Star Trek fan. Whatever happens with the actual shows and the writing and the directions they go I'll never feel like I need to be concerned for the Star Trek fandom itself as long as there are people like you in it.
If someone feels personally attacked by imagery or messages in Star Trek that person should take a good hard look at themselves and ask what garbage actions they've been involved in that make them feel that way.
Slightly unrelated but my favorite "workers strike" plot is babylons 5, where it escalates to the point where the captain(or whatever it was called) is given permission to use "any means necessary" by government to end the strike. (Heavily implied to use force to make them work.) The captain then goes "any means necessary? Ok. I submit to all the workers demands." And immediately ends the strike.
Something I really like about the political messaging in both Picard S2 and SNW so far is that it doesn't feel particularly partisan to me. It's not so much saying "Orange Man Bad" is it is admitting "America Bad". In both series they point out the horrors of modern day USA, but don't mention anything about political parties, or one party being responsible. Picard especially felt very much like it was portraying the reality that this is the culmination of all of US politics over the past 60 years at least.
Thank you for what you said about Nichelle Nichols, who is fantastic. Every time I point out she and Takai were basically bridge decorations, someone gets angry. And I have to point out I am not saying it wasn’t progressive at the time, but I am also acknowledging how the grand step of casting them was undercut by not giving them much to do and making them less significant, in the long stretch, then all the white men on the bridge. By chain of command standards, more then once Uhura should have been the one watching the Captains chair and they always managed to dig up a white-guy-of-the-week if all the main white male characters were on the away team or otherwise unable to sit in temporary command. I applaud Nichols for not quitting when she wanted to, but it doesn’t make the neglect of real inclusive action ok.
Well, that's why Nichols wanted to quit at the time, and *needed* MLK to talk her into staying even if she didn't get much challenging acting in her part. Love George Takei - especially his lovely deep voice. (Sorry, just imagined him speaking to me there!)
The weird thing about the article is that ‘shared mythologies’ are always aspirational; they are always a call to action. From the Bible to Beowulf to LOTR to Star Trek, there’s always a divide between the ‘good people’ and the ‘bad people’ that corresponds with a similar split in the society of the day. If a shared mythology is divisive, all that means is that the good guys of the story haven’t won yet.
I cackled so loud that I was sweetly asked to keep the volume of my reactions a bit quieter when you showed the article headline. Even my wife, who does not enjoy or consume fiction, and has never seen an episode of Star Trek, said WHAT THE F___ when I sent her a screen cap.
The show that was woke decades before we started saying "woke" has gone woke...the HorRors!! 🤣😆🤣 For real though, people born after the 60s don't know and a lot of those around then choose to forget how violently hated civil rights activists were, particularly Black leaders. These were *not* mild, centrist points the OS was getting into. They were the feared Thanksgiving topics.
The example of Captain Picard having to explain to a thawed out multimillionaire from the past that life in the Trek world was "no longer driven by acquisition of things".
And yet Picard's family owns a vineyard, then later on in Picard we see various people owning land especially Riker's massive property on Arcadia. In Generations we saw Kirk talk about "wait, I sold this house years ago" and in TOS Kirk mentioned pay and salary multiple times. Yeah...
The complaint on Strange New Worlds is even more weird when you realize that there was stock footage of multiple different modern conflicts littered throughout the entire episode, including BLM and pro-Ukraine protests and marches, as well as the more chaotic scenes and even the cases of riots that did happen around these events. It was quite clear for the entire episode that it was talking about and to our modern conflicts in general, and honestly the conclusion that the article arrived at could only be formed by someone who only watched that scene without context, or ignoring the context.
When SNW showed the Capitol Riots clip while talking about the second civil war I never saw that as "These are the guys who started it". For me it was just showing a piece of film of civil discourse happenings and what not. But the fact that the author of the article goes on to say that the riots and political violence is bad, they seem to take issue of the Capitol rioters being portrayed in a bad way (I mean how else can you really imagine them if you're a sane rational human being). Sad thing is, if you removed everything the author complained about, they'd still cry fowl and dislike it for being woke instead of being SUPER WOKE as it's being described here. In any case I do not feel sorry one bit if conservatives and republicans feel left out, star trek has no place for people who want to take us back to the stone age. Also the president of Earth's 32nd century mirror universe should be played by Ted Cruz lmao!
@@BradLad56 Because Science Fiction, thing Star Trek is, is about looking at TODAY through the lens of the FUTURE. Remember the Nam war? Or how about Star Trek 6, which mirrors the fall of the Berlin Wall? Star Trek Enterprise has an entire Season dedicated to the Iraq War and 9/11 with the Xindi.
The sad thing is with Uhura and her back story established in SNW, people are of course going to be up in arms about it not being previously established lore, failing to notice the fact its more focus than she got in TOS.
I've had arguments online and in person, with the 'Anti-Woke' crowd about Star Trek. When I point out (with concrete examples of episodes, quotes etc) they never seem to have a response other than disagreement and whataboutism. It's depressing that people who claim to love this series so much-MISS so much of what it was and *is* about.
I am pretty sure they love it , but in a surface level. Like they saw it when they were a child and never went deeper. So they never learn how to read.
I have to disagree: At the one scene you show about the Vietnam war, they talk about the "20th century brush wars on the Asian continent". This is not an allegory. At this point, it is explicitly talking about a current event. In another episode they talk about the "cold war on earth" and say that it never got warm. In a TNG episode about terrorism, a character states that the IRA was successful. An episode that wasn't shown in Ireland… So explicitly, non-ambiguously talking about current events and giving controversial answers, isn't "a slightly new tactic" but it has always been part of Star Trek.
The Star Trek’s gone woke crowd both amuse and concern me. Like "gone" woke when was it not 😂 but then I’m worried how people could sit though an entire episode with people that have half their face painted white and half black and still find the message to subtle to pick up on.
Omg i thats exactly what happened with "dont Look Up" and my Tory (conservative) in-laws going "it had some good subliminal Messages right? ... That movie Had the Most in-your-face messaging i have Seen in years but... Sure? Will you now stop going on slightly unhinged rants about Greta Thunberg?
I find it interesting that an article written by someone named David Marcus criticizes Star Trek's "Woke Politics". I'm so glad you caught that as well.
A buddy Of mine Sent me this Article thumbnail, as a meme, "Tell me you've never watched Star Trek without TELLING me you never watched Star Trek..." along with the personal message, I don't know as much as you do about Start Trek Buuut I know enough to know how funny this is.
It's bad enough when 'fans' who have actually watched the episodes make this kind of spurious criticism, but when right-wing journalists try to whilst demonstrating their only knowledge of the series is based on third-hand stories it's pathetic. I think Jessie is being far too generous in suggesting this clown is any kind of a fan. As to the partisan criticism, it's a case of pot black with his attack on Disney exercising its 1st Amendment rights as has been confirmed by the Citizens United judgement, it's a case of being careful what you ask for because you just might get it.
Let’s be honest. This writer is no journalist. He’s a disgruntled hack who was given space under their banner. It’s quite possible FOX has lost across the board anyone who can be called a journalist.
Conservative fans of Trek do exist. I think the reason they ignored the wokeness of older trek is because they hadn't yet awakened to their political identity.
@@elenadirectorofmiiss7942 two things can be true. I rarely feel the need to jump to the defense of billionaires but even if Disney is cynically talking the talk in this case, and even if I think their media empire needs to be broken up, what's happening in florida is straight up political retaliation by the government against constituent entities.
@@maxwellschmidt235 I’m always asking the whiners “if you always liked old trek themes and you hate new trek themes…what changed in YOU”. Because the themes are the same.
Hands down when this article showed up I was living for all the dunks on the author. "This article's so unstable; he' must've used proto-matter." "Being reincarnated as a Fox News op-ed columnist is one of the crueler things the Genesis Planet's done..." "Someone tell Christopher Lloyd he missed."
I credit Star Trek for keeping my mind as open as possible. I grew up in a conservative household, in the Christian church, and I could have easily turned out to be conservative leaning. But Star Trek helped shape the foundation of my identity. My love and gratitude for Star Trek, flaws and all, is eternal.
People complaining about how woke Star Trek is are some of the dumbest and least attentive human beings on the planet, I swear! ST has been the wokest since its conception. It's the primary reason I fell in love with it as a child, and it shaped a helluva lot of my views of how the world should be, + it included Black people in the future, something too many shows about the future never even bothered with!!! Roddenberry planned wokeness into its creation!!! Where the hell have these people been?
There’s a difference between progressive and woke. Progressive is preaching actual equality in a time people weren’t all that equal. Now, whether you believe it or not people are equal. Woke is pushing an agenda and false narratives. To say the two are the same is to be blind.
@@rylansato woke is a compliment given by someone else. If somebody called me that, I would be very happy. But I am not going to apply it to myself any more than I would use words like "kind", "talented" or "intelligent". These are aspirations. And no, there is not much difference between progressive and woke.
@@AmandaInEly the difference between progressive and woke is vast. Progressive is TOS trek. Treating everyone equal and showing characters of different backgrounds and having them prove why they’re interesting. Woke is saying we have a great character because they’re a woman or a minority. Janeway wasn’t great because she was a woman. She was great because there were complexities in her flawed character. What are Burnham’s flaws? Apparently she doesn’t have any. She’s better than every male character introduced through no character development but just because she’s a woman. That’s woke. That’s why woke is garbage and why the good Star Trek was progressive and new bad Trek is woke.
I haven't watched the whole thing yet, but I just wanted to say how nice it is to hear you approaching this with a calm mind and a laughing heart. I don't know in which state you live but my heart goes out to women and LGBTQ people in the state right now.
If Fox News hates how "woke" Star Trek is, I hate to tell them about its depiction of a post-money, post-capitalism society! It'd make their heads explode.
I laugh when people say that politics in their shows are ruining their escapism. One of the things that stuck with me from high school was when my creative writing teacher explained the importance and point of escapism. I don’t remember the exact words she said but it was something along the lines of “people read escapism to process the things they’re scared to in real life” and if you look at it, that’s true. We watch action shows even when we don’t want violence because it allows us to process conflict in a safe way, we watch shows with allegory and metaphor to process those issues in a way that isn’t threatening, even when we don’t realize. Even things we watch for escapism and nostalgia to get away from the world hold kernels of the real world that make it easier for us to process. The problem isn’t that Star Trek is now ruining your escapism, it’s that (mainly conservative) politics nowadays focus on how it’s somehow “bad” for us to process real world issues through media. It’s always been a divisive issue with conservatives but now even more so, since the push for diversity in media by the left has brought it more into their attention. Now that we’re pushing for this escapism to include more people, no one is allowed to put real-world issues and politics into the media, because then it forces them to confront their own biases in an escapist environment.
I've been watching Star Trek since I was 5 and I was never under the impression it wasn't trying to say something. I remember my mother being very encouraging of us watching Science Fiction, especially ST because she wanted us to learn from it. She thought that hopeful view of the future was a good thing to take forward and I have.
Great analysis Jessie. I love it when Star Trek is clearly, explicitly and unashamedly progressive and inclusive. More please. Do not even try to pander to these right-wing complaints who will never be satisfied. Buffalo is a shocking example of where they end up.
It's always been kind of funny that Lucas based his woefully on-the-nose Heroes Journey movie on the struggles of collectivist soldiers. In the Orig-Trig, the aesthetic of collectivist asymmetrical warfare is used as the backdrop for a Great Man Theory story to play out. Granted, later the universe expands enough that it's not such a painfully obvious Great Man of History tale anymore
Gene Roddenbbery's idea of the future of our civilization was it going beyond partisan politics, impoverishment, scarcity and wars. The incentive of a well educated population was to better humanity using science and technology.
"StAr TrEk ShOuLdN't Be PoLiTiCaL." Tell me you've never watched an episode of Star Trek without saying that you've never watched an episode of Star Trek.
I wonder if there's some kind of "statute of limitations" on how long a work has to be out before the usual suspects dismiss whatever political commentary is in it to paint up said work as just "silly escapism fare".
I always think about my grandparents when this comes up--they told me they remembered the night the episode with the half-black-half-white aliens came on, and they just sat in the living room of their house staring at each other, astounded and a little nervous that someone had "come out and said it" on television like that. To them, it was a shot across the bow of America.
This reminds me of the Colin Kaepernick thing. I remember a lot of folks saying "They should just play and keep politics out of the sport.". They just want to be entertained, not think about issues.
when I hear takes like that, I'm just like.. have they ever WATCHED (insert franchise here)? And if so, how did they, with their positions aligning with the enemies', relate to anything in it?
Love that you have the screenshot of Chief O'Brien saying, "He was more than a hero. He was a union man!" to your left. Chief O'Brien was speaking of his ancestor Sean O'Brien. Today the president of the Teamsters Union is named Sean O'Brien.
Eleanor, "Yeah, but when did Star Wars become political and anti-fascist?" Chidi, "1977." Eleanor, "Okay, sure, but when did Star Trek become political and woke?" Chidi, "1966."
It always shocks me when shows deliberately depict peoples, sexualities and ideologies that exist in our world! Forcing this agenda of acknowledging reality on those who just want to go about their lives of marginalising and oppressing people is simply unnaceptable!
Back a few years, when Trump was going on and on about building walls, he was having conventions where he'd play Another Brink in the Wall. Welp, Roger Waters told him to stop using Pink Floyd's music for his hate speech. Oh boy. The Republican outcry of "How dare you bring politics into the music we love?!". What? Pink Floyd isn't political? Who are you kidding? To add insult to injury Roger Waters cancelled many shows in red states. Thankfully I live in Canada and was able to enjoy the tour.
Great work, Jessie. As usual. I love every one of your videos. I'd say you are quickly becoming one of my favourite channels. I also show a lot of your content to my kids, both who love Star Trek, one who is queer and trans. Thanks for being you in the world. Really.
The reason I loved Start Trek TNG as a child was because it represented a world that was post capitalism, post racism and post gender roles. I wanted to believe we would get there as a society eventually.
I remember one guy got angry and said their was a trans characters in TNG back then so why their in another show and it show how they don't want anyone who isn't cis to be represented
Exactly! Despite all the dangers it was still the future I wanted to live in the most! A post-racial, post-capitalist, post-scarcity world!
@@USSAnimeNCC- I remember a few different episodes that touched on gender. Data's child Lal who could choose their gender and the one with Riker where there was an alien species that didn't have genders. The point that was being made was that gender is a construct and we need to stop getting all bent out of shape about it. But alas 30 years later and we're still having the same damn arguments 🙄
Was it? Wasn't it always about exploring all of those things? But using alien or a.i to explore it rather than humans. Talking about real life social issues but not making 1:1 comparisons because that would defeat the purpose of having it be scifi.
update: just got the part in the video where Jessie says this, so yes, it was never set in a post-problem world.
which also for me is never why i understood ppl saying they wish they could live in Star Trek fiction, because it is just our world. Apart from the future tech and exploration, it is basically non-fiction.
@@USSAnimeNCC- Had a similar encounter with a guy who said it was pointless to include an NB character in Discovery because we already had the Borg.
Like, bruh, there is so much to unpack....
"It should discomfort the comfortable and comfort the uncomfortable."
That's a hell of a quote in a hell of a review. Well said, thank-you for your thought provoking appraisal.
I think the phrase is 'Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. ' :)
From W B Auden, i think.
Of course the right wing is bitching about Star Trek. After all, GOP legislatures are passing laws to prevent white kids from feeling "uncomfortable" by learning about history.
@@OllamhDrab The problem with the person that wrote that article for Fox News, he actually believes that it should be "Comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted".
@@tomascorona71 Thought it was like Will Rogers or someone, but quotes in the context of journalism... Are to be expected.
"Woke Politics"?!? In STAR TREK!? *faints* *clutches pearls* How could this start in.... *checks notes* ....1966?
Hearing about stories like this just pisses me off. I mean, what the hell is wrong with someone who would even conceive of critiizing ST for its "wokeness" or political activism? It's beyond absurd.
I’m shocked, shocked to find that woke politics is happening here!
its like accusing rage against the machine of getting political...lol
I love how David Marcus casually mentions that Star Trek "has always been credited with diverse casts" as though that were irrelevant to his argument about current shows delving into contemporary politics. _Star Trek_ gave us an integrated bridge crew, on national television, *in 19-goddamn-66* - a time when integration was every bit as controversial as voting rights are today.
Man, no wonder the Klingons killed this guy.
What, exactly, are voting rights?
@@colinmontgomery1956 equal access to voting for all
@@colinmontgomery1956 does playing dumb work for you very often?
@@unclepennybags5655 , how has that not been in place since the 1960s?
@@colinmontgomery1956 the right for illegals to vote for democrats of course... the right for people to not provide proof they are citizens in order to vote for democrats.. duh... #BlueNomatterWho is what matters...
i mean, they genuinely think black people dont know how to get an ID or drivers license, find a DMV, use the internet...
ruclips.net/video/yW2LpFkVfYk/видео.html
i mean, it must be true the media, public and higher education teach it as fact, also as Joe Biden said, this is also true for mexican americans and other non-white people...
also, its oppressive to not allow non-citizens who are living in a country, to vote for how the country is run and who is running it... its racist, we could have avoided trump if we let every person living here vote for democrats... its not right to only allow citizens to vote or expect them to provide any proof of citizenship.... thats fascist and oppressive.
I refuse to take people who use the term "woke" unironically seriously. It's an instant red flag that you're dealing with a bad-faith actor. It's just a buzzword that people love to throw around because they know it gets their people riled up.
I have the same reaction when someone uses Mary Sue in an argument, in 99,9% of cases they call the female character Mary Sue to present their criticism as objective and not because they don't like it for some personal reasons, mostly because female character is not constantly polite to others characters especially men, she does not smile constantly or she is good at fighting or she is very intelligent and she is not afraid to show it especially towards male characters. Mary Sue has long since become a buzzword that has lost its original meaning.
@@ExtremeMadnessX perhaps so, but it does still have its uses (coughReycough). Plus, what’s more topical than a discussion about Mary Sues in a video about Stat Trek, a fanfic of which literally birthed that concept?
@@mmm-mmm Of course you think that Ripley and Sarah Connor are the only good strong female character... if their movies came today you wouldn't...
@@jordinagel1184 Luke was far more of a Mary Sue than Rey was
@@gerrye114 erm… Nope, he wasn’t. Tell me, did Luke manage to lift the X-wing with barely any amount of training? Did he end up winning every single one of his lightsaber duels in the end? Was he competent at a myriad different things for no apparent reason?
Didn’t think so.
It just kills me when people complain about the progressive nature of Star Trek. What version of Star Trek are they watching? One from the mirror universe?
Those people only see the space battles.
They are in the Fascist Future
They must have only see the JJ films...which would be ironic since those same people also seem to hate JJ
Only the episodes in the Terran universe and only parts of those
@@BlueBeetle1939 hell the people who complain that Modern Trek has turned The Federation into evil monsters and gone against Roddenberry’s vision clearly have only seen parts of The Terren Empire episodes. The opening of Mirror Mirror literally brings into question that The Federation could one day become evil and vice Verda The Terren Empire can one day become good
The article doesn't just miss the point of Star Trek (admittedly to a hilarious level), it misses the point of speculative fiction and scifi in the first place. The whole purpose of the genre is to **speculate** about potential futures or alternate pasts and presents to put a lens on a particular contemporary topic. This cat is just throwing around a massive Dunning-Krueger boner.
they want aliens to be fascists so bad😂
Not to mention, that in that Pike-scene there is NO MENTION of the year or concrete event during which the "riots" are happening.
Nah, the dude just recognizes the footage and says: "They blame it on event XYZ"...
Niko knows words! Ordering them or putting them in context to argue a point, not so much. When you escape from your Reddit page into the wider light of scrutiny, you reveal yourself to be a complete reactionary knobhead.
They think Star Trek's "United Federation of Planets" is the dystopia and Starship Troopers's "United Citizen Federation" is the Utopia.
Swinging around massive DunningKrueger boners is Fux News’ brand
When my partner and I started dating, I informed him that I was a geek, but never got into Star Trek. He launched into an impassioned diatribe about Rodenberry’s vision and how bold he was to cast a Russian man in control of the weapons, a Japanese man controlling the ship and a black woman in charge of all the communications. I sat and listened to him wax poetic about the society that Gene was showing us that we could have. After that, I became a Star Trek fan(ish). It has always been woke, before “woke” became a bad thing.
P.S. we love you Jessie (shameless fangirl, here😻)
I’m from the original Star Trek generation too. I loved it for those reasons.
Only problematic thing there is that you only have british or USAmericans at the helm.
I love that he brought up how precise they were in where each character was. A Japanese man at the helm when World War 2 was still recent in peoples' minds, a Russian man controlling weapons that could devastate a planet, and a black woman being the first human voice a race hears upon contact...Roddenberry knew what he was doing.
I believe it’s back when woke was actually about rights and treatment every individual fairly. I believe the “new woke” is a tool that the elites use to divide. There’s obviously merit behind it, otherwise it wouldn’t have any following. Alternatively, there is merit behind the opposition to it as well. Have you noticed that both sides have answers that are authoritarian in nature? I believe the real battle is between authoritarian vs libertarian (not necessarily right wing) and not left vs right.
Woke is totally different from culturally beloved you sad, sick soul.
Some of my strongest memories of my childhood are watching star trek with my grandpa. It's heart breaking to see him become the target audience of that article and to hear him disapprove of my "lifestyle"
Thank you for breaking down just how uninformed this article is. People always ask "what radicalized you?" And for me it might have honestly been growing up poor with a side serving of star trek.
Same!!!
Because he probably still sees it as just fiction and not reality that is achievable. I caught star trek marathons all the time and it definitely helped me build my world view especially being able to relate things to real life events.
@@Drownedinblood I have couple friend who see Star Trek as nothing else than "fiction".
Then they cite inventions like beaming / transporters, and how that's so totally unrealistic and could never happen, and hence StarTrek is pure fiction.
All the while ignoring the radical advancements where computing, communications, and many other things have gone.
I like to make the communicator an example. How during airing of TOS it was UNFATHOMABLE to have a little device in your hand to communicate with over vast distances.
Today, only a few decades later, we have smart-phones which do just that, not with exactly the same range though, but instead connected to the internet with pretty much 99.99% of humanities knowledge "in the palm of your hand".
I guess those doubters still don't get it.
If people ask you “what radicalized you” in that context, you gotta wonder if you can’t ask them the same (seriously, here in Germany so many members of the Republican party would’ve been labeled as dangerous and radical far-right extremists)…
@@MistedMind tbh star trek was too optimistic, though technically in universe humanity had to basically nearly cause its own extinction before it leaned to calm down and cooperate. Maybe we are headed that prediction as well.
The thing is, if Star Trek IV came out today, or if Fox had been deliberately inciting a culture war in 1986 they'd absolutely be crying about it taking a partisan position in a way they'd claim that TOS didn't.
Star Trek IV is one of the worst of the star trek movies.
@@Leoluvesadmira easily in the bottom 13, yeah.
Oh, Fox would be going bonkers about the blatantly environmental message!
I mean, someone could make a site with "Fox News doesn't understand______" and have it be a search field for Wikipedia, and it would always be right.
Dammit I didn't see this before I commented. XD
Star Trek's...woke politics. Umm, like yeah. Criticizing arguably one of the most progressive pieces of fiction in Western civilization is like a...you call whata...oxymoron.
There's stuff in the TOS, cartoon, the TOS films, TNG, DS9, and even...Voyager that is more woke now than material in present media. Remember, these entities ages are respectively a Gen-X/late Baby Bloomer and three millennials. If you include Enterprise, you've got Gen Z person.
Even the Original series didn't slack on the social messages. I mean those were pretty blatant too, about women's equality, birth control, racism, Indigenous beliefs, etc.
I will point out the Captain Kirk knew by heart the Preamble to the Constitution. Which today would be consider “white Supremacy “. To my point, they tried to show a better future. Instead today they focus on divisive politics.
@@lkeke35 Definitely. One's they don't really see or acknowledge.
-Different concepts of sex, gender, race, and social construction.
-Not only understanding your enemies, but respect them and almost if not wholly loving them at some point. Not a Black and White situation.
-Anti-Fascism/Totalitarian
-Admitting mistakes and failures.
-Tackles Anthropocentrism
Original star trek was probably the most hammy messeging of all of them,with picard he had that shakespearean actor making speeches more organic, but shattner so unsubtile.
Also ds9 the one with anaxtual ex trrst ...?!
Star Trek was woke since the unaired pilot, The Cage 🤦♀️ It's belief in a better and equal world is what makes it so enduring and amazing.
"Unlike you liberal snowflakes, I'm not so easily triggered."
"Why politics lady in space show???????"
Notice, no one answered you. She is in there because of their "woke" agenda, of course. I'm not going to hold my breath to see a Conservative on the show.
@@dan6442 I'll say this not for you, but for anyone reading who doesn't know it: Stacey Abrams is an intense and extremely knowledgeable Star Trek fan, and that's why she's in there.
@@EleneDOM Stacey Abrams is a "loser" in politics. There are only three reasons she was in Star Trek. She's a black Democrat and female. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. It doesn't take knowledge of Star Trek to be in Star Trek. JJ Abrams proved that 😆
Every time you hear someone complain about ST not being the same because it became woke, please direct them to that TOS episode where half white half black men are in conflict with half black half white men. ST has always been about social and political issues, not just escapism.
Bitching Conservatives are fake nerds
Or the episodw with the first onterracial kiss
Or the episodes were sulu is not a stereotipe (all he is on)
Or any featurong uhura..
@@Maioly My point is, that episode in particular is probably the less subtle one. But yes, there are plenty of good exemple.
Sadly, some people watch ST and only see SW (and even that it had political messages) in it. Some people watch it and only see OOOh starships, firefights, and aliens. They never think or see anything deeper.
@@lkeke35 Some people are shallow.
The two things I will never stop laughing at from the conservative base is “suddenly woke Star Trek” and “Rage Against the Machine getting political” 😂
So, I have a theory, and this "discussion" is a good example of it.
I have noticed that there are many words that conservatives do not understand. While there are a few reasons for this, the main reason is that conservative pundits, "jounalists", and media intentionally use these words in a highly incorrect manner. This is done in order to shift the meaning in a conservative mind, again this is done intentionally.
The purpose behind this shift is to prevent communication.
For example, you might be using "Woke" in the original sense of recognizing someone's innate humanity. A conservative is using it as an attack on their values.
You can't have a conversation like that.
There are many words like this, not just "woke", but Socialism, communism, patriotism, nationalism, constitution, rights, and many, many others.
yup, 100%. Reframing and manipulating discourse, trying to force engagement with their nonsense rather than productive discussion.
It pays, many times, to just say "define X" at the earliest point you can in a conversation just for THIS reason
It all sounds Orwellian.
@@nicktheheretic3015 That's because it is.
A lot are just angered by the words. The meaning doesnt matter. Cis and intersectional for example gets people angry. Theyre like signifiers for teams.
I think this is an interesting example of people “aging out” of being progressive. My grandparents were absolutely progressive and woke in their time. They are an interracial couple and have always been outspoken on things like abortion and gay rights. However, as what is progressive has changed as society continues to push forward, they have not. So now they are no longer “progressive.”
I see this a lot in recent conversations with older trek fans who think Trek is “too woke now”. It was always progressive and political, but they might not have noticed since it reflected their values at the time.
I am 58 and I am more progressive now than I have ever been
Yep Scott P, I'm 74 and more progressive...Not all of us didn't keep up. But I do prefer older trek (has nothing to do with being woke). But some people aren't or they do for the most part and have trouble with pieces of it (can't deal with the language changes for instance).
The moment you stop understanding and learning about the world around you is the moment you start dying.
@@scpatl4now me too on the verge of 60.
The world turns. It changes. It is far from the world I knew as a kid.
If you fight this you will just create misery. Each generation changes the world. Always has.
@@scpatl4now 56 here. Getting old is mandatory, getting stale is optional.
Sci-fi & fantasy have always been tools to address social issues more honesty by using allegory to raise issues with less conflict. People will still miss the parts they disagree with if they want. You do have to agree with “one side “ see human rights & diversity as important
Sometimes you need a "brick message" because not everyone gets the metaphors (especially when you are younger, I mean teenage years) and for those who kinda understand the metaphor, they can't pretend not noticing it, they can't be ignorant about it.
In my opinion metaphors are good and fine but you also need some blatant messages in order to make your side of the argument heard.
Oh and thanks for keeping the spoilers to a minimum, Paramount+ won't start here in Germany and I believe France and Italy till the end of the year. Thanks a lot, CBS. Feels like the 90s when we got new seasons of any show at least half a year later. But back then there was no internet like now and spoilers were rare.
I remember heman, sea quest and so and so. Which are probably the cheesiest and brick way , having a moraö tacked on, whoch is ok.
Seriously star trek is just in line with shows like heman and co. Shows were that direct with masseges. Its not new at all. And its way toned down and subtile in comparison.
I always joke that today "Let that be your last battlefield" seems like a parody of anti-racist episodes because it's allegory is less subtle then the Tsar Bomba, but in 1970, it needed to be that obvious.
To be fair Fox News doesn't understand anything.
But that’s the problem - they very much do understand. But their performative ignorance plays well with a disturbingly significant portion of the population.
To be fair, they do have a solid grasp of propaganda mechanics.
To be fair, Fox isn't even News.
They have said so themselves.
They are "Entertainment"
They do a very good job of not understanding things on purpose, so that their audience doesn’t understand in turn. Goebbels would be proud.
Fox News is a puppet of the GOP, designed to stoke the fears of conservative voters so that they will go out and blindly vote for people like Matt Gaetz.
This people are freaking paid to give their shitty opinion about a show they clearly never watched. It's already intolerable from a grifters youtube channel, it should be illegal for a big public channel info.
And for god sake "Star trek got woke". The new shows actually have the opposite problem, it's less woke than before because less optimistic, critical of social issue and calling for creating a better future for everyone, just for more action and edgyness. But this guys don't even know the meaning of the word "woke" and thinks that a show that let LGBTs, women and peoples of colour have a role are automaticly woke (does that mean Gone with the wind is too much woke for Fox News ?), wich just prooved than "woke" is just their political corect way to be racist, sexist and LGBTphobe.
Eeh you see the world currently, star ztek always reacted to current politics, and its would be plain tonedeaf to do that withouz agnowledging that its dark times.
Its still optimidtic, just honest in whst times we live.
You both have hit on one of the reasons I have trouble with Discovery and Picard: To me, Star Trek has always been about an optimistic and reachable future. It isn't always perfect, but we've solved some problems (or think we have) in Trek's future, and we are (we hope) working on others...and occasionally, we humans are wrong and the aliens are right, so everyone has room to grow, it's not all 100% good-guys versus bad-guys. Discovery and Picard seem to have decided everything turned bad and no one could get along or get better. (That's how it comes across to me, very dystopian and nihilist, very grim-dark.) I know other fans may enjoy Discovery and Picard. But this aspect plus poor writing and a few things that just felt really off / wrong / out of character, or inconsistent to external or internal canon...It didn't do it for me. -- Yet I do like other sci-fi where the heroes are fighting in a dystopian world. I am not sure what the exact difference or tipping point is. So I like the brighter, more friendly timeline. Is it possible for there to be times when society goes bad / sour / toxic and people have to do the best they can to get out of that? Heck, we are indeed living in a world like that. But even here, not everyone is awful. People still can be good and help out. Nuts, I don't know if I'm getting my point across well enough. But I like that you all pointed out how Star Trek is, even at its darkest, versus how the always-angry-never-good-enough crowd act about it., and how the Fox reviewers don't get it and didn't even seem to pay attention, maybe didn't really watch.
@@benw9949 I have another point of view on the matter. The older shows were adapted to their times in that those times needed to show an optimistic future was even possible. But now, it's less of a revolutionary idea; I think the show shifted to something where if you want your optimistic good future, you need to fight for it. Today, too many people think we solved equality or that it's on the way, and dismiss any form of social protest as useless overreaction. I think more people need to hear the message that the world is indeed shitty, but that enlightened centrism won't lead anywhere, that we need effort and action on one side to reach that utopian future. I think that's something the shows do, but maybe not explicitely or enough?
That said yea, classic trek all the way, I'm mentally not well and I've had a hard time watching the more gory/dark aspects of the new shows. I mean, I liked what I saw between panic attacks, but I've had my fair share of those as well. (Hem, not that I don't have those watching older Trek...)
That was really weird...I read the OP as "These people are getting paid to freak out when giving their shitty opinions..."
@@tigaliyt I watched Trek in first run; adults were talking about missiles and mutually assured destruction and all sorts of thing a 12 year old couldn't really handle.
Roddenbury showed us that we were gonna get through it.
It was gonna be messy (eugenics war, WWIII, retcons), but our species would pull through and reach the Stars.
For kids my age, we talked more about the hem-lines, hair-styles and does that green go everywhere?
It was a welcome break from watching riots and Vietnam body counts on the nightly News.
I'm not even that familiar with Star Trek and I still can realize how absolutely idiotic that title is.
Not as if Star Trek being progressive wasn't one of the most well known fact about the franchise.
Ikr? Like that's that entire point of Star Trek. This culture war bs is so stupid.
One of the things I have never understood is how a person can love and extol the virtues of these kinds of shows without having their world view changed by them.
My dad is the one who introduced me to Quantum Leap, Star Trek, M.A.S.H. and the 1970's Hulk tv show among other similar shows. My dad is also racist and very right wing. I genuinely don't understand how these two things happened together. As someone who feels her worldview was partially shaped by the messages in these shows, I can't imagine ACTUALLY growing up when they were at their peak popularity, being a fan of them, and still winding up acting on so much fear and hatred.
Yeah, it's interesting. A lot of the discourse that I've seen has been right-wingers acting like we're trying to bar them from watching the show, and it's like, you can watch the show and ignore the message if you want to, you're clearly very practiced at it, but that doesn't change what it's about.
I don't recall meeting any female ST fans with that contradictory conservative attitude. All such walking contradictions I've met over the years were men who only remembered the battle-heavy episodes or used descriptions like "the one with the green-haired chick in the skimpy silver outfit". The plot and social commentary in Trek wasn't what they were paying attention to.
One analysis I saw about why conservatives like more progressive media is that they view it as purely escapism fantasy. Where someone progressive looks at Star Trek and sees a world that can be built, a conservative viewer looks at it and says, "That would be nice. Oh well. Things are rough right now, but it all works out in the end. I don't have to stop being racist. There's a black man commanding a star ship some day. They'll figure that part out after I'm dead."
Because people with working brains don't allow themselves to be indoctrinated into a way of thinking by a TV show, no matter how much they might like it.
@@christophernuzzi2780 Seeing as there is a good chance this is bait I will say one thing and be done with it.
Good art should make you think about your beliefs though yes, it is up to you whether you accept or discard the message.
If you love Star Trek and came out of that still a racist (which I mentioned my dad is) you either chose not to think or you did think and decided looking down on others based on skin tone was the answer which says an awful lot I think.
Anyway, have a nice day
"Fox News doesn't understand" is an axiom like "the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West."
Literally for as long as I can remember, people have been telling me I should watch Star Trek. Try it, you'll like it. All that stuff. This video is the only thing that made me think I might actually WANT to watch it.
It's almost like they don't actually pay attention to their kneejerk reactions.
I think it like the Tim pool thing where they lie and didn't look at it like their this book that Tim keep saying it teach sex to our kid when it really isn't it a book about a person journey to being ace it clear he never read the book and if I remember correctly the book is in highschool but Tim want to ban it it show how they aren't honest and people dumb enough and lack some common sense like Joe Rogan can tend to believe them
So why should I?
I remember when I was 6 years old way back in the early 80's I watched the original Star Trek series (reruns back then) with my mom and great-grandmother. They only watched the show for Leonard Nemoy and William Shatner but I loved the show. At 6, of course, I didn't pick up on the progressiveness of it but as I got older I recognized it more and more. Star Trek has always been progressive and has always been meant to - at least in my mind - show what the world COULD BE. I haven't finished Star Trek Discovery yet - I'm on season 4 but watching the few clips you showed of Strange New Worlds, I am going to sit down and watch that this weekend 😊😊
Fox News can never put out a headline without the word “wOkE” 😒
They are asleep in a Matrix
This is their new boogeyman. It will be something else next year.
I think they self implode if they don't blame people with different ideologies. Their weather reports are probably like "Those damn communists are making it rain!!!"
@@lkeke35 It has been their boogeyman since 2015 and it doesn't look like they'll be stopping soon.
@@mykaruest3620 The fact that culture wars are pretty much manufactured out of nothing, and thus irrelevant to the daily lives of everyone, means that the far right have an inexhaustible source of grievances in which to distract gullible people with. Not wanting to mix franchises but I believe George Lucas called it The Phantom Menace phenomena.
Growing up in an extremely conservative environment Star Trek was one of the few places where I got to see a different point of view. And while I do think there is a place for Star Trek to be less metaphorical I know who I was at the time and there is a need for the soft approach because the harder you push the harder people push back. And I don't mean idiots writing articles who clearly don't know what they're talking about. I'm talking about teenagers who are figuring out the world and need to be allowed to figure things out on their own.
That said, neither of the examples he used seem to rise to that level. First off, the Stacey Abrams is only political if you know who she is and then you have to want to see it as political and showing an example of political violence to explain why that is bad doesn't seem all that unreasonable.
I remember seeing reviews of Discovery that were mad about the protagonist being black and female (some of them even straight up admitted they only liked women in the show when they were sexualized) and I was so confused... I genuinely don't understand how people like that can enjoy a franchise that is actively about progress and acceptance.
They enjoyed the show when it comforted and reassured them about their centred role in the world. That's partly why many conservative fans complain about the lack of subtlety in the recent series, because they can't comfortably ignore the social/political commentary.
@@seymssogood but that's the thing, Star Trek was never really subtle. Especially about the horrors of capitalism. It's just dedicated to "leftist" preaching and always has been.
@Tuffy Logan You're right, it has never been really subtle about its social and political stances. However, I do think that TNG created a false impression of subtlely because it didn't really allegorize the major _political_ upheavals of the time, in contrast to DS9, TOS, DIS and PIC, which definitely did/do. TNG always gave the impression that it was set 'after' any relatable political upheavals i.e. Worf as a crew member to represent improved post-Cold War relations, etc, and therefore, the show mainly focussed on _social_ issues, and general human stories. And so, a certain part of the fanbase latch onto this impression given by TNG to make their argument against modern political storylines in modern Trek, many even take it personally, like as a personal attack on their ownership of the franchise.
@@seymssogood It kind of came in a more optimistic time, just at the end of the cold war, when it kind of made sense (especially in Star Trek VI) that the Klingons were the Russians, and now we could make peace with them so we could end up with Worf on the bridge. I mean that Fukuyama book and the whole "End of History" hypothesis only made sense in the context of that 1990s euphoria of the end of the cold war and a belief that things were stabilising towards an end of big ideological conflict.
That nod to _The Day The Earth Stood Still_ and Robert Wise in _ST: SNW_ was a chef's kiss of meta-mythologizing.
Yep, _Star Trek_ is a product of the Civil Rights era. In 1964, Roddenberry wrote about racism & other political issues in his show _The Lieutenant_ - unfortunately, the network refused to air those episodes & it was canceled quickly.
The only way Roddenberry could get away with talking about these issues on television in the 1960s was to place them in a Fantasy Sci-fi context. _Star Trek_ was created explicitly as a platform for anti-racism & allegory that challenges capitalist/political/societal norms - that's kind of the entire point of the thing.
"Wokeness", "political correctness", "bleeding heart liberalism" - the publicly acceptable terminology changes through the decades but it's always the same racist, anti-progress complaint.
when ppl use the word "woke" unironically (easily in a demeaning way) that tells me so much about them lol
I call them Sleepwalkers.
Yes that and SJW immediately let you know where that person is coming from.
Yep pretty much. Anyone using Woke/SJW should be laugh at.
I love that Pike has seen his future. That was such a cool plot twist,, that I now think they DO realize how big of a thing they did - how that changes the man's perspective completely. Pike may have been just a regular federation captain, but having seen his own "path", in such vivid detail he remembers the NAMES of the people he was with, changes him into more than just a human.
Every episode touches on his altered traumatic perspective, which is such a salient point in our time, where everyone is predicting the end of our species.
I feel the people who dislike these shows don't understand dialectics, metaphor, or even simple allegory. And this is to say nothing of the rest of the show where every character has a "bigger story" along the lines of Pike.
You've really hit the ground Running Jessie, I can't even keep up with the series and all your videos you're producing so many of such a high quality.
Pike doesn't say "They" did this. He says "We" did this. That's the obvious and vital distinction that this gentleman in my opinion intentionally ignores.
He sees Star Trek as "woke SJW", so when Pike says "we" did it, he thinks yes, "you" did it.
100% STNW was never putting blame on them that much is very clear. Author is grasping at straws here and it's sad.
Hey does everyone remember that TOS episode where the aliens had half-black/half-white faces? With two sides with the colours on different sides of their faces and they brought themselves to mutual extinction over it? Can you imagine if they'd put politics into that episode?
As a Black woman? No! No, I simply cannot! Sounds kinda wild. /s
I used to have a friend who was really starting to get on the "my favourite franchises are all becoming too political" soapbox" all the time. he said he was a big Star Trek fan. But he never liked DS9 very much. that one was "always too political". lol
"She's a huge Star Trek fan, no bones about it". I see what you did there...
It’s like the anti-woke crowd forgets about the greatest Captain of them all, Benjamin Sisko. The episodes “Past Tense”, “Paradise Lost”, “Far Beyond the Stars”, and “Badda-Bing Badda-Bang” in particular always make me wonder what the modern day reception to DS9 would be.
Oh they remember alright. In fact, the excellent 'Far Beyond the Stars' has had a lot of mud thrown at it by Conservatives because it made them feel uncomfortable and exposed. But, they made excuses, such as "it was outside of the overall ds9 storyline", for example, to try to delegitimise the episode.
Jessie you are the best kind of Star Trek fan. Whatever happens with the actual shows and the writing and the directions they go I'll never feel like I need to be concerned for the Star Trek fandom itself as long as there are people like you in it.
Star Trek was woke before the person who wrote that article was born. No, literally. He was born in 1973. :D
If someone feels personally attacked by imagery or messages in Star Trek that person should take a good hard look at themselves and ask what garbage actions they've been involved in that make them feel that way.
I think Steve Shives put it best:
"WHAT
SHOW
WERE
YOU
WATCHING"
Slightly unrelated but my favorite "workers strike" plot is babylons 5, where it escalates to the point where the captain(or whatever it was called) is given permission to use "any means necessary" by government to end the strike. (Heavily implied to use force to make them work.)
The captain then goes "any means necessary? Ok. I submit to all the workers demands." And immediately ends the strike.
Something I really like about the political messaging in both Picard S2 and SNW so far is that it doesn't feel particularly partisan to me. It's not so much saying "Orange Man Bad" is it is admitting "America Bad". In both series they point out the horrors of modern day USA, but don't mention anything about political parties, or one party being responsible. Picard especially felt very much like it was portraying the reality that this is the culmination of all of US politics over the past 60 years at least.
Thank you for what you said about Nichelle Nichols, who is fantastic. Every time I point out she and Takai were basically bridge decorations, someone gets angry. And I have to point out I am not saying it wasn’t progressive at the time, but I am also acknowledging how the grand step of casting them was undercut by not giving them much to do and making them less significant, in the long stretch, then all the white men on the bridge. By chain of command standards, more then once Uhura should have been the one watching the Captains chair and they always managed to dig up a white-guy-of-the-week if all the main white male characters were on the away team or otherwise unable to sit in temporary command. I applaud Nichols for not quitting when she wanted to, but it doesn’t make the neglect of real inclusive action ok.
The Animated Series finally rectified that by having all the men trapped on a planet and it was Uhura who took command and saved the day.
Well, that's why Nichols wanted to quit at the time, and *needed* MLK to talk her into staying even if she didn't get much challenging acting in her part. Love George Takei - especially his lovely deep voice. (Sorry, just imagined him speaking to me there!)
Fortunately, later movies gave them more to do. And happily, in SNW Uhura is a major and quite wonderful character.
Some people really do ache for the “good old days” of unapologetic discrimination 🤷
The weird thing about the article is that ‘shared mythologies’ are always aspirational; they are always a call to action. From the Bible to Beowulf to LOTR to Star Trek, there’s always a divide between the ‘good people’ and the ‘bad people’ that corresponds with a similar split in the society of the day. If a shared mythology is divisive, all that means is that the good guys of the story haven’t won yet.
I cackled so loud that I was sweetly asked to keep the volume of my reactions a bit quieter when you showed the article headline. Even my wife, who does not enjoy or consume fiction, and has never seen an episode of Star Trek, said WHAT THE F___ when I sent her a screen cap.
The show that was woke decades before we started saying "woke" has gone woke...the HorRors!! 🤣😆🤣
For real though, people born after the 60s don't know and a lot of those around then choose to forget how violently hated civil rights activists were, particularly Black leaders. These were *not* mild, centrist points the OS was getting into. They were the feared Thanksgiving topics.
The example of Captain Picard having to explain to a thawed out multimillionaire from the past that life in the Trek world was "no longer driven by acquisition of things".
And yet Picard's family owns a vineyard, then later on in Picard we see various people owning land especially Riker's massive property on Arcadia. In Generations we saw Kirk talk about "wait, I sold this house years ago" and in TOS Kirk mentioned pay and salary multiple times. Yeah...
@@zerrodefex Not the first inconsistency in a sci fi show.
The complaint on Strange New Worlds is even more weird when you realize that there was stock footage of multiple different modern conflicts littered throughout the entire episode, including BLM and pro-Ukraine protests and marches, as well as the more chaotic scenes and even the cases of riots that did happen around these events. It was quite clear for the entire episode that it was talking about and to our modern conflicts in general, and honestly the conclusion that the article arrived at could only be formed by someone who only watched that scene without context, or ignoring the context.
When SNW showed the Capitol Riots clip while talking about the second civil war I never saw that as "These are the guys who started it". For me it was just showing a piece of film of civil discourse happenings and what not. But the fact that the author of the article goes on to say that the riots and political violence is bad, they seem to take issue of the Capitol rioters being portrayed in a bad way (I mean how else can you really imagine them if you're a sane rational human being). Sad thing is, if you removed everything the author complained about, they'd still cry fowl and dislike it for being woke instead of being SUPER WOKE as it's being described here. In any case I do not feel sorry one bit if conservatives and republicans feel left out, star trek has no place for people who want to take us back to the stone age.
Also the president of Earth's 32nd century mirror universe should be played by Ted Cruz lmao!
He DOES have acting experience!
Literally. He was in a production of The Crucible.
Since, obviously, WE live in that mirror universe...
They should probably save casting Cruz for the role of a Denebian slime devil instead, if you ask me.
@@BradLad56 Because Science Fiction, thing Star Trek is, is about looking at TODAY through the lens of the FUTURE. Remember the Nam war? Or how about Star Trek 6, which mirrors the fall of the Berlin Wall? Star Trek Enterprise has an entire Season dedicated to the Iraq War and 9/11 with the Xindi.
@@BradLad56 And that's fine! You can disagree all you like! I'm just saying that Star Trek was all about that!
The sad thing is with Uhura and her back story established in SNW, people are of course going to be up in arms about it not being previously established lore, failing to notice the fact its more focus than she got in TOS.
What makes you so certain that they've failed to notice rather than notice, but deem it unimportant, as that's not the point of their argument?
I've had arguments online and in person, with the 'Anti-Woke' crowd about Star Trek. When I point out (with concrete examples of episodes, quotes etc) they never seem to have a response other than disagreement and whataboutism. It's depressing that people who claim to love this series so much-MISS so much of what it was and *is* about.
They are fake nerds
These people will always find something to complain about the show, I don't think they can name one thing that they like these days.
@@Tacom4ster nah their the weird one and not weird in a good way
I am pretty sure they love it , but in a surface level. Like they saw it when they were a child and never went deeper.
So they never learn how to read.
@@Tacom4ster LOL!!! Not a real nerd, like me!!
I have to disagree:
At the one scene you show about the Vietnam war, they talk about the "20th century brush wars on the Asian continent". This is not an allegory. At this point, it is explicitly talking about a current event. In another episode they talk about the "cold war on earth" and say that it never got warm. In a TNG episode about terrorism, a character states that the IRA was successful. An episode that wasn't shown in Ireland…
So explicitly, non-ambiguously talking about current events and giving controversial answers, isn't "a slightly new tactic" but it has always been part of Star Trek.
The Star Trek’s gone woke crowd both amuse and concern me. Like "gone" woke when was it not 😂 but then I’m worried how people could sit though an entire episode with people that have half their face painted white and half black and still find the message to subtle to pick up on.
Omg i thats exactly what happened with "dont Look Up" and my Tory (conservative) in-laws going "it had some good subliminal Messages right?
... That movie Had the Most in-your-face messaging i have Seen in years but... Sure? Will you now stop going on slightly unhinged rants about Greta Thunberg?
@@annabeinglazy5580 only "slightly"??
I find it interesting that an article written by someone named David Marcus criticizes Star Trek's "Woke Politics". I'm so glad you caught that as well.
Understatement of the Pleistocene ...
Edit: Love your pin! I'd love to know where you got it!
A buddy Of mine Sent me this Article thumbnail, as a meme, "Tell me you've never watched Star Trek without TELLING me you never watched Star Trek..." along with the personal message, I don't know as much as you do about Start Trek Buuut I know enough to know how funny this is.
It's bad enough when 'fans' who have actually watched the episodes make this kind of spurious criticism, but when right-wing journalists try to whilst demonstrating their only knowledge of the series is based on third-hand stories it's pathetic. I think Jessie is being far too generous in suggesting this clown is any kind of a fan. As to the partisan criticism, it's a case of pot black with his attack on Disney exercising its 1st Amendment rights as has been confirmed by the Citizens United judgement, it's a case of being careful what you ask for because you just might get it.
I agree, except let's be honest Disney didn't exercise their 1st Amendment rights, they exercised their public relations cleanup budget.
Let’s be honest. This writer is no journalist. He’s a disgruntled hack who was given space under their banner. It’s quite possible FOX has lost across the board anyone who can be called a journalist.
Conservative fans of Trek do exist. I think the reason they ignored the wokeness of older trek is because they hadn't yet awakened to their political identity.
@@elenadirectorofmiiss7942 two things can be true. I rarely feel the need to jump to the defense of billionaires but even if Disney is cynically talking the talk in this case, and even if I think their media empire needs to be broken up, what's happening in florida is straight up political retaliation by the government against constituent entities.
@@maxwellschmidt235 I’m always asking the whiners “if you always liked old trek themes and you hate new trek themes…what changed in YOU”. Because the themes are the same.
Hands down when this article showed up I was living for all the dunks on the author.
"This article's so unstable; he' must've used proto-matter."
"Being reincarnated as a Fox News op-ed columnist is one of the crueler things the Genesis Planet's done..."
"Someone tell Christopher Lloyd he missed."
Ever notice that these republicans can't ever say "Democratic Party." They always have to say "Democrat Party."
I credit Star Trek for keeping my mind as open as possible. I grew up in a conservative household, in the Christian church, and I could have easily turned out to be conservative leaning. But Star Trek helped shape the foundation of my identity.
My love and gratitude for Star Trek, flaws and all, is eternal.
People complaining about how woke Star Trek is are some of the dumbest and least attentive human beings on the planet, I swear! ST has been the wokest since its conception. It's the primary reason I fell in love with it as a child, and it shaped a helluva lot of my views of how the world should be, + it included Black people in the future, something too many shows about the future never even bothered with!!!
Roddenberry planned wokeness into its creation!!! Where the hell have these people been?
I agree that people are stupid as hell
Oh me too. Totally
There’s a difference between progressive and woke. Progressive is preaching actual equality in a time people weren’t all that equal. Now, whether you believe it or not people are equal. Woke is pushing an agenda and false narratives. To say the two are the same is to be blind.
@@rylansato woke is a compliment given by someone else. If somebody called me that, I would be very happy. But I am not going to apply it to myself any more than I would use words like "kind", "talented" or "intelligent". These are aspirations. And no, there is not much difference between progressive and woke.
@@AmandaInEly the difference between progressive and woke is vast. Progressive is TOS trek. Treating everyone equal and showing characters of different backgrounds and having them prove why they’re interesting. Woke is saying we have a great character because they’re a woman or a minority. Janeway wasn’t great because she was a woman. She was great because there were complexities in her flawed character. What are Burnham’s flaws? Apparently she doesn’t have any. She’s better than every male character introduced through no character development but just because she’s a woman. That’s woke. That’s why woke is garbage and why the good Star Trek was progressive and new bad Trek is woke.
I’ve loved watching people dunk on just this article but I’m so glad Jessie did a deep dive on it. Well worth while!
Is it a reason for hope, that we now look back to "woke, revolutionary, progressive" stuff from the past and see them as "normal, common sense?"
To put an actual politician who was not an actor before into the role of a politician has to be questioned.
A wise man once said, "The 'fuck your feelings' crowd sure is having a lot of feelings."
I haven't watched the whole thing yet, but I just wanted to say how nice it is to hear you approaching this with a calm mind and a laughing heart. I don't know in which state you live but my heart goes out to women and LGBTQ people in the state right now.
Star Trek shows the moral ideal of a post scarcity multicultural democracy.
@Bionick Toa gotta mine Mars!!
So we have to break the laws of physics to get our utopia?
Nice
The proper response is "What Star Trek were you watching all these years"?
To deny Trek’s overarching political bend is to be grossly obtuse or wildly dishonest.
If Fox News hates how "woke" Star Trek is, I hate to tell them about its depiction of a post-money, post-capitalism society! It'd make their heads explode.
I laugh when people say that politics in their shows are ruining their escapism. One of the things that stuck with me from high school was when my creative writing teacher explained the importance and point of escapism. I don’t remember the exact words she said but it was something along the lines of “people read escapism to process the things they’re scared to in real life” and if you look at it, that’s true. We watch action shows even when we don’t want violence because it allows us to process conflict in a safe way, we watch shows with allegory and metaphor to process those issues in a way that isn’t threatening, even when we don’t realize. Even things we watch for escapism and nostalgia to get away from the world hold kernels of the real world that make it easier for us to process.
The problem isn’t that Star Trek is now ruining your escapism, it’s that (mainly conservative) politics nowadays focus on how it’s somehow “bad” for us to process real world issues through media. It’s always been a divisive issue with conservatives but now even more so, since the push for diversity in media by the left has brought it more into their attention. Now that we’re pushing for this escapism to include more people, no one is allowed to put real-world issues and politics into the media, because then it forces them to confront their own biases in an escapist environment.
I've been watching Star Trek since I was 5 and I was never under the impression it wasn't trying to say something. I remember my mother being very encouraging of us watching Science Fiction, especially ST because she wanted us to learn from it. She thought that hopeful view of the future was a good thing to take forward and I have.
I really never watch star trek, but every time I hear you talk about it, I find myself as in love with the show as you are. This is a Great video
The list of things FOX News doesn't understand could fill the wormhole.
Great analysis Jessie. I love it when Star Trek is clearly, explicitly and unashamedly progressive and inclusive. More please. Do not even try to pander to these right-wing complaints who will never be satisfied. Buffalo is a shocking example of where they end up.
It's always been kind of funny that Lucas based his woefully on-the-nose Heroes Journey movie on the struggles of collectivist soldiers. In the Orig-Trig, the aesthetic of collectivist asymmetrical warfare is used as the backdrop for a Great Man Theory story to play out. Granted, later the universe expands enough that it's not such a painfully obvious Great Man of History tale anymore
The writer isn't kind of Missing the point ....
He is completely unequivocally missing the entire point .
Totally agree with you and this coming from a Star Wars fan. Keep up the good work. May The Force Be With You.
I mean foxnews is pretty much the "Old man yells at cloud" meme at any and all times
Gene Roddenbbery's idea of the future of our civilization was it going beyond partisan politics, impoverishment, scarcity and wars. The incentive of a well educated population was to better humanity using science and technology.
"StAr TrEk ShOuLdN't Be PoLiTiCaL."
Tell me you've never watched an episode of Star Trek without saying that you've never watched an episode of Star Trek.
How many times do we have to show people Let That Be Your Last Battlefield and tell them Star Trek has ALWAYS been progressive?
I wonder if there's some kind of "statute of limitations" on how long a work has to be out before the usual suspects dismiss whatever political commentary is in it to paint up said work as just "silly escapism fare".
I always think about my grandparents when this comes up--they told me they remembered the night the episode with the half-black-half-white aliens came on, and they just sat in the living room of their house staring at each other, astounded and a little nervous that someone had "come out and said it" on television like that. To them, it was a shot across the bow of America.
They'd rather prefer shows to be empty husks rather than having relevant social critique they used to have when they were new
This reminds me of the Colin Kaepernick thing.
I remember a lot of folks saying "They should just play and keep politics out of the sport.".
They just want to be entertained, not think about issues.
Some RWAH on FB claimed that Star Trek was “progressive” but not “woke.”
Star Trek hasn’t ever been woke. It has ALWAYS been balanced. Woke is degeneration.
As bell hooks said, “there is no such thing as a politically neutral education.”
So it is with speculative fiction.
when I hear takes like that, I'm just like.. have they ever WATCHED (insert franchise here)? And if so, how did they, with their positions aligning with the enemies', relate to anything in it?
Love that you have the screenshot of Chief O'Brien saying, "He was more than a hero. He was a union man!" to your left. Chief O'Brien was speaking of his ancestor Sean O'Brien. Today the president of the Teamsters Union is named Sean O'Brien.
Eleanor, "Yeah, but when did Star Wars become political and anti-fascist?"
Chidi, "1977."
Eleanor, "Okay, sure, but when did Star Trek become political and woke?"
Chidi, "1966."
It always shocks me when shows deliberately depict peoples, sexualities and ideologies that exist in our world! Forcing this agenda of acknowledging reality on those who just want to go about their lives of marginalising and oppressing people is simply unnaceptable!
Back a few years, when Trump was going on and on about building walls, he was having conventions where he'd play Another Brink in the Wall. Welp, Roger Waters told him to stop using Pink Floyd's music for his hate speech. Oh boy. The Republican outcry of "How dare you bring politics into the music we love?!". What? Pink Floyd isn't political? Who are you kidding? To add insult to injury Roger Waters cancelled many shows in red states. Thankfully I live in Canada and was able to enjoy the tour.
Great work, Jessie. As usual. I love every one of your videos. I'd say you are quickly becoming one of my favourite channels. I also show a lot of your content to my kids, both who love Star Trek, one who is queer and trans. Thanks for being you in the world. Really.
I just can't with the word "woke" anymore. It's so painfully obviously just a nothing word used by conservatives to virtue signal to each other.
"Where it's never been before... woke politics." That guy clearly grew up with an entirely different Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock than I did.