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I ask this question not because I personally believe TOS was overtly socialist in it's leanings (certainly not when compared to later Trek), but because I am currently arguing with someone on IMDb who makes this very case. To quote:

Nope. Everything from racial egalitarianism to closet themes of nuclear armageddon were all insert-here thrust upon us but it was _just propaganda_, it didn't really discuss the issues or present a balanced opinion.

Remember Khan? Why is his vision of 'supermen' eugenics that of hulked up monsters constantly out thought by the scrappy little Captain? Why is Kodos The Executioner shown as being a tyrant when it is admitted that he didn't know about the oncoming relief ships and his actions, 'if the ships had not arrived' been seen by historians as the brave decision of a horrible necessity? Why is it that Lokai and Bele are represented so shallowly as 'skin deep' color variations when the reality of race is _very much_ more complex than that as a function of genetics of behavior and culture?

So much of ST:TOS was a social engineering 'teachable moment' of FALSE moral impetus that it doesn't deserve repetition. Yet Jar Jar Abrams chose that era to relaunch the ST universe and he did it by basically rendering every white male as a drunkard, or sex predator or gay-in-denial dupe. While all the /women/ are strong and self reliant.

i.e. The libtards have done NOTHING to fix what was wrong with the original series in their relaunch but simply polarized the story to one of 'all white males are baaaaad' equivalent, sexist, shallowness.

Virtually all (98%+) affluent Americans use the internet, according to Ipsos 2011 survey tracking, lifestyles, media habits and spending patterns of affluent Americans. The amount of time spent online rose about 20% to more than 30 hours weekly. Affluent Millenials, defined here as those aged 18 to 29, spend more than 40 hours a week online, essentially a full-time job. (Ipsos Media, October 2011)

The average time spent by US adults with all major media combined increased from about 10.6 hours in 2008 to 11 hours in 2010, according to eMarketer. TV and video (not including online video) captured the lion's share of all media time, about 40% each year. The internet's share of media time increased over the same period, from 21.5% to 23.5%, as did mobile's share, from 5% to 7.5%. The share of time spent with magazines and newspapers fluctuated between 10% and 7.5%, while radio and all other media (video games, movies in theatres and outdoor media) declined.
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http://www.newmediatrendwatch.com/marke ... mographics

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Hispanics, now the second-largest group in the U.S., are more likely to go to movies, the Motion Picture Association of America says. Last year, 43 million Hispanics purchased 351 million movie tickets, a MPAA report says, an uptick from the 37 million who bought 300 million tickets the previous year.

And in 2010, when Nielsen examined that coveted group of heavy moviegoers -- people who see on average 16 movies a year and contribute to 63 percent of ticket sales -- it found that Hispanics make up 26 percent of those frequenting theaters.
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http://articles.cnn.com/2011-07-13/ente ... PM:SHOWBIZ

Because whites are the original tech-geek nerds and meeting our tastes as sense of 'truthiness' costs big bucks and requires competence that 90% of modern film makers cannot supply, they don't.

They make lowbrow stupid sh** for the 'mass market' and count on blind first weekend boxoffices and simulrelease around the planet to make up for the hoots and laughter at their fading quality.

And because Hispanics are less interested in the hows and whys something is portrayed as being and more interested in the knee-jerk thrill of melodrama (see their soaps) they are an easy demographic to please.

I think his argument is that TOS (and ST09 too) are promoting some sort of anti-white agenda, and that it's full of promotion for a commie agenda, but honestly, I don't know. I have never heard of anyone accusing TOS of such an agenda though.

The stupidity, it burns. Really.

Hispanics are uninterested in the hows and why of writing and filming, because they're all incredibly shallow and emotional people? Really? But let's break this down into bite-size chunks.

Remember Khan? Why is his vision of 'supermen' eugenics that of hulked up monsters constantly out thought by the scrappy little Captain?

Slightly unclear, does he mean that Khan wanted his men to be physically impressive but they weren't mentally superior, or is he complaining because Kirk can win against them occasionally? For that matter, isn't Kirk beating them the Iowa farmboy David taking down the Indian superman Goliath?

I'm trying, but I can only really remember one time Kirk outwitted Khan or any of the supermen, in the movie where he taunts Khan into following him into the one environment where they can fight as equals. Other than that, it was Khan's not knowing about things he reasonably couldn't in the movie (prefix codes, the realities of 3D space combat) and events beyond either man's control in the show.

Why is Kodos The Executioner shown as being a tyrant when it is admitted that he didn't know about the oncoming relief ships and his actions, 'if the ships had not arrived' been seen by historians as the brave decision of a horrible necessity?

Well, that's Kodos' take on how history would have remembered him, if only events hadn't conspired to render his mass murder completely unnecessary. Why is a ruler seen as a tyrant for murdering half his people to stretch out food supplies during a famine? And then choosing to do so using his ideas of eugenics and jettisoning the genetically (racially) inferior half? It's a great mystery if you have no sense of morals whatsoever.

Is he actually objecting to the show peddling the idea that mass murder is a bad thing?

Why is it that Lokai and Bele are represented so shallowly as 'skin deep' color variations when the reality of race is _very much_ more complex than that as a function of genetics of behavior and culture?

Can't help much here, I have no idea what episode he's talking about. If I may hazard a guess as to why people of different races would be portrayed as people like any others who happen to look different, I think because it may just represent reality. There can be cultural differences tied up in race, I do not contest this, but the differences tend to be minimal, compared to what racists imagine they are and really, it works as a message that people (bigots) need to hear, even if it isn't totally accurate in every minuscule detail that can be picked apart over the internet.

As an side, these seem like pretty odd examples for anyone trying to demonstrate socialism or anti-white messages of "equality" (loathsome word that it is) in Trek.

So much of ST:TOS was a social engineering 'teachable moment' of FALSE moral impetus that it doesn't deserve repetition. Yet Jar Jar Abrams chose that era to relaunch the ST universe and he did it by basically rendering every white male as a drunkard, or sex predator or gay-in-denial dupe. While all the /women/ are strong and self reliant.

Wait, wait, what? Excluding Spock for being an alien, (damn aliens, Starfleet should tighten immigration laws. WHERE IS OUR GIANT SPACE-FENCE!!) that leaves FOUR white males in the TOS/new movie crew: Kirk, Bones, Scotty and Chekov. Can he not count, even using fingers?

Leaving that aside, I'll guess Kirk is a sexual predator for... having sex. Or is it unintentionally groping a woman and liking it? Or taking an opportunity to watch an attractive woman change? I admit the last is creepy as all get-out, but in context it's easy to see as part of normal college shenanigans.

So, of Scotty, Bones and Chekov, which is a drunk and which is a gay dupe? I'm going to guess Scotty's the drunk for being a Scot (not that the author is prejudiced or anything) but none of them really struck me as being gay. Or maybe he does mean Spock who is still... not gay. As an aside, it may be a truly horrible thing to be a gay Vulcan, and have to reproduce with a gender you aren't attracted to every seven years or die. Or Pike, who also didn't seem queer. Or Nero who... okay, maybe you could make a case, but it'd be a convoluted and strange one. And now I need brain bleach to remove the mental images of over a decade in Klingon prison.

Also, there was exactly ONE woman of relevance in the whole damn movie, so by definition anything she is or does applies to all women in the movie (unless you count her slutty roomate, who seems neither strong nor self-reliant) and while I'll give strong, I'm a lot less sure about self-reliance given her scenes with Spock. Star Trek [2009] is not exactly a strong feminist film, which I think he's objecting to also, else why complain.

For that matter, even if everything he said was 100% valid (it isn't) he's just described how almost ALL of the cast were portrayed, because the only cast members who aren't white males are Uhura and Sulu. Oh yes, clearly a film designed to undermine the White Man with BOTH of it's token minority characters.

i.e. The libtards have done NOTHING to fix what was wrong with the original series in their relaunch but simply polarized the story to one of 'all white males are baaaaad' equivalent, sexist, shallowness.

How did I guess this guy was conservative, and how sad is it that my sarcastically predicting it based purely on his objections that Star Trek isn't racist enough turned out true?

I certainly agree the movie was shallow, and kept so much of what didn't work in TOS (Chekov's accent, for instance) but is he really complaining about sexism a minute after whinging that the film's single woman was shown in a positive light?

Remember Khan? Why is his vision of 'supermen' eugenics that of hulked up monsters constantly out thought by the scrappy little Captain?

Remember Spock's line from TWOK - "He's intelligent, but not experienced." Khan may have been able to out-think Kirk in the long run, but Kirk knew things about starships that Khan wouldn't realistically have had time to learn. Plus in "Space Seed" Khan was wrongfooted by McGivers switching sides back to Kirk; had that not happened then he almost certainly would have won.

Aside from that, all I can guess is that this guy watched some alternate version of ST09 where Uhura and Sulu were the sole competent people on a starship filled with morons. Granted, Sulu is shown as one of the more competent crewmembers (after his initial screw-up with the parking brake, at least), but Uhura actually contributes the least towards the Enterprise crew's eventual victory. And what does he mean by "gay-in-denial dupes?" I mean, Kirk, Spock and McCoy were all clearly interested in women (unless that's a jab at Zachary Quinto in real-life, which would be just plain offensive), so is he assuming that because Scotty, Sulu and Chekov don't constantly talk about their conquests with women, that means they're gay? Because I'd actually be more inclined to assume they were homosexual if they DID constantly brag about how much pussy they were getting.

Ahriman238 wrote:

Why is it that Lokai and Bele are represented so shallowly as 'skin deep' color variations when the reality of race is _very much_ more complex than that as a function of genetics of behavior and culture?

Can't help much here, I have no idea what episode he's talking about.

"Let That Be Your Last Battlefied"

Lokai and Bele are the dudes that are white on one half of their bodies and black on the other half, but on opposite sides from each other. The guy simply doesn't understand that that was the POINT - it's stupid to judge merely on skin color. A thinking person should be able to get that one even without the historical context of the original broadcast period.

So much of ST:TOS was a social engineering 'teachable moment' of FALSE moral impetus that it doesn't deserve repetition. Yet Jar Jar Abrams chose that era to relaunch the ST universe and he did it by basically rendering every white male as a drunkard, or sex predator or gay-in-denial dupe. While all the /women/ are strong and self reliant.

Wait, wait, what? Excluding Spock for being an alien, (damn aliens, Starfleet should tighten immigration laws. WHERE IS OUR GIANT SPACE-FENCE!!) that leaves FOUR white males in the TOS/new movie crew: Kirk, Bones, Scotty and Chekov. Can he not count, even using fingers?

Apparently not.

So, of Scotty, Bones and Chekov, which is a drunk and which is a gay dupe?

If I recall, in the reboot Bones was hitting the booze pretty heavily when we first meet him.

In TOS while everyone seemed to enjoy some alcohol I don't recall any overt signs of alcoholism. Indeed, compared to actual reality at the time the crew of the Enterprise were all quite moderate drinkers.

You're arguing with either a troll or a racist motherfucker. In either case, you're better off just not bothering.

Broomstick wrote:"Let That Be Your Last Battlefied"

Lokai and Bele are the dudes that are white on one half of their bodies and black on the other half, but on opposite sides from each other. The guy simply doesn't understand that that was the POINT - it's stupid to judge merely on skin color. A thinking person should be able to get that one even without the historical context of the original broadcast period.

Oh, I think I remember the half-and-halfs. That was the one where they were the only two survivors of a race war that annihilated their people and were still trying to kill each other when the Enterprise recovered them, right?

Okay, I remember that one as being a touch ham-fisted, but the message of 'it's pretty fucking stupid to oppress or kill people based on appearances' stands.

So this guy is objecting that Star Trek is racist (towards the white majority) because A.) The Caucasian Kirk can defeat the Indian Warlord Khan (or maybe he's objecting to the genetically superior superman losing even if he has darker skin, I can't really tell.) B.) because mass murder of the genetically inferior is portrayed as though it were a bad thing and C.) the show had the nerve to suggest that killing or dying for racism is fucking stupid! My god, it makes perfect sense! No, wait. No, it doesn't. It's an inane premise, even before it became totally incoherent by wandering everywhere. I don't even see where he produced any evidence of socialism.

As for the claim that Star Trek never discussed any of it's ideas, merely by presenting them they invited discussion. In fact, I seem to remember an awful lot of screentime devoted to Kirk, Bones and Spock discussing the present crisis and it's relation to history or philosophy or whatever.

You can accuse Trek of a lot of things (too much sixties, for instance) but saying that the 50 year old TV show is too progressive is just laughable. Particularly when the network made them rewrite Plato's Stepchildren so Kirk and Uhura would only kiss because the aliens made them.

Srelex wrote:You're arguing with either a troll or a racist motherfucker. In either case, you're better off just not bothering.

Srelex has a point, you probably aren't going to convince him no matter what you say. On the other hand, debating people like this can be endlessly entertaining if you have a sense of humor about it.

Where are the Arabs in Star Trek?


Serious question. Where did they go? Did I miss them in DS9 and Voyager?

Uhh... Julian Bashir? Played by Alexander Siddig (aka Siddig El Fadil), who was born in Sudan?

And the Crown Prince (now the King) of Jordan? He turned up in Voyager.

Thanks for the replies guys.

I must admit, I enjoy arguing with such people- it may well be completely futile, but picking apart their rants can be very satisfying.

The best part is, his original comment that I replied to was that he felt JJ ruined Star Trek and that he would do the same with Star Wars. Now, it might be to some people that JJ ruined their personal impressions of Star Trek. However, the film was a box-office success (enough so that a sequel has been made), was generally popular with critics, has received an average rating of 8 out of 10 on IMDb (from nearly 280,000 voters), and it got people talking about Star Trek again.

It was when I pointed this out to him that he went off on his 'Trek is anti-white' spiel. I've just replied to him, pointing out his entire rant is one massive red herring.

I thought Julian was implied to be Indian in-universe?

King of Jordan? What?

Back when the current king of Jordan was still the prince in waiting for the throne he appeared as an extra in an episode.

And.... here he is, his royal majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan:

Non-speaking role, about three years before he ascended the throne. A Voyager episode.

Cool. Did he ask for it or what?

Yep, he asked for it. Apparently he's a Trekkie and all-around SF enthusiast.

Dominarch's Hope wrote:I thought Julian was implied to be Indian in-universe?

I'm fairly sure that they never established his ethnicity for certain in the series, probably to tie in with the genetically engineered aspect of his character. But if you go by the nationalities of Siddig and the actors who played his parents, then he's probably half Arabic and half Indian or Pakistani, and born in the UK and/or raised there after having his enhancements. Sort of like Sulu, who implicitly had a mother who was Japanese, a father of indeterminate ethnicity (though probably Korean or Filipino), and was born in San Francisco.

He's now sponsoring a Trek-themed theme park in Jordan too, Broom.

DaveJB wrote:

Dominarch's Hope wrote:I thought Julian was implied to be Indian in-universe?

I'm fairly sure that they never established his ethnicity for certain in the series, probably to tie in with the genetically engineered aspect of his character. But if you go by the nationalities of Siddig and the actors who played his parents, then he's probably half Arabic and half Indian or Pakistani, and born in the UK and/or raised there after having his enhancements. Sort of like Sulu, who implicitly had a mother who was Japanese, a father of indeterminate ethnicity (though probably Korean or Filipino), and was born in San Francisco.

Apologies for necroing this, but Bashir's background ends up being somewhat hilariously convoluted if you read through his backstory - his full name is Julian Subatoi Bashir, and it's mentioned that he's descended from a 15th century poet named Singh el Bashir (who, as far as I can tell, is not a real-world historical figure). Bashir is very definitely Arabic, meaning "the one who brings good news". Subatoi is probably a slightly altered spelling of Subutoi, which is Mongol Turkic, and Singh is South Asian, occurring mostly in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal. So, Bashir's names run the gamut from Arab to South Asian to Mongolian, suggesting the odds are decent he's just a good ol' mutt.

Or ... That someone used a name not from their ethnic background.

Certainly, impossible to imagine!

Stark wrote:Or ... That someone used a name not from their ethnic background.

Certainly, impossible to imagine!

That is a good point, particularly for the Subatai part (I doubt cross-cultural names with nothing to do with a person's background were common in the 15th century, and the timing is right for Singh el Bashir to have theoretically come from the Bahmani or Deccan Sultanates, which would allow for the blending of Hindu and Islamic names ). I decided to poke a little further, since I thought I remembered there being an episode with Bashir's parents, and there is. His father was played by Brian George (half-Indian, half-Lebanese), while his mother was played by Fadwa El Guindi (Egyptian). El Guindi was specifically picked because they wanted a Middle Eastern actress to portray Bashir's mother.

Dominarch's Hope wrote:Where are the Arabs in Star Trek?


Serious question. Where did they go? Did I miss them in DS9 and Voyager?

If memory serves me i believe the captain of the USS Kelvin was supposed to be born in Cuba but raised in the middle east.(or was it the other way around?)

DaveJB wrote:

Dominarch's Hope wrote:I thought Julian was implied to be Indian in-universe?

I'm fairly sure that they never established his ethnicity for certain in the series, probably to tie in with the genetically engineered aspect of his character. But if you go by the nationalities of Siddig and the actors who played his parents, then he's probably half Arabic and half Indian or Pakistani, and born in the UK and/or raised there after having his enhancements. Sort of like Sulu, who implicitly had a mother who was Japanese, a father of indeterminate ethnicity (though probably Korean or Filipino), and was born in San Francisco.

I remember an interview with Siddig - he said one of the joys of playing Julian was that clearly he wasn't white american - he was some of some sort of middle-eastern origin but the show never brought it up. He was never "the Middle Eastern Doctor" or "The Token Arab" character. He said the show did it on purpose because by then, most humans don't see a difference and so why would it ever be brought up without being ham-fisted?

Same with Geordi - he was never "the black engineer" as Uhura had been "the black one" on the original crew.

Worth noting that Sisko's bringing up his African heritage in Badda-Bing Badda-Boom certainly came off as hamfisted, to me. I found his point about not forgetting where he came from to be meaningful, especially considering the (dream) events of Far Beyond the Stars, but the way it was executed just rubbed me the wrong way. I can imagine a 20th century successful black man reacting that way. In the 24th century, it was pretty over the top.

I think the issue there was that his experience in "Far Beyond the Stars" had left a fresh imprint on him.