For Alt-Right Trolls, Star Trek: Discovery Is an Unsafe Space – The New Yorker
The franchises claim to fame, dating back to the days of Lieutenant Uhura and Captain Kirk, is its advocacy for science, non-belligerence, and multiculturalism.CreditPHOTOGRAPH BY CBS VIA GETTY
This being the United States in 2017, Internet trolls are accusing Star Trek: Discovery, the newest incarnation of the sci-fi franchise, due to dbut on television in the fall, of white genocide. The commotion began last week, when theshows trailerfirst appeared on YouTube. It opens with a conversation between the two lead characters, a starship captain and her first officer, played by Michelle Yeoh and Sonequa Martin-Green, both women of color. Very quickly, the comments section was filled with garden-variety Trekkie gripesthe Klingons looked weird, there was too much lens flare, the dialogue was hammy, the uniforms were non-canonical. Many commenters, though, were clearly appalled by the absence of white men in command positions. Where is the alpha male that has balls and doesnt take crap from anyone? one asked. Is everything going to have to have females in every fucking thing? another asked. A third person called Yeoh a reject from a overseas customer-support line. A fourth dubbed the show Star Trek: Feminist Lesbian Edition.
Two and a half years ago, in the very same corners of the Internet, there was a similar campaign against Star Wars: The Force Awakens, whose trailer featured a female protagonist and a black man wearing the iconic white carapace of a Storm Trooper. That incident was absurd enough, but in the case of Star Trek the outrage is even more confounding than usual. The franchises claim to fame,its central premise, is its advocacy for science, non-belligerence, and, above all, multiculturalism. In its fifty-year history, Star Trek has cornered the market on tolerance and cosmopolitanism. Even those who have never watched the original series, which aired in the late nineteen-sixties, likely know that it featured the first interracial kiss on network televisionbetween William Shatners Captain Kirk and Nichelle Nicholss Lieutenant Uhura.
And intergalactic office romance is really the least of it. Each successive Star Trek cast has been like a model United Nations. Nicholss black communications specialist worked alongside George Takeis Japanese helmsman and Walter Koenigs (admittedly campy) Russian navigator. Leonard Nimoys Spock was half-human, half-Vulcan, and he bore traces of the actors own upbringing in a poor Jewish neighborhood in Boston. The Vulcan hand greeting, for instance, which Nimoy invented, is the Hebrew letter shin, the symbol for the Shekhinah, a feminine aspect of the divine. The original series aired only a few years after the Cuban missile crisis, at the height of the Vietnam War and the space race, and its vision of a reconciled humanity was bold. Nichols, who considered leaving the show after the first season, has said thatshe was persuaded to stay onby Martin Luther King, Jr., who told her that he watched Star Trek with his wife and daughters.
Later manifestations of the franchise continued the tradition. The captain of the Enterprise in The Next Generation was a Frenchman from Bordeaux (though he spoke impeccable Oxbridge English). The chief engineer, Geordi La Forge, was black, and his colleagues on the bridge included an alien and an android. For seven seasons, T.N.G. explored much more than space: itsketched the contours of a modern utopiain which people, freed from material want, could pursue knowledge, justice, and the greater good. The series early-nineties spinoff, Star Trek: Deep Space 9, went even further. It was a sort of Casablanca in space, with characters from all races and worlds and cultures mingling, not always harmoniously, on a lonely outpost. Benjamin Sisko, the stations commanding officer, was a black man and a single father. His deputy was a female alien and former resistance fighter. And then there was Voyager, whose captain, played by Kate Mulgrew, was the only woman to serve as a central character in any of the Star Trek seriesuntil Yeoh and Martin-Green.
It is neither surprising nor especially interesting that Discovery has caused a conniption among the Bannonite mob. It is, however, a little ironic, because in many ways Star Trek falls short of the social-justice-warrior label. In the original series, for example, no one seemed bothered by the fact that short-skirted female crew brought the male senior officers their lunches, or that Captain Kirk seemed barely able to contain his sexual appetites. In T.N.G., La Forge kissesa white engineer, but only in holographic form. The series bartender, maternal and full of folksy alien wisdom, is played by a black woman, Whoopi Goldberg. Throughout the franchise, there is a complete absence of gay or even mildly gender-fluid characters in Starfleet uniforms. (That erasure was repaired, but only in passing, in the last movie, Star Trek Beyond.)
Indeed, Star Trek can often be seen as patronizing, if not conveniently delusional. The United Federation of Planets, despite its vaunted tolerance and inclusiveness, is mostly led by older white men. The explorers motives are represented as pure, unencumbered by cultural chauvinism, yet their science always prevails over aliens indigenous superstitions. By a strange and circuitous logic, the trolls who scream, White genocide! have espoused this very argument against the show. In effect, they are pining for the least appealing aspects of Star Trek, those that arise from unconscious slips and lingering prejudices, despite the writers best intentions. But it seems clear that they are fighting a losing battle. As the franchise continues to evolve to better reflect the tastes and the diversity of a global audience, the trolls will find it increasingly difficult to locate a safe space for their nativist fantasies, on Earth or among the stars.
See the rest here:
For Alt-Right Trolls, Star Trek: Discovery Is an Unsafe Space - The New Yorker
- The alt-right Spanish leader promising to destroy a rotten system - The Times - September 19th, 2024 [September 19th, 2024]
- Amandla Stenberg Says The Acolyte Cancellation Was Not a Shock Due to Alt-Right Hate Toward the Series - IndieWire - August 29th, 2024 [August 29th, 2024]
- Amandla Stenberg Says The Acolyte Cancellation Was Not a Shock Due to Alt-Right Hate Toward the Series - imdb - August 29th, 2024 [August 29th, 2024]
- The Acolyte Lead Amandla Stenberg Claims Star Wars Series Was The Target Of Hyper-Conservative Bigotry From The Alt-Right - Bounding Into Comics - August 29th, 2024 [August 29th, 2024]
- The ugly conversion of Candace Owens The alt-Right promised her power and devotion - UnHerd - August 22nd, 2024 [August 22nd, 2024]
- Hawk tuah girl: How she became a bizarre and unwitting icon for the alt-right. - Slate - July 8th, 2024 [July 8th, 2024]
- The Boys season 4 episode 6 recap and Easter eggs: an alt-right cocktail party takes a nasty turn - Gamesradar - July 8th, 2024 [July 8th, 2024]
- Lesbian The Boys Actress Valorie Curry Glad Shes Mocking The Alt-Right - Star Observer - June 27th, 2024 [June 27th, 2024]
- Here's why lesbian actress Valorie Curry enjoys playing a right-wing role on The Boys - Gay Times - June 27th, 2024 [June 27th, 2024]
- Alt-Tech: Down the Far Right Rabbit Hole - Grey Dynamics - June 27th, 2024 [June 27th, 2024]
- How has Pepe the Frog become a far-right icon? - Far Out Magazine - June 20th, 2024 [June 20th, 2024]
- Save Europe: the alt-right movement spreading hate with dance music - Dazed - June 20th, 2024 [June 20th, 2024]
- TV Review: THE BOYS Season 4 is a Pizzagate parody of Donald Trump's Alt-Right - Comics Beat - June 16th, 2024 [June 16th, 2024]
- The kids are alt-right: why todays youth are embracing extremism - HeraldScotland - June 16th, 2024 [June 16th, 2024]
- Nicki Minaj Is Cozying Up To Ben Shapiro And Its A Good Reminder For Us All - Yahoo Canada Sports - February 6th, 2024 [February 6th, 2024]
- Alt-Right Wackadoodles Now Impersonating the NorCal Journalists Who Exposed Their 'Zoom-Bombing' of City Meetings - SFist - February 4th, 2024 [February 4th, 2024]
- ICYMI: Trump loses in court again, and Taylor Swift broke their alt-right hearts - Daily Kos - February 4th, 2024 [February 4th, 2024]
- The alt-right saw Taylor Swift as an 'Aryan goddess.' She shook them off as 'repulsive' - Daily Kos - February 4th, 2024 [February 4th, 2024]
- How the Welsh flag has been hijacked by the far-right in Brittany - Nation.Cymru - February 4th, 2024 [February 4th, 2024]
- Doja Cat Responds To Backlash Over Alt-Right T-Shirt: 'It's Not An Attack' - HipHopDX - December 17th, 2023 [December 17th, 2023]
- Marvel and DC Writer Mark Waid Rejects Mark Millar's Call To Root Out Comic Book 'Cancel Pigs', Dishonestly Paints ... - Bounding Into Comics - December 17th, 2023 [December 17th, 2023]
- Soda Jerk's Hello Dankness The Brooklyn Rail - Brooklyn Rail - October 5th, 2023 [October 5th, 2023]
- What We Know About 'Microchip,' the FBI's Far-Right Judas - Southern Poverty Law Center - June 30th, 2023 [June 30th, 2023]
- 'Against All Enemies' Explores Why Veterans Are Drawn to ... - Military.com - June 30th, 2023 [June 30th, 2023]
- The American alt-right wants to set up shop in the UK - Tortoise Media - May 20th, 2023 [May 20th, 2023]
- What you need to know about Princeton's James Madison Program - The Daily Princetonian - May 20th, 2023 [May 20th, 2023]
- Make a noise and make it clear! How John Farnhams Youre the Voice became Australias anthem - The Guardian - May 20th, 2023 [May 20th, 2023]
- Succession recap: season four, episode eight nothing is more sadistic than the words Is that even true? - The Guardian - May 16th, 2023 [May 16th, 2023]
- How younger voters will impact elections: How legacy media and social media impact old and young voters - Brookings Institution - May 16th, 2023 [May 16th, 2023]
- Is Mencken Based on Trump in 'Succession'? He's an Alt-Right ... - Distractify - May 16th, 2023 [May 16th, 2023]
- Irish Times apologises for hoax AI article about womens use of fake tan - The Guardian - May 16th, 2023 [May 16th, 2023]
- The Best Books to Read in 2023 - The New York Times - May 16th, 2023 [May 16th, 2023]
- The Reinvention of the Latin American Right - NACLA - April 13th, 2023 [April 13th, 2023]
- Pentagon leaks: how much damage will they cause? - The Guardian US - April 13th, 2023 [April 13th, 2023]
- Frog Decor Is Living in My Head Rent-Free - Architectural Digest - April 13th, 2023 [April 13th, 2023]
- Five Ways to Have More Constructive Disagreements - Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley - March 30th, 2023 [March 30th, 2023]
- Succession: The real people who inspired the HBO hit - VOGUE India - March 28th, 2023 [March 28th, 2023]
- The web firm that wants to stop you getting 'cancelled' - BBC - March 28th, 2023 [March 28th, 2023]
- Dutch Elections Produce Another Popular Wave But the Same Prime ... - Foreign Policy - March 23rd, 2023 [March 23rd, 2023]
- Trial of 2016 Twitter Troll to Test Limits of Online Speech - The New York Times - March 23rd, 2023 [March 23rd, 2023]
- John Krull: Waiting for the waves in Nebraska - Kokomo Tribune - March 23rd, 2023 [March 23rd, 2023]
- Denver's Black, Jewish communities focus on shared history of ... - The Colorado Sun - March 23rd, 2023 [March 23rd, 2023]
- The Dangerous Subtlety of the Alt-Right Pipeline - February 26th, 2023 [February 26th, 2023]
- How the Alt-Right Happened | American University, Washington, DC - February 10th, 2023 [February 10th, 2023]
- The Women Behind The 'Alt-Right' : NPR - NPR.org - February 10th, 2023 [February 10th, 2023]
- Kanye West Praises Adolf Hitler in Alex Jones Interview Billboard - December 28th, 2022 [December 28th, 2022]
- Michelle Malkin Fired After Defending Nick Fuentes - Mediaite - December 28th, 2022 [December 28th, 2022]
- Netflix Removed Kanye's 'Harmful Alt-Right Beliefs' From David ... - November 22nd, 2022 [November 22nd, 2022]
- Where Are All the Women on This Alt-Right, Anti-Choice, Toxic ... - November 22nd, 2022 [November 22nd, 2022]
- Forbes Gets Punked - Labels FTX Former CEO's Girlfriend a "New Darling ... - November 22nd, 2022 [November 22nd, 2022]
- Alt-Right Picks Wrong Side in Dutch Farm Crisis - November 22nd, 2022 [November 22nd, 2022]
- Is that an OK sign? A white power symbol? Or just a right-wing troll? - November 1st, 2022 [November 1st, 2022]
- Dark Enlightenment - Wikipedia - October 8th, 2022 [October 8th, 2022]
- Shapiro poised to break spending record in governor's race after raising $25M this summer - Pennsylvania Capital-Star - October 1st, 2022 [October 1st, 2022]
- Alt-right conspiracy theorist, Stop the Steal and Pizzagate pusher ... - September 17th, 2022 [September 17th, 2022]
- What the Woke Left and the Alt-Right Share - Project Syndicate - September 17th, 2022 [September 17th, 2022]
- Mothers of the movement: Leadership by alt-right women paves the way for violence - The Conversation - September 17th, 2022 [September 17th, 2022]
- Who is Ryder Ripps, Artist Trying To Take Down Bored Ape Yacht Club ARTnews.com - ARTnews - September 17th, 2022 [September 17th, 2022]
- White nationalism, fueled by social media, is on the rise and attracting violent young white men - Arizona Mirror - August 24th, 2022 [August 24th, 2022]
- Flags of the alt-right, white supremacists - pennlive.com - August 22nd, 2022 [August 22nd, 2022]
- January 6 Hearings Rile up Alt-Right Extremists Online - Business Insider - August 22nd, 2022 [August 22nd, 2022]
- When Did Racism Begin? - The Chronicle of Higher Education - August 22nd, 2022 [August 22nd, 2022]
- Standing Against Transphobia: On School Boards & in the State Houses - LGBTQ Victory Institute - August 22nd, 2022 [August 22nd, 2022]
- How Rad-Trad Catholics Weaponized the Rosary - The Atlantic - August 14th, 2022 [August 14th, 2022]
- Five years after her daughter's death at the Unite the Right rally, Heather Heyer's mother reflects - WBUR News - August 14th, 2022 [August 14th, 2022]
- That's A Price I'm Willing To Pay: Wyoming's Rep. Liz Cheney Emphasizes Role In Jan. 6 Investigation And Expected Loss Ahead Of Tuesday's Primary -... - August 14th, 2022 [August 14th, 2022]
- State officials reaffirm access to reproductive health services post-Roe | Five for the Weekend - Pennsylvania Capital-Star - August 14th, 2022 [August 14th, 2022]
- In an environment of threats and fear, Kansans have the chance to create a more loving state - Kansas Reflector - July 29th, 2022 [July 29th, 2022]
- Steve Bannon Found Guilty of Contempt Related to Jan. 6 Inquiry - The New York Times - July 29th, 2022 [July 29th, 2022]
- The Wendy Williams Shows YouTube Channel Is Gone - Them - July 6th, 2022 [July 6th, 2022]
- 'Minions 2' And 'Stranger Things' Show The Power Of Original Franchises - Forbes - July 6th, 2022 [July 6th, 2022]
- Alt-Right Incels at Deep State Daily Stormer Site Celebrate Buffalo ... - July 4th, 2022 [July 4th, 2022]
- How 'alt-right' MAGA extremism has infiltrated the Libertarian Party ... - July 4th, 2022 [July 4th, 2022]
- Trump and his mob tried to overthrow American democracy and threaten to try again - Ohio Capital Journal - June 28th, 2022 [June 28th, 2022]
- Pacifism is the wrong response to the war in Ukraine - The Guardian - June 28th, 2022 [June 28th, 2022]
- Your Handy Guide to the Absolute Worst People in American Politics - Rolling Stone - June 19th, 2022 [June 19th, 2022]
- The Hysterical Style in American Academe - The Chronicle of Higher Education - June 19th, 2022 [June 19th, 2022]
- The Creators and Stars of Circle Jerk Just Want to Put On a Show - Vogue - June 19th, 2022 [June 19th, 2022]
- Your Take: The January 6th hearings - The Fulcrum - June 19th, 2022 [June 19th, 2022]
- The Depp-Heard trial has played right into the hands of far-right extremists. - Vox.com - May 23rd, 2022 [May 23rd, 2022]