Bounding into Comics, one of the more boneheaded of the culture war blogs, which routinely blasts what it sees as excessive “wokeness” in comic books and films, has turned its attention to the latest comic book version of Star Trek, demonstrating in the process that it has completely missed the point of the whole franchise.
“New Star Trek Comic Disgusts Readers With A Vulcan Lecturing The Crew On Gender Pronouns,” the headline of a recent post by Jon Del Arroz blares.
The Star Trek franchise has become one of the most mocked properties on the internet in recent years, mired with controversies because of the identity politics constantly pushed by the show, books, and comics.
Uh, you do realize that show creator Gene Roddenberry was kind of a Social Justice Warrior himself, right? I mean, practically the whole point of the original show was to demonstrate, with true 1960s idealism, that a coalition of different sorts of people (and aliens) could work together to bring justice to the universe. This has naturally continued in all of the spinoffs since.
“Intolerance in the 23rd Century?” Roddenberry once wrote.
Improbable! If man survives that long, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life’s exciting variety, not something to fear.
And if Gene Roddenberry had lived a bit longer he might have referred to “human beings” rather than “men.”
So what exactly is bothering the Bounding Into Comics folks and these mysterious Star Trek fans who apparently hate the very thing that made the show distinctive and in many ways ahead of its time?
“The decline of Star Trek’s popularity among fans,” Del Arroz sniffs,
began with Star Trek: Discovery, which first flaunted racial divisions and an explicit on-screen homosexual relationship before pushing even further to the bottom of the identity politics barrel when they introduced a Trill character who, despite obviously being a woman, lectured her crewmates and audience on how she wanted to be called “they/them.”
Got it. Never mind that Star Trek, from the beginning, was a multiracial enterprise (featuring a multiracial crew on the Enterprise). The show, a favorite of Martin Luther King, rattled racists in its day by featuring one of the first if not the first interracial kiss between a white man (Kirk) and a black woman (Uhuru) on network television. This kiss was a lot more daring for its time than a gay relationship on television is now, or even someone calling themselves “they.”
Somehow I suspect the Bounding Into Comics guys, if they were writing in the 1960s, would have been cross-burningly indignant over that scandalous kiss.
So what about this new Star Trek comic is proving so “disgusting” to the anti-social-justice Star Trek fanboys?
The comics have been no refuge for Star Trek fans who want to keep current-year left-wing agenda out of their science fiction reading. In 2021, IDW named embattled personality Heather Antos as the line’s editor. Under her tenure, fans complained about how she took no care with continuity, which was highlighted in several editorial failures in a recent issue of a Deep Space 9 comic.
Nothing is more of a challenge to the survival of Western Civilization as continuity errors. I mean, this couldn’t possibly be something drummed up as an excuse to attack a female editor, right? Nah.
The current “controversy,” such as it is, stems from a scene in Star Trek (2022) #1 in which a Vulcan character tells a blue-skinned alien woman that “the gender binary is illogical.”
That’s it. A Vulcan calling something “illogical.”
Del Arroz explains the vast significance of this line.
The interchange is meant to reinforce 2022 gender identity politics propaganda based on the English language, which is nonsensical in a 24th-century era as the language wouldn’t be anything like it is today, and presumably, an Andorian and Vulcan would have the benefits of a universal translator which wouldn’t even likely have English-based pronouns.
Moreover, if a Vulcan were trying to reinforce the logic in this speech, he wouldn’t refer to an inanimate object like a ship by the term “their” which, despite being a plural word, is a pronoun. He would instead use the proper word “it”. The only reason to insert this kind of dialogue is to lecture readers on gender pronouns, making the Vulcan sound more like a current-year teenage girl than a logical scientist.
Is it logical to get this worked up about a single line in a comic book about space aliens?
But of course, Del Arroz goes on to point out, this is all the fault of Ms. Antos, the CONTINUITY DESTROYER.
This kind of pause in the story to virtue signal identity politics is creeping into comics more often and is yet another sign of the poorly thought-out editorial oversight of Ms. Antos, who has repeatedly demonstrated she is more interested in left-wing politics than maintaining accuracy in comic franchises.
Yes, that’s right: the most important thing about comics about space aliens is their commitment to accuracy. That and keeping “identity politics” OUT of anything having to do with Star Trek, which was actually all about identity politics in the first place.
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@.45 The first ‘Sex in Star Trek’ video goes pretty in-depth in the less pleasant aspects of Roddenberry. Jessie tends to be fairly evenhanded generally (in the ‘actually looking at and discussing the nuances in issues’ sense, not the ‘but both sides!’-sense’).
I’m not at all at home in Star Trek, so I can’t comment on anything in the lore. My sci-fi tastes tend towards different things (been reading a fair amount of Phillip K. Dick recently, for example).
Her name is Uhura. The name’s based on the word uhuru, but the name is Uhura.
… other than that, nothing to add, and I’ll just check out all these video recommendations.
“It’s not about harassing Heather Antos, it’s about maintaining accuracy in comic franchises!” … now why does that sound familiar?
Meantime, hilarious as always watching conservatives complain that a series that was, from the get-go, about the multiracial and non-sex-segregated crew of a ship in a Communist state’s space navy, is “getting too woke these days”.
Right on board with @Joe Klemmer that “they” makes perfect sense for a Trill. Lots of big gender questions explored in Deep Space Nine too! Not the least Siskos unwillingness to let go of “old man”.
How do they see the moneyless post scarcity utopia of Star Trek and not get it?
@Lollypop
That’s interesting, in retrospect- the human Sisko persists with the term of affection he was accustomed to for his old friend, but an elderly Klingon warrior from the TOS era IMMEDIATELY corrected himself when he was told he’d deadnamed Dax, and hit the ground running with his dear old friend’s new identity.
I’m suddenly curious whether that contrast was intentional on the part of the writers.
Andorians have four sexes, of course they would find a gender binary illogical.
This is not a new problem with the… erm… poorly-informed. Including many of Johnny D’s bestest Puppy idols. He says this kind of shit to feed his ego periodically when he hasn’t gotten enough attention lately. He’s also a racist, sexist, trust-fund baby, quelle surprise.
Trek has ALWAYS been woke, or whatever that’s been called over the decades. Even in the original, a number of stations in the South clutched their pearls over that episode in which Kirk kissed Uhura (under force and compulsion, because — hey, she’s pretty and he famously likes the ladies, but he’s her boss) and refused to air it for years. The Shat knew they were gonna have a conniption fit, so he deliberately screwed up every take except the one that was in the show so that it couldn’t be cut away from to pander to the racists.
Not to mention that episode that @Alan linked to in the first comment.
@FM Ox: Hey, not all of them were housewives! Otherwise, correct.
@Joe K: Trill are definitely “they”. A new host body, gender unimportant, every so many years, plus they remember all their previous lives and host bodies. All Trill are “they”.
@Schnookums: You are entirely correct. The box of rocks is also more useful.
@FGK: No, English degrees are too woke. All that subtext, and you have to read books by non-SWM once in a while.
@Fabe: Heck, TOS and TNG didn’t even agree on what planet Ze[ph/f]ram Cochrane came from and who invented the warp drive.
@Natsume: Left-wing SF people don’t read Baen. They were entirely supportive of Puppies, think everyone else in SF is wide-eyed woke radical Commie snowflakes, actively support hate speech, bigotry, fascism, and even Weber’s stuff makes fun of straw man socialist caricatures who are of course inferior in every way to <s>Mary Sue</s> Honor and her royal self. I’ve met hard-core Honor fans (they have their own club) and a fair percentage of them are very anti-woke. They have a great cocktail, though, and still have manners unlike too many right-wingers.
Plus Baen doesn’t have distribution outside the US and Canada, because no one else is interested in their Generic Mil-SF Gunhumper Manly Manly Men series and endlessly repackaged old mil-SF with female exploitation, which is about 90% of their output. And their founder was racist, sexist, and cheated writers out of money; though he’s been dead quite a while, his followers live on.
On a quality note, their books go through NO copyediting (as their current publisher publicly admitted!) and the paper is of lowest quality, going yellow and starting to decay 3 times as fast as other mass market paperbacks. Plus the glue that holds the covers on is only technically glue. The covers themselves are terrible, too – – eye watering colors, busty scantily-clad chicks, big guns everywhere, and the worst fonts in publishing. In all ways, disposable.
Not sure how they’re surviving in these days of all that being available for free or cheaper in Kindle Unlimited or other services. KU is where many of their former authors have decamped to. Because even with cutting everything to the bone, they need someone other than Weber to make money for them, so they’ve stopped buying from some of their previous regulars. The Free Library worked great for them before Amazon came along and provided endless amounts of bad-to-mediocre SF available to anyone with an extra $10/month, much of which even makes an attempt to nod towards current ideas and some of which is very good. (I like Lindsay Buroker and Patty Jansen, who are both very successful, even though they are guurrrls.)
@ Nathan Tyree
I think they ignore it
@ Battering Lamb
I think I have some idea of what Jessie will say, but I’ll watch it at some point. I was attempting to be charitable when I said what I said.
And as a general point, I wonder how many people were upset that, not too long after WW2 and in the middle of the Cold War, they stuck a Japanese guy and a Russian on the bridge, and sometimes gave them more than the basic “Aye-aye skipper” lines. (I recall Chekhov was practically a main character in some episodes, such as The Trouble with Tribbles, where he was comic relief.)
I do remember an anecdote about some fans wanting to know when Sulu would get a special lady friend for an episode and the response was a not exactly politically correct reply that Sulu would get as many ladies as the Japanese sunk American aircraft carriers in WW2. It was not all sunshine and flowers on the equality front back then for Star Trek, even if they tried. Not much has changed today.
The first same-sex kiss I ever saw was on DS9 with Dax (whom I already had a secret crush on) and another woman 🙂
The conservatives in the fan base still misremember TOS as Kirk blasting the Klingons and Romulans to smithereens while seducing hordes of hot alien women. They used to ridicule Picard as a Neville Chamberlin weakling.
Well, at least now we know the REAL reason Sulu never had a lady friend.
OH MYYY.
But after they had that fencing scene, people were expecting some other action for him.
Still funny in that scene (and even funnier back then) was when Sulu called Uhura “fair maiden” and she said “Sorry, neither!”
@Carstonio: I think Picard might have done more blowing up of enemies and romancing the ladies, even allowing for the much longer run.
@GSS ex-noob:
Still funny in that scene (and even funnier back then) was when Sulu called Uhura “fair maiden” and she said “Sorry, neither!”
And funnier still if you know that the exchange was ad-libbed on both sides: yes, Nichelle Nichols got away with saying, “I’m Black and I fuck” on network television.
(At least now we know that that particular White Knight—one out of two ain’t bad?—didn’t have an ulterior motive.)
Not that this makes a whole lot of difference in this discussion, but I seem to remember George Takei saying that TOS Sulu is straight and that he wasn’t at all happy with what the new films decided to make of that, so it’s a bit weird seeing jokes about Sulu’s sexuality.
Also Sulu’s pretty keen on one of the hippie ladies in The Way to Eden, though that’s a bit of a fly-by.
@ Masse_Mysteria
It seems to have gotten lost in a spam filter or something, but I actually wrote a big long thing on exactly that. George Takei argued against making Sulu gay in the Kelvinverse movies because Roddenberry had envisioned the character as heterosexual and he wanted to be true to that. He stated he was upset that they disregarded his opinion for the movies.
Given that I consider the Kelvinverse to be its own seperate reality even before the timeline change anyway, I personally like to just consider that Sulu gay and Prime Sulu straight because the Almighty George Takei said so
Roddenberry had some great ideas and ideals. But he had serious trouble living up to them. So serious that, while I will continue to enjoy Star Trek, I will never give the franchise a dime.
A bit like Rowling, though her transgressions (pun not intended) are, believe it or not, not as bad. And she still can change.
Some things are forever.
@.45: I agree, whatever George says goes. On many issues, not just Sulu and Star Trek.
WELL ACKTUALLY Grey is a nonbinary human joined to a Trill symbiont (like, that’s a major plot point with an entire episode dedicated to it), and there’s no mention in DIS whatsoever of anyone’s race aside from the alien species sense. In conclusion, Jon Del Arroz is a Fake Geek Boy who’s infiltrated Geekdom in order to spread his Agenda, and deserves to be pelted with rotting strawberries.
@jy3: What did strawberries ever do to you that you would consign them to that fate?
Besides, strawberries smell pretty good even when partly rotten. You need something more odiferous. Maybe something in the cabbage family. They smell strongly when fresh, and when rotten, yikes. Let’s make it rotting brussels sprouts. With protective gloves issued to all the throwers.
Otherwise, you are entirely correct.
(Hey, he’d get a lot of attention for that! That’s why he posts shit like this.)
@ GSS ex-noob
I think rotten sprouts woud be too insubstantial to give a good spread once they hit, maybe those ridiculous^ “individual” cauliflowers? Not big enough to really hurt if suitably rotten, but definitely big enough to give good coverage once the target has been hit.
^Ridiculous in terms of price, all of those mini vegetables are a con when it comes to price and a lot of them when it comes to flavour too, simply not mature enough to tste of much.
@.45
I was surprised no one said it, so it makes sense you did but it got eaten. I was more than slightly upset when I read somewhere that supposedly they made Sulu gay in Beyond to honour Takei, which is a weird justification when he explicitly did not want it.
(Not that I thought anyone here actually meant their comments in a “lol gay” sense, but it still weirded me out.)
In fairness to mini vegetables, the full-size versions are no better on the “flavor” front, if I may use that word loosely.
By all means, pelt the enemy with the foul things. 🙂
I had a comment eaten here too.
Gist of it was that the writer of this screed is a trust fund baby who works in property management. That doesn’t develop empathy towards others… remind you of anyone? Orange with fake hair?
Kirk had, I think, three actual relationships with women in the show and films. The rest of the time, he was just seducing women to get the Enterprise out of whatever weekly jam it was in. All those seductions never went past the making out stage, and there’s no indication he would have wanted them to. It’s not his fault that he kept getting captured by men with very dumb, young female guards that found him attractive.