• DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Recently had an argument with my conservative father, he’s always been big into Trek and Wars, and I had just started really watching Trek again, never watched a lot of the shows all the way through. So this father of mine started going on about how woke Trek was now, and I just lost it on him, I just get so tired of the “anti-woke” nonsense and he just finds some way to insert it into every conversation. So I was like “oh no, not woke Star Trek, the series about a socialist utopia, the series that holds the title of “the American show with the first interracial kiss”, the show where Kirk throws his dick at every species with a quim, the show that had a Ruskie character in the middle of the f’n Red Scare.” Star Trek was always woke, and my father was always too dumb, racially biased, and narcissistic to pick up on the lessons that they were trying to teach us when he watched it as a child in the 60’s.

    I have not even tried to bring up Star Wars since the Disney acquisition, I’m sure my father has an insufferable take on that series now as well.

    • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I have met conservative Trek fans. I think some people really do watch stuff without ever thinking about it beyond its superficial spectacle.

      • Crashumbc@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        There are a surprisingly high number of educated conservatives in the high tech fields, engineers/programmers/etc.

        It’s sad :/

        • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          One of the smartest people i knew was a former systems designer for NASA, I live close enough to the Cape to watch every launch from my backyard, anyway, this guy definitely worked for NASA, had his office decorated with the Patents that he held, really smart guy, complete conspiracy nut who was immediately on the Trump train.

          I’ve always loved conspiracies too and we got along through that stuff, but then he went down the rabbit hole of Right wing and Russian propaganda/disinformation and no matter how much i tried to prove everything wrong, with good evidence, he went deeper down that hole, he died during COVID and one of the last things he sent me was about the “stolen election”, it was after January 6, to which my reply was “do you mean the 2016 election or the 2000 election?” and never got a response back and I’d heard he passed away a few months later from a mutual friend.

        • My dad navigated satellites and exploration probes for NASA his entire career, even doing work in getting better climate data. He’s a total MAGA and FOX loyalist now. Misses Bill O’Reilly and Tucker Carlson.

        • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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          9 months ago

          The educated laborers that perform highly skilled labor convince themselves that they have it better than everyone else because Capitalism worked and selected for them, it’s a comfy and delusional position to hold that requires having absolutely zero self-awareness. Unfortunately common.

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        Same with conservative Fallout fans that somehow unironically think it’s pro-Capitalism, despite nearly every instance of actual Capitalism and not just bartering being absurdly evil.

    • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      9 months ago

      The non-woke Trekkies (or do they call themselves Trekkers? ) didn’t think about interracial kisses or the post-scarcity society in which capitalists were small-time traders. They see Captain Kirk running roughshod over other societies and turning them into America (see The Apple and A Taste of Armageddon ) which was more about 60s Hollywood imagining cold war United States as the height of civilization.

      The Next Generation dared to imagine a more internationalist sense of culture and got into the notion that even extremely weird aliens might be deserving of civil rights. But by DS9 the Federation was reimagined as a failing coalition with multiple rising renegade factions and worlds teeming with disregarded peoples. The story became less about rising to ideals and more about dealing with grimdark realities and compromising principles to preserve status quo.

      Then the Kelvin Timeline Reboot got J. J. Abrams’d and Paramount got litigeous about fan films it previously endorsed and I became so disgusted with the state of Trek, I divested myself from it. Star Wars would suffer a similar fate, and I don’t watch many movies these days.

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
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        9 months ago

        Corporations have a tendency to ruin all art for the sake of profit. It’s infuriating.

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
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        9 months ago

        I think the best response to that kind of crap is what you said, with the addition of “and when did you start caring? When Fox news told you to care.”

        If you’re feeling extra spicy you can add a comment about being a sheep lol

    • molave@reddthat.com
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      9 months ago

      I just lost it on him, I just get so tired of the “anti-woke” nonsense and he just finds some way to insert it into every conversation.

      This is what I mean when I think “everything is political” is BS. That statement doesn’t mean one has to talk about politics 24/7.

      • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        It was mostly indignation over me not kissing his ass and telling him he’s right, I’m generally one of the few in my family that will stand up to him at all never the less consistently, he’s pretty charming and the family that have never lived with him all think he’s just great usually, but he always has this condescending way of telling me “you weren’t alive then so you don’t know” as if there aren’t interviews with Roddenberry that confirms these things, or if it’s broader politics, as if encyclopedias and news article didn’t exist back then. Then when I knocked down that argument he just defaulted back to “well it’s too woke and preachy now” while citing examples of preachyness that are just examples of inclusivity in the show.

        I’ll say this, my pop apparently helped do clean up at ground zero after 9/11, he was a guard at Rikers at the time and I could see him volunteering for it, but he’s also kind of a bullshit artists so we’re never sure what’s fully the truth. However fact or fiction he’s never been the same since that day, we all lost a bunch of people we knew, and we all have a lot of friends who lost close relatives and it impacted not only us but our community, because it’s a fire firefighter town we live in, we live next to the former chief and down the block from the station house and my pop hangs out at the bar near the station house. After 9/11 he fell down the Fox News hole and never was the same again, and now i gotta hear some “woke” bullshit every time he talks about something he seems to not understand.

        So overall the reaction was a lot of indignation, a little bit of arguing followed by a hasty hang up.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    There is a weird right-wing contingent of Trekkies who think it’s all about pew pew fights with the Borg and they confuse the rest of us who love the idea of a socialist utopia where indigenous cultures are respected and people try to talk things out before shooting in hostile situations.

    • Trek has no money in the Federation; no barter. Nobody who’s watched a season of any Trek show can avoid noticing that. It might be a bit murky with characters like Harry Mudd, or the Ferengi, but those operate outside the Federation; you’d have to be daft to miss that. TNG was more careful with their “capitalist” characters like Kivas Fajo, who was clearly a collector and trader rather than a travelling salesman.

      Right-wing free-market Trekkies are self-deluding.

      • krab@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        It’s a special case of the more general rule: right-wing free-market anyone is self-deluding.

    • Dr_Fetus_Jackson@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      That’s why I prefer Picard over the others. He represented the best of those ideals while respecting the history that led humanity to the Federation. They even took the time to reveal his humility when he went too far, by his choice or no.

  • megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    9 months ago

    “ Star Wars is bad now”

    I mean yah, the vertical integration, means tested everything, nostalgia bating and assembly line techniques that Disney does sure do ruin otherwise fine properties.

    “No, I don’t mind that, that’s just good business. I just hate the gay people who kissed in the background”

    Oh, OH ok, you’re just an idiot…

  • CodeName@infosec.pub
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    9 months ago

    Disney bad. Star Wars is Disney. Star Wars woke. Star Trek not Disney. Star Trek not woke. Star Trek good.

    • Herbal Gamer@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      Star Trek not woke.

      Star Trek first interacial kiss on screen. Star Trek early with minorities in major roles without calling attention to it.

      • Pengilly@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        I’m not trying to undermine the idea that Star Trek was progressive for its time, far from it, but since no one else has pointed this out, I thought I’d say it. Star Trek was NOT the first interracial kiss on television. In fact, the actors’ lips never touched in the shot.

        Well, sort of. I’ve been reading William Shatner’s autobiography, and they had to fight really hard to include an interracial kiss. The network was going to forbid it, telling Rodenberry that televisions across the South would rather black out their televisions for an hour than allow something so highly offensive. When he insisted upon it, they kept making concessions Rodenberry wouldn’t agree to, like instead having Uhura kiss Spock, since it there would be a little more disconnect between reality. Eventually, Rodenberry offered to film the kiss both ways—one way with their lips actually touching, the other with Uhura’s back to the camera as they embraced, giving the illusion that they kissed without their lips ever touching. The actors were really upset about it, because It was originally going to be a passionate kiss, but the only way they allowed it to be filmed on television was if the actors displayed clear discomfort—which could be used to reinforce the idea that interracial relationships were bad.

        Soo…yeah! That’s your Star Trek history lesson for the day! (I’ve never watched the original episode, I’ve only watched TNG and Discovery for myself, so this is all secondary info, but if you watch the episode, you can see for yourself.)

      • banneryear1868@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I think with Disney and a lot of companies now it’s more obvious that they are consciously trying to “look good” vs Star Trek was a lot more genuine and authentic with it’s intention to include these things, and it was challenging status quo back then whereas today it’s very mainstream (which is a good thing). This is also what I think is (sometimes intentionally) misinterpreted with the “woke” concerns from the right, cause criticizing the company for morally branding themselves can be legit, but only if the actual idea of including and respecting people isn’t lumped in with it. A legit issue with these huge companies that exploit workers is how they commodify their visibly “diverse” employees and claim the virtue for themselves rather than all the effort it took from workers to actually be treated with dignity. Amazon may very well be welcoming and inclusive but they’re gonna fight their diverse employees when they want better conditions and pay. DEI doesn’t erase the inherent conflict between employers and employees.

  • IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    I would have thought they’d be more of a Starship Troopers fan, since the satire would fly over the fash’s head.

      • frezik@midwest.social
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        9 months ago

        It has an alien species where the religious group has quotes that are directly from Carl Sagan (and they’re have more of a philosophy than a religion, at least in most ways). It generally treats religion with more respect than Roddenberry did, in a “all religion has some good parts to it, but extremism is a problem” kind of way.

        One of its major plot arcs is all about how democracies fall into fascism. I thought it was a bit heavy handed at the time, but now it feels too real.

        Skirts around a pair of characters in a lesbian relationship, but like most shows at the time, it doesn’t come right out and say it. They 100% banged one night, though.

        It’s also military science fiction. That always seems to invite right wingers who love the asthetic but ignore the themes. Same problem with Star Trek and Star Wars.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        Well let’s see, there’s an episode with a dockworker’s strike, in which a “negotiator” is sent in who’s position is basically “I’ll pretend to ask nicely but the only tactic I have is this in-universe law that says I can use the military to force you back to work.” The letter of that in-universe law (the “Rush Act”) is “The local military commander can break strikes by any means he deems necessary.” And Commander Sinclair decides to pay the dockworkers what they demand out of the military budget of the station. So the union ultimately wins.

        There’s several times when some character, often a human but sometimes an alien, walks up to some other kind of alien and says “We don’t want you FREAKS coming in and stealing our JOBS!” and they’re always depicted as obviously in the wrong. Basically in the script it says “A Republican happens, and gets dealt with.”

        There’s a whole episode with a religious exchange, all the various aliens are invited to demonstrate their planet’s “dominant religion.” When it’s the human’s turn, Sinclair takes the alien crew down a hallway with a long line of various different kinds of priests, ministers, monks, etc. The first guy in line is an atheist. The point being “Earth is diverse as fuck, yo.”

        The show just barely glances off a lesbian relationship, and the show’s attitude says “What? You didn’t have a problem with the five other romantic couples we’ve seen so far, what’s your problem with this one?”

        Oh, then there’s the whole major plot of a socially conservative president sliding Earth’s entire government into totalitarianism with the backing of a hostile alien race thing.

      • Smuuthbrane@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        Haven’t watched it in years myself, but unless you can define “woke” I’m not going to make any assumptions.

  • bi_tux@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    the concept of science fiction is way to librul, since it suggests that science is real

    • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      Money exists in Star Trek, the Federation just doesn’t use it. the Ferengi love the stuff though

      • irmoz@reddthat.com
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        9 months ago

        They occasionally reference “Federation Credits”, but I think it’s mainly for use outside the Federation.

        • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          This is just a world building issue that comes with hundreds of writers over the decades. Who knows how money works. Someone will say something, then ten years later, another writer wont get the note and write something that conflicts.

        • SharkAttak@kbin.social
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          9 months ago

          That’s the greatest accomplishment of the Federation, tricking the Ferengi! Internally money isn’t used anymore, but to trade with the Ferengi they use these Non Federation Tokens, which have no real value.

  • banneryear1868@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Star Wars is literally space conservatives rebelling against the galactic communist (1970s US propagandized version of invented communism-fascist aesthetic*) empire…

    Firefly is to an even greater degree, like libertarian Browncoats rebelling. I love the fan fic take that the Alliance were the “good guys.”

      • banneryear1868@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Yeah it’s not actual communism but more like a reflection of the fears of communism in pop culture from the time when it was written in the late 70s. Comment was a bit inprecise but amended.

        • dreugeworst@lemmy.ml
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          9 months ago

          Even the empire’s uniforms were pretty obviously based on nazi uniforms, what makes you think the empire is supposed to represent communism?

        • NoSpiritAnimal@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Why are you spreading this around like it’s true? Also, this is you:

          Very interesting! I knew the Vietnam thing but I’m not into Star Wars.

          • banneryear1868@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago
            1. George Lucas mentions Vietnam as an influence

            2. Fascism is clearly represented as well

            3. Star Wars is not a politically consistent universe or critique

            4. It’s a typical story arc where the antagonist is an amalgamation of things that were considered bad at the time

            5. It’s Star Wars so I ultimately don’t care that much

          • banneryear1868@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            It’s just based on what other’s have said about the Vietnam allegory but it’s also whatever, I’m sure Lucas’ wasn’t thinking of it as a primarily political mission to produce Star Wars, since it’s very much a standard plot with your usual archetype characters and roles.

            There’s a similar fan take on Lord of the Rings too which is interesting.

    • glacier@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      9 months ago

      George Lucas has said that it was the Vietnam War that inspired the conflict in Star Wars, with the Empire representing the US, but also the rebels could represent the US against the British Empire from the Revolutionary War.

    • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      The Empire was in no way representative of Communism, it’s a fascist Empire with literal “Stormtroopers.” Lucas has shown more antifascist sentiment, and no anti-socialist sentiment. Lucas said the Empire represents the US, and the rebels the Viet Cong, in inspiration.

      One time, he even said despite the censorship in the USSR, he felt that move directors and writers were more free to make what they wanted without the profit motive getting in the way, specifically citing artistic freedom being higher (in his words).

  • Wage_slave@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    I know she’s smarter, better, and stronger than I and would find a way to help explain and educate this woman on how she’s pissing into the wind wrong…

    But I can’t help but imagine Janeway just kicking the shit out of that foxbot on principle and for the security of the federations reputation.

      • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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        9 months ago

        Everyone thinks she killed Tuvix to save her ship or crew or some utilitarian bullshit, but the reality?

        She knew. She knew this was her chance to kill a man and call it duty.

        • PizzaMan@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          Nah, it was pragmatic. She was losing crew that couldn’t really be replaced. And she was on the verge of losing a very important crew member, Tuvok.

          She wasn’t about to let that happen.

          • meyotch@slrpnk.net
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            9 months ago

            If Tuvix retained Tuvoks skills, keeping Tuvix would mean not having to deal with Neelix, however. Im sure she considered that as a reason to keep Tuvix, before her bloodlust won out.