If anything, you could complain that it is copy pasted from modern culture, and doesn’t imagine the history of the timeline up until then, such as bell riots, eugenics wars, world wars, vulcans, establishment of the federation…
It feels disconnected from the world. Like an American microcosm snapshot of 2023 dropped into the world of the Star Trek future.
THAT I can understand as criticism.
Just calling it woke because “woke is bad” is just political trolling as it is everywhere. Like a cheap bot.
My favorite thing is to have them define “woke.” When they can’t because it’s only a buzzword to them, I explain it means “waking up” to the idea that you’re not the only human being with a purpose-filled life, that there are others for whom the system is built to deal a bad hand, and that the most ironic part is that 9 times out of 10 the individual I’m speaking to is not on the list of the “system’s chosen.”
To me, woke is when identity politics issues are intentionally inserted into a piece of media not to improve the quality of the story, but to push the creators political opinions. Even when I agree with them it annoys me, because it takes me out of the story and makes me feel like I’m being preached too or I’m consuming propaganda.
Disclaimer, I don’t watch star trek. I found this post browsing c/all
So gay characters should only be in media to tell stories about gay people problems? Is that how you think the real world works, like a gay person never accomplished anything other than progressing the gay agenda. Why can’t there just be a story of a man who does a thing and then goes home to his husband. You know, like how real life works lol.
I watched season 1 of Picard and discovery and they just didn’t feel like Star Trek to me. The people complaining about how “woke” it is just distract from legitimate criticism. A lot of it for me was the sets. Their design was dark, gloomy and had an air of oppression that, while present in various forms across trek, wasn’t previously baked into the design of the federation. It was all moody lighting and permenantly frowning actors. That temperament translated into the writing as well but you’ve already addressed part of that. And I’ve got a bone to pick in general with season 1 of Picard but that’s a whole other rant lol
TNG was close to having a transgender episode, “The Outcast”, but they were stuck in their time and didn’t really make any kind of statement.
TOS made several comments on religion and running into powerful beings. In particular “Who Mourns for Adonais?”, which would’ve been a great take if not for Kirk saying “Mankind has no need for gods. We find the one quite adequate”.
That’s the problem with woke as a term. No one can agree on what woke actually means, a bit like fascism.
Does it mean hyper left politics shoved in existing IPs? Sure, a lot would agree with that. How about overly corporate content that has as much soul as a lug nut? What about just generally bad content, or overdone content like the current round of superheo movies? I wouldn’t call them woke, but many would.
The problem with Star Trek and wokeness is that TNG/DS9/Voy was filled with 80s/90s era wokeness. Most people can get behind that. But 2020s era wokeness is a different beast, and it doesn’t seem to fit with the older content.
Both terms are clearly defined and people choose to use them wrong, like you did with your examples.
People where always upset with the level of “wokeness” in Star Trek. The difference being that less where aware of it and if you wanted to complain you had to physically write a letter, go down to the post office, buy some stamps, and mail it in. Today you can just tweet some bullshit from your couch.
Those of us who can remember the UseNet, AOL and BBS rants against LaForge, Sisko & Janeway can vouch that it was no less toxic in the late 1980s and 90s. It was just less of a mass conversation.
The point I was making there is no set definition for woke. And I probably shouldn’t have brought up fascism as a term, because while it’s a similar issue, it’s just not an argument to make. (For the record, fascism does not refer to 1930s Italy anymore, it’s evolved overtime)
Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular meaning “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination”. Woke has been used this way for decades and anyone using it differently is using it incorrectly.
Truth. Word trends take some time to spread around the world, and by the time it reached me it was used mostly as a derogatory term. I could not figure out what it meant from context. Initially I thought it was related to red-pillers because it was used by the same kind of angry people.
If anything, you could complain that it is copy pasted from modern culture, and doesn’t imagine the history of the timeline up until then, such as bell riots, eugenics wars, world wars, vulcans, establishment of the federation…
It feels disconnected from the world. Like an American microcosm snapshot of 2023 dropped into the world of the Star Trek future.
THAT I can understand as criticism.
Just calling it woke because “woke is bad” is just political trolling as it is everywhere. Like a cheap bot.
My favorite thing is to have them define “woke.” When they can’t because it’s only a buzzword to them, I explain it means “waking up” to the idea that you’re not the only human being with a purpose-filled life, that there are others for whom the system is built to deal a bad hand, and that the most ironic part is that 9 times out of 10 the individual I’m speaking to is not on the list of the “system’s chosen.”
To me, woke is when identity politics issues are intentionally inserted into a piece of media not to improve the quality of the story, but to push the creators political opinions. Even when I agree with them it annoys me, because it takes me out of the story and makes me feel like I’m being preached too or I’m consuming propaganda.
Disclaimer, I don’t watch star trek. I found this post browsing c/all
So gay characters should only be in media to tell stories about gay people problems? Is that how you think the real world works, like a gay person never accomplished anything other than progressing the gay agenda. Why can’t there just be a story of a man who does a thing and then goes home to his husband. You know, like how real life works lol.
Well that’s not what it means. It means being aware of and opposed to systemic injustices in our society, that’s all it means.
I watched season 1 of Picard and discovery and they just didn’t feel like Star Trek to me. The people complaining about how “woke” it is just distract from legitimate criticism. A lot of it for me was the sets. Their design was dark, gloomy and had an air of oppression that, while present in various forms across trek, wasn’t previously baked into the design of the federation. It was all moody lighting and permenantly frowning actors. That temperament translated into the writing as well but you’ve already addressed part of that. And I’ve got a bone to pick in general with season 1 of Picard but that’s a whole other rant lol
TNG was close to having a transgender episode, “The Outcast”, but they were stuck in their time and didn’t really make any kind of statement.
TOS made several comments on religion and running into powerful beings. In particular “Who Mourns for Adonais?”, which would’ve been a great take if not for Kirk saying “Mankind has no need for gods. We find the one quite adequate”.
I thought having Riker fall in love with one of the enby people was about as close to a statement of support as they could get in the 90s.
That’s the problem with woke as a term. No one can agree on what woke actually means, a bit like fascism.
Does it mean hyper left politics shoved in existing IPs? Sure, a lot would agree with that. How about overly corporate content that has as much soul as a lug nut? What about just generally bad content, or overdone content like the current round of superheo movies? I wouldn’t call them woke, but many would.
The problem with Star Trek and wokeness is that TNG/DS9/Voy was filled with 80s/90s era wokeness. Most people can get behind that. But 2020s era wokeness is a different beast, and it doesn’t seem to fit with the older content.
Both terms are clearly defined and people choose to use them wrong, like you did with your examples.
People where always upset with the level of “wokeness” in Star Trek. The difference being that less where aware of it and if you wanted to complain you had to physically write a letter, go down to the post office, buy some stamps, and mail it in. Today you can just tweet some bullshit from your couch.
Those of us who can remember the UseNet, AOL and BBS rants against LaForge, Sisko & Janeway can vouch that it was no less toxic in the late 1980s and 90s. It was just less of a mass conversation.
The point I was making there is no set definition for woke. And I probably shouldn’t have brought up fascism as a term, because while it’s a similar issue, it’s just not an argument to make. (For the record, fascism does not refer to 1930s Italy anymore, it’s evolved overtime)
Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular meaning “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination”. Woke has been used this way for decades and anyone using it differently is using it incorrectly.
Language evolves. Just ask anyone with a they/them pronoun.
Woke didn’t evolve, it was highjacked and purposely used incorrectly to mock.
Stay woke dude!
Truth. Word trends take some time to spread around the world, and by the time it reached me it was used mostly as a derogatory term. I could not figure out what it meant from context. Initially I thought it was related to red-pillers because it was used by the same kind of angry people.
I had to look up the definition eventually.