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29 Days of Star Trek Meme: Day 24
Feb. 29th, 2012 10:14 pm24 - Is there anything about Star Trek that has disappointed you?
Well, the obvious one is Trek’s consistent failure to incorporate homosexuality into the show, with its various attempts to do so ranging from ‘Well-meaning but hilariously incompetent’ (The Outcast) to ‘Exploitative’ (Ds9’s mirror-verse) to ‘Let’s pretend for our own sanity that the subtext was a horrible coincidence’ (Chimera).
In fact, it’s so obvious a choice I’m not going to bother detailing that gripe, and I’ll go with a different one: Chakotay’s ‘Indian’ background.
One would have thought by the 1990s it was no longer acceptable to make up a fictional, generic American Indian tribe rather than using a real culture? What we see of Chakotay’s traditions seem seems to be a mish-mash from different plans Indian nations with bits seemingly chosen at random from Indian cultures from all over North America. In case it wasn’t ridiculous enough, Startrek.com’s biography claims he’s Mayan – maybe his never-seen spirit animal is really a llama, so we can cover the entire western hemisphere?!
(For that matter, was it ever said where, specifically, the American Indians in TNG’s Journey’s End were supposed to come to, or did they too feel ‘Indian’ was specific enough?)
It’s obvious that the writers thought of Chakotay’s heritage as purely a bit of exotic flavour, and couldn’t be bothered with even the five minutes of effort needed to pick a specific background for him rather than a generic pan-American Indian culture made up largely of noble savage stereotypes. It’s embarrassing and pathetic that even TOS’s ‘The Paradise Syndrome’ seemed to be more aware of real American Indian cultures than Voyager was…
Well, the obvious one is Trek’s consistent failure to incorporate homosexuality into the show, with its various attempts to do so ranging from ‘Well-meaning but hilariously incompetent’ (The Outcast) to ‘Exploitative’ (Ds9’s mirror-verse) to ‘Let’s pretend for our own sanity that the subtext was a horrible coincidence’ (Chimera).
In fact, it’s so obvious a choice I’m not going to bother detailing that gripe, and I’ll go with a different one: Chakotay’s ‘Indian’ background.
One would have thought by the 1990s it was no longer acceptable to make up a fictional, generic American Indian tribe rather than using a real culture? What we see of Chakotay’s traditions seem seems to be a mish-mash from different plans Indian nations with bits seemingly chosen at random from Indian cultures from all over North America. In case it wasn’t ridiculous enough, Startrek.com’s biography claims he’s Mayan – maybe his never-seen spirit animal is really a llama, so we can cover the entire western hemisphere?!
(For that matter, was it ever said where, specifically, the American Indians in TNG’s Journey’s End were supposed to come to, or did they too feel ‘Indian’ was specific enough?)
It’s obvious that the writers thought of Chakotay’s heritage as purely a bit of exotic flavour, and couldn’t be bothered with even the five minutes of effort needed to pick a specific background for him rather than a generic pan-American Indian culture made up largely of noble savage stereotypes. It’s embarrassing and pathetic that even TOS’s ‘The Paradise Syndrome’ seemed to be more aware of real American Indian cultures than Voyager was…