I was no longer represented on the crew, and neither were any of my friends of color, except as offhand tokens.
Maureen, I get your larger point, and even agree with you, but I am actively *hurt* by your phrasing above.
Hoshi got featured early on in episodes that centered on her, and her abilities as a linguist were vital until they got sidetracked in that stupid, stupid thinly veiled terrorist storyline that ate the series.
If any of the other not-command-crew characters count as PoC representation rather than tokens...if *Uhura* in the original, or Guinan, or Harry Kim, counts, then so does Hoshi, even though *you* have forgotten her.
I updated the post to reflect your criticisms. You are right. That doesn't change the fact that where earlier Star Treks had long, involved story lines about the nature of class and race and gender, and featuring characters of various examples of each of these, the story lines in Enterprise were typically, nearly uniformly white male centric. When I said I only watched about three episodes, that was accurate. My husband watched, but I literally walked out of the room when I saw it playing.
Guinan and Uhura and Harry Kim all had story lines that genuinely featured them, and while I can remember them introducing Hoshi well ETA -- the early episodes you alluded to --, every time I saw an episode it seemed to be a shoot em up and someone half naked and female (either Hoshi or T'Pol) in the background needing to be rescued. It's one of the reasons I think the Bechtel test is necessary but not sufficient.
Why are all (or so many of) the stories we see about white men? I can think of only one current television show with prominent Asian characters who talk to each other (Hawaii 5-0) and the same is true for nearly every race, gender, and class category except white men. So yeah, the analysis wasn't a complete one, just a statement of what I disliked about the show and the movie, and some reasons why.
I look at the first two series' approach on this, and there's an awful lot of Afternoon Special for Adults tone to them that I find hamfisted and irritating.
I don't know which three eps you saw, and it's very true that a random sampling of the series is all-too-likely to result in finding one of the "Trip & the Captain go all cowboy and then they have to go decontaminate and do fanservice (with both male and female characters) cheesecake" episodes. (There were far more of those than of anything decent, worse as the series wore on.)
Blame advertising-driven decisions for the predominance of shows for white men - it's that idiotic "coveted 18-35 white male" demographic. Reading through tvtropes.com reveals a lot of the rest of the reasoning behind that sort of storytelling. Basically, in the absence of race neutral casting, the existence of PoC characters (or anyone other than viewpoint white male + love interest) needs to be justified by a "why are they PoC" storyline. Which no one really wants to watch, because they're anvilicious.
I think a lot of Enterprise was designed as fanservice, and possibly influenced by the sort of things that show up in fanfic. There's very, very little exploration of race in Trekfic, and a whole lot of sexytimes. Unsurprising that an embattled production opts for the easy path. (I think it was also a lack of Gene Roddenberry at the helm, and the post 9/11 Bush-era attitudes. I imagine that an early Obama-era series might have reflected a different attitude.)
Just as an fyi, unlike most comments, I am not getting an email when you comment here. Is that my settings or yours? I've looked through mine and couldn't spot anything. I just happened to navigate back here to answer browngirl and saw your replies.
I'm missing comment notifications via e-mail...I don't know if this is a "LJ shafting unpaid users during yet another crisis" or what, but it's happening on both ends.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2011-03-03 06:57 pm (UTC)Maureen, I get your larger point, and even agree with you, but I am actively *hurt* by your phrasing above.
Hoshi got featured early on in episodes that centered on her, and her abilities as a linguist were vital until they got sidetracked in that stupid, stupid thinly veiled terrorist storyline that ate the series.
If any of the other not-command-crew characters count as PoC representation rather than tokens...if *Uhura* in the original, or Guinan, or Harry Kim, counts, then so does Hoshi, even though *you* have forgotten her.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-03 07:16 pm (UTC)Guinan and Uhura and Harry Kim all had story lines that genuinely featured them, and while I can remember them introducing Hoshi well ETA -- the early episodes you alluded to --, every time I saw an episode it seemed to be a shoot em up and someone half naked and female (either Hoshi or T'Pol) in the background needing to be rescued. It's one of the reasons I think the Bechtel test is necessary but not sufficient.
Why are all (or so many of) the stories we see about white men? I can think of only one current television show with prominent Asian characters who talk to each other (Hawaii 5-0) and the same is true for nearly every race, gender, and class category except white men. So yeah, the analysis wasn't a complete one, just a statement of what I disliked about the show and the movie, and some reasons why.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-03 11:50 pm (UTC)I don't know which three eps you saw, and it's very true that a random sampling of the series is all-too-likely to result in finding one of the "Trip & the Captain go all cowboy and then they have to go decontaminate and do fanservice (with both male and female characters) cheesecake" episodes. (There were far more of those than of anything decent, worse as the series wore on.)
The (all too few) Hoshi eps are listed within this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoshi_Sato
Blame advertising-driven decisions for the predominance of shows for white men - it's that idiotic "coveted 18-35 white male" demographic. Reading through tvtropes.com reveals a lot of the rest of the reasoning behind that sort of storytelling. Basically, in the absence of race neutral casting, the existence of PoC characters (or anyone other than viewpoint white male + love interest) needs to be justified by a "why are they PoC" storyline. Which no one really wants to watch, because they're anvilicious.
I think a lot of Enterprise was designed as fanservice, and possibly influenced by the sort of things that show up in fanfic. There's very, very little exploration of race in Trekfic, and a whole lot of sexytimes. Unsurprising that an embattled production opts for the easy path. (I think it was also a lack of Gene Roddenberry at the helm, and the post 9/11 Bush-era attitudes. I imagine that an early Obama-era series might have reflected a different attitude.)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-03 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-03 11:31 pm (UTC)