Critics and social media pundits have been quick to frame the modern era of Star Trek as the franchise\u2019s most progressive. Often, that\u2019s cited by NuTrek defenders as one of the best reasons to watch each series. Those defenders are wrong. Star Trek has never been less progressive than it is right now.<\/p>\n
To find out where the disconnect is, all an objective observer need do is take a look at Star Trek<\/a>: Deep Space Nine. Before NuTrek started giving itself credit for being open-minded, Deep Space Nine was regarded as the most progressive entry in Star Trek\u2019s canon, and it still is.<\/p>\n Why is Deep Space Nine Star Trek\u2019s most progressive show? It had the franchise\u2019s first Black captain in a leading role, and the show found clever ways to explore modern issues of race through episodes like \u201cFar Beyond the Stars.\u201d<\/p>\n Compare this to Discovery, which got progressive brownie points for making Michael Burnham the franchise\u2019s first Black, female captain in a leading role. That might sound similar, except Sisko wasn\u2019t treated as a black Captain; he was treated as a great character, being played by a great actor, breathing life into great writing.<\/p>\n That didn\u2019t happen with Michael Burnham. While Sonequa Martin-Green was excellent as Michael Burnham, she was frequently hampered by bad writers who had nothing to say about race or racism but were eager to shout, \u201cLook who we put in the captain\u2019s chair!\u201d<\/p>\n Adira Tal and Michael Burnham on Star Trek: Discovery<\/p>\n Sisko wasn\u2019t the only progressive character in the series. The prominent Trill character Dax effectively served as an allegory for trans people. Sisko originally knew her as a curmudgeonly womanizer, Kurzon Dax, and their friendship remained the same when she became a beautiful young woman.<\/p>\n Over the course of the show, Deep Space Nine offered surprisingly nuanced allegories exploring what it is like to become another person and how that affects how you are treated. Compare this to Discovery, which introduced an explicitly trans Trill (Gray Tal) and did little with his character, instead focusing on the nonbinary character Adira Tal.<\/p>\n While it was tough to pull off in the Rick Berman era of Star Trek, Deep Space Nine even managed to squeeze in some bisexual characters in the form of Bashir and Garak. When Andrew Robinson read about Garak introducing himself to Bashir, he decided the Cardassian had a sexual interest in the young doctor and acted very flirtatiously. This created a subtext that the characters were gay (or, as Robinson claimed, \u201comnisexual\u201d), and Lower Decks even showed alternate universe versions of Garak and Bashir ending up together.<\/p>\n For DS9 fans curious about these characters\u2019 seemingly mutual attraction, their every interaction was filled with a delightful \u201cwill they, won\u2019t they\u201d energy. The queer coding of Bashir also added a frisson of tension to his friendship with Chief O\u2019Brien (especially when, in \u201cExtreme Measures,\u201d Bashir suggests O\u2019Brien likes him more than he likes his wife). Compare all of this sexual tension to NuTrek, which presented gay romance as stable-but-boring (like with Stamets and Culber in\u00a0Discovery<\/span>) or loudly one-dimensional (like with Jay-Den in Starfleet Academy<\/a>).<\/p>\n When Kira agreed to have O\u2019Brien and Keiko\u2019s baby, Keiko pushed her husband to spend intimate time with Kira, including giving her massages. Eventually, O\u2019Brien and Kira developed a mutual attraction that they agreed not to pursue because he\u2019s a married man.<\/p>\n In retrospect, it really looks like Keiko wanted the three of them to become a throuple, and the modern fandom enjoys this (admittedly brief) acknowledgment of polyamory and the ways love and sex might be different in the future. Compare this to NuTrek, whose exclusive embrace of monogamy makes shows like Discovery and Starfleet Academy seem downright conservative.<\/p>\n These examples from Deep Space Nine underscore why modern Star Trek isn\u2019t nearly as progressive as Alex Kurtzman and his supporters think it is. Remember when Spock<\/a> said that \u201clogic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end\u201d? Well, the storytelling corollary to that is \u201cdiversity is the beginning of progress, not the end.\u201d Just throwing someone other than a white, straight, male into a role doesn\u2019t magically make a show progressive unless you use them to tell interesting stories exploring complex ideas.<\/p>\n Star Trek made waves by casting a Black man and a woman in leading roles decades<\/strong> ago, and those shows used those characters to explore questions of race and femininity while pushing back against negative cultural stereotypes. Discovery cast a Black woman in a lead role and made her alternate between crying and giving inspirational speeches. That\u2019s just bad storytelling, and her combination of race and gender doesn\u2019t retroactively make the storytelling any better.<\/p>\nFar Beyond Identity Politics<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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They\u2019re Here, They\u2019re (Secretly) Queer<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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To Explore Strange New Speeches<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Tokenism Disguised As Progressivism <\/strong><\/h3>\n