I’m on a long train ride and I need to occupy my mind, so here goes with some more thoughts on Star Trek Discovery and the attitude towards the show of some elements of the fandom.
I recently started stumbled upon an article written by a Twitter user by the name of Skrishna. https://twitter.com/skrishna/status/937793666093023232
Now, the article in question does a great job of drawing attention to the false dilemma idea of ‘true Trek’, in particular along the lines of racist and homophobic stances. It is painful and frankly pathetic that there are fans out there who seriously resent the presence of a black woman as the lead character, and the existence of a same-sex relationship. Star Trek has always been about the message of bettering humanity and one’s self, of working together and understanding our differences. It’s the core principle of the show. If you’re going to rally against Discovery for doing exactly the same thing that every Star Trek show has tried to do, then Star Trek isn’t for you.
There’s also a very interesting little segment regarding ‘gatekeepers’. Self-anointed champions of the franchise, guardians of the ‘true Trek’ mantle, people who place a greater emphasis on canon than stories and ideas and ideals. The article infers (and I dare say it is true in some instances, albeit it not all) that this activity – the noise about canon and continuity – is a cover for the resentment and bitterness over the positive racial and same-sex relationship messages in the show. It is used as an excuse to get fans to turn off Discovery and to create doubt over whether fans of Discovery are even fans of Star Trek. There are some fans that seek to create this divide regardless, purely over the continuity issues – that in my view is petty; the ones doing it to support their racist, homophobic, misogynist agendas are just horrible.
It doesn’t come as a surprise that this article met with a bit of backlash. It’s worth highlighting the tweet (you may need to click on it to see the (now deleted) comment, but it’s a telling insight into the (in my view) over-the-top attitudes of some fans who feel they can dictate to other fans what Star Trek is, and who are proving just as good at creating a divide as anyone else, through the obviously obnoxious and divisive ‘true Trek’ rhetoric.
The original, slightly-too-long version of the comment I left this morning for @skrishna's suggestions that #TrueTrek fans are gross, mean, dumb, likely-racists for not liking the #StarTrekReboot #StarTrekDiscovery, which proved my very point. https://t.co/jrj3e7wcvZ pic.twitter.com/ifvypcSafO
— ST-v-SW.Net (@STvSW) December 5, 2017
In one sense I get it. People do invest a lot of time and energy into the things they love and they want those things to have meaning. However, emotional and philosophical connections to a show are, to me at least, more important than the design of the Klingons or the presence of the weird technology on the USS Discovery. I don’t find it reasonable to tell other fans they’re not really fans of Star Trek if they like Discovery. I don’t think harbouring a divisive attitude then fighting tooth and nail to lay all the blame at the feet of Discovery fans, even going as far as to use a term intended to imply links between Discovery defenders and the radical ideology of the Taliban, is fair or reasonable. That’s just gifting the racists and homophobes ammunition.
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