Please ruin the bad space show that I love

May 1, 2017 5:23 AM

I love Star Trek, and Star Trek is also a goofy, sexist, racist, fantasy of benevolent neoliberal military imperialism. I want to read/watch/listen to LGBTQ, POC, and Indigenous folks who also know and (ambivalently) love Star Trek critiquing the show (any series) for its many flaws.

I'd love to read Indigenous writers on the cringeworthy plot points about Chakotay's spirit animal, Black writers about the racist characterization of Klingons, trans writers on this trainwreck, female writers on why Deanna Troi's only character traits are "feelings" and "loves chocolate", and so on.

I'm specifically interested in critiques by people of marginalized identities and experiences that Star Trek does wrong by.

If you disagree about my characterization of Star Trek, that's totally fair, but I'd ask folks to please stick to answering the question and not debating the merits of the franchise.

posted by ITheCosmos to Media & Arts (7 answers total)

Women at Warp podcast/site has lots of this. Also trekkiefeminist on tumblr.
posted by chaiminda at 5:50 AM on May 1, 2017 [5 favorites]

I haven't actually listened to it yet but Métis In Space sounds like exactly what you're looking for. There are at least two Star Trek episodes: TNG: Journey's End and TOS: The Paradise Syndrome.
posted by mskyle at 8:09 AM on May 1, 2017 [3 favorites]

Self-pimping here, sort of, but at least some of the critiques on the Fanfare rewatch of Voyager (and the DS9 one before it) are from people of marginalized identities and experiences, although they may not overtly identify as such within their comments. It really depends on who shows up for the discussion of a particular episode.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:30 AM on May 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

If you're looking for quantity as well as quality, PlaidAdder (who is queer) has an episode-by-episode recap & critique primarily focusing on gender politics. It's 200,000+ words, so I didn't make it all the way through, but what I did read was though-provoking, and does also cover elements like racism and imperialism, although the latter is from a perspective of privilege not marginalization.
posted by galaxy rise at 10:07 AM on May 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

Mark Oshiro is a queer latinx blogger who blogs his way through TV & books he missed out on, one chapter or episode at a time. His writing style is enthusiastic & fannish, but he'll also take a show to task when it gets bigoted. He's currently going through all of Star Trek, nearing the end of Voyager. Here's the post about The Outcast.
posted by skymt at 10:17 AM on May 1, 2017

Uh well I don't know if this is kosher or not but I produce and co-host a Star Trek podcast called Trekabout and I am queer and so is my co-host and we often critique Star Trek from all of your stated angles.
posted by Automocar at 10:19 AM on May 1, 2017

This recent essay at Strange Horizons by Erin Horáková (a queer woman, I think) should be interesting for you. It is in some ways the opposite of what you're asking for, since Horáková defends Kirk from the ways he's remembered as a reckless, sexist womanizer, (and how he's been reimagined along these lines in the reboots and in parodies) but she is extremely sophisticated in how she goes about it.
posted by col_pogo at 1:23 PM on May 1, 2017 [3 favorites]