A few years back, I was speaking to a roommate. I complained that the (then) new Star Trek had forced diversity. He immediately shut me down, “Star Trek has ALWAYS been like that”. He was a huge fan of Star Trek

Why would you even complain about that in the first place?

People tend to think that “forced diversity” is something being pushed from the top, but the people who own Hollywood are literally paying money to the right wing who limits diversity.

My personal belief is that there are simply a lot of homosexuals and trans people in the art world. Whether it be make up artists, actors or screenwriters, i think aaaaall of this is a lot more normal amongst creatives than it is among the regular population.

So obviously, its gonna show up more in movies and shows, than in real life. Because the people making the art knows these actual people.

People tend to forget when watching a movie, that just like when looking at a painting, they are in fact watching someone else art, and they are welcome to just not look at it, or find artists that more aligned with their bigoted views.

As a person of color I can tell you that white liberals limit diversity more than white conservatives.
Citation needed.
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
He wasn’t wrong. Racist didn’t put Trump in the White House. Apathetic centrists and moderates did. And no, it’s not just about him. Buy it’s the one of the more salient example of modern moderates allowing horrible shit.

Methods of Direct Action was the name of my punk band in high school.

Joking aside, anyone who thinks actions to change an unfair system is the problem, is obviously a fascist in disguise.

There’s the money conservative and the scared conservative. Scared conservative is racist. Money conservative only sees the colour of money

Allowing for gradations for different levels of assholes, ofc

its a variant of rainbow capitalism, i called "diversity " capitalism the execs push the race and gender swapping because the audience is mostly left leaning so they think it gives them more views on thier films or show. when in fact the audience dont care about it and some are irked they did this on purpose while making a shitty show.
I mean I do actually like it and seek it out, too
Whatever you say, day-old account. Unless you have some examples to share?
something about wokeness, and dei hypockets trying to say. white liberals dont care as much as conservatives diversity
yup its literally hollywood execs, doing rainbow/ diversity" capitalism , cons think its an agenda by hollywood which are traditionally right wing pushing it as we must include gays, womens, pocs as the forefront of movies and show to show society “they arnt racist”, they only care because most viewers are left leaning , right wingers dont watch anything but copaganda type shows. you can tell hollywood is still pretty racist since they barely represent asians other than stereotypes. shang chi wasnt groundbreaking for asians , maybe for SImu liu, its stereotyping because he barely had any roles after that.

Star Trek (TOS) never needed to BE about diversity, because it was set in a utopian future where racism, and sexism weren’t problems anymore. You had an entire multi-racial cast on the bridge of a starship so just from THAT you knew that racism wasn’t a problem in the future. There was no more war, poverty, disease or crime. Conflict only came from humanity’s meetings with alien races.

TOS Star Trek never needed to beat you over the head every 5 minutes with how gay someone was because that wasn’t a problem in the 23rd century. Nobody gave a shit.

@NutWrench @Mohamed Maybe the problem is people seeing someone gay and thinking that's too much.

I don't see people complaining how straight Kirk or Riker are.

Are you one of those people who believes Discovery had a coming out as nonbinary plot
What does that even mean?
some people believe that star trek discovery had a story arc about a character coming out as non-binary.
Wasn’t that arc about a lesbo character, in fact, becoming binary? They had to merge two to save one.
no one watched that crappy show so maybe?

Now don’t get me wrong, I think the best way for Trek to handle queer issues is to just put queer people on the bridge. A gay Riker equivalent or a trans woman who talks about her past with the same discomfort but honesty as how Picard talks about his is what I want. And in that vein I’m still on my first watch of TNG and it’ll be a while before I get to nutrek.

But I’m not going to pretend that to a certain portion of the population TOS wasn’t seen as being overly preachy on race. But seeing as I haven’t gotten to TOS yet either, I will say that in modern day I do think TNG was a bit preachy about disability and I’m glad they were.

honestly i think DS9 strikes a better balance. and it too was disliked at the time for going against what star trek was.
Where do you consider TNG being preachy about disability? Not arguing, it’s just been a while since I’ve watched it beginning to end and this might be something I failed to pick up on.

Geordi’s blindness is a plot point at least once in an episode that’s basically exactly what people act like episodes involving queerness are. Where he has to hold a eugenicist’s hand through accepting that he doesn’t mind that he was born blind and that he even has some advantages thanks to his visor. Don’t get me wrong, it was a very good episode, and people did need it laid out like that, but it’s very much not the “we’ve moved beyond such concerns” in a way that say having a ranking officer use a wheelchair would be.

I will say something they did right was that his visor gives him headaches. It’s very in line with what folks with cochlear implants or very strong eyeglass prescriptions describe.

Ah, that’s fair, I was a child when I first watched the series so I don’t think I ever really registered the visor as a disability given that being blind doesn’t hinder him at all, besides the aforementioned headaches that rarely come up.
I mean, the one with the half white half black face dudes was not subtle
True, but that was one episode, not every scene of every episode.
Except people weren’t complaining about forced diversity, which is also known as “representation”.