This is much ado over nothing new. Straight white men roles ceased to dominate in the Star Trek franchise over two decades ago. With hardly an eyebrow raised back then, in contrast to now.
Benjamin Sisko was the black commander later turned captain on *Deep Space Nine*. The only non-alien and non-artificial "white guy" character who was a regular on DS9 was Miles O'Brien.
Similar with *Voyager*, where there was a female captain and the only non-alien white male regular was Tom Paris. (The Doctor was an emergency medical hologram; an artificial entity).
Humans also had sex with aliens on those shows. So aside from introducing the first gay character that's a regular member of the cast, and the first asian captain of the applicable starship, there's probably little truly groundbreaking about *Discovery* except maybe this.
'Star Trek' fans anger at remake's diversity proves they don't understand 'Star Trek'
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainm...story.html
EXCERPT: The trailer for CBS's "Star Trek: Discovery," the latest entry in the "Star Trek" universe, feature two women of color - Michelle Yeoh as the starship captain and Sonequa Martin-Green as her first officer - as they engage the Klingon people.
It's fairly standard fare for the series, which has seen multiple entries since Gene Roddenberry created it in 1966. This new show takes place a decade before the adventures of Captain Kirk and Spock aboard the Enterprise starship, the original and most famous story in the "Star Trek" canon. What's most shocking about the trailer is how different the Klingons look, but some fans took issue with something else entirely: the ethnicity and sex of the lead characters.
As the New Yorker reported, comments such as "Where is the alpha male that has balls and doesn't take crap from anyone?" "Is everything going to have to have females in every . . . thing?" and "Star Trek: Feminist Lesbian Edition" quickly appeared on YouTube.
On Twitter, fans focused on the lead characters' race, often employing the term "white genocide."...
MORE: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainm...story.html
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Benjamin Sisko was the black commander later turned captain on *Deep Space Nine*. The only non-alien and non-artificial "white guy" character who was a regular on DS9 was Miles O'Brien.
Similar with *Voyager*, where there was a female captain and the only non-alien white male regular was Tom Paris. (The Doctor was an emergency medical hologram; an artificial entity).
Humans also had sex with aliens on those shows. So aside from introducing the first gay character that's a regular member of the cast, and the first asian captain of the applicable starship, there's probably little truly groundbreaking about *Discovery* except maybe this.
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Sulu was only retconned as being gay via the movie reboot of the original Star Trek, a change which George Takei surprisingly disagreed with. (LINK)
After the 1990s, the shorter-lived TV series *Enterprise* did feature at east three regular white guy human characters, but *Discovery* seems to validate that was just a temporary quirk.
'Star Trek' fans anger at remake's diversity proves they don't understand 'Star Trek'
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainm...story.html
EXCERPT: The trailer for CBS's "Star Trek: Discovery," the latest entry in the "Star Trek" universe, feature two women of color - Michelle Yeoh as the starship captain and Sonequa Martin-Green as her first officer - as they engage the Klingon people.
It's fairly standard fare for the series, which has seen multiple entries since Gene Roddenberry created it in 1966. This new show takes place a decade before the adventures of Captain Kirk and Spock aboard the Enterprise starship, the original and most famous story in the "Star Trek" canon. What's most shocking about the trailer is how different the Klingons look, but some fans took issue with something else entirely: the ethnicity and sex of the lead characters.
As the New Yorker reported, comments such as "Where is the alpha male that has balls and doesn't take crap from anyone?" "Is everything going to have to have females in every . . . thing?" and "Star Trek: Feminist Lesbian Edition" quickly appeared on YouTube.
On Twitter, fans focused on the lead characters' race, often employing the term "white genocide."...
MORE: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainm...story.html
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