Timeline for What Star Trek species are represented with mostly/all non-white actors?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
40 events
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| Jul 25, 2016 at 15:15 | history | edited | zipquincy | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 29, 2015 at 1:11 | comment | added | ThePopMachine | ... I'm going to recuse myself (and I rarely VTC except for blatant violations) but especially with your latest clarifications, I'm having trouble seeing how this is not subject to closure for being possibly too broad and also asking for a list. Like I said before, now anyone can pull up group shots of extras in DS9 or in Federation council or whatever and any random alien who is not played by a white actor is a legitimate answer. | |
| Sep 29, 2015 at 1:07 | comment | added | ThePopMachine | @zipquincy: I certainly didn't mean to offend anyone. To me this is just a legitimate discussion of what the intent was and on a slightly more meta level, on how we should attempt to determine what the intent was. That's what the comments are for. My inclination by default is to err on the side of interpreting in a way that is answerable and in bounds for scifi.SE. Perhaps Ididn;t rercognize that it may have partly colored my interpretation of your intent.... continued | |
| Sep 29, 2015 at 0:33 | comment | added | Hypnosifl | @ThePopMachine - I never said that language could be "interpreted literally", I said from the beginning that what was important was ascertaining the intent of the original questioner. And it seems from the latest edit that zipquincy did mean it to cover even cases where we only see a single individual. | |
| Sep 28, 2015 at 23:34 | comment | added | zipquincy | @ThePopMachine also, as far as the voting, I'm totally fine with that. I suspect that at least part of the negative voting is because a lot of people are uncomfortable with race as a topic of discussion and might feel I am casting Star Trek in an unfair light by even ask the question. Given that you are the only one to spell out your concerns with the wording of the question in any detail, we can really only guess at the other people's objections... | |
| Sep 28, 2015 at 23:32 | history | edited | zipquincy | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 28, 2015 at 23:24 | comment | added | zipquincy | @ThePopMachine what I am trying to ascertain is whether my impression of a mostly white Star Trek universe is right or not. I'm sorry my choice of wording didn't meet your high standards. Since I seem unable to make you happy, I'd suggest you turn your attention elsewhere... LLAP | |
| Sep 28, 2015 at 22:55 | comment | added | ThePopMachine | @Hypnosifl: OK, I'd agree to two on that basis. Just realize it means (rightly!) that we can't simplistically pretend that human languages used for asking questions should be interpreted literally. All human communication relies on intelligence at both ends to infer the intent because we express and communicate complex ideas and intents in less than a novella. explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1576:_I_Could_Care_Less | |
| Sep 28, 2015 at 21:56 | comment | added | Hypnosifl | @ThePopMachine - My guess would be that although you might be right about one not being enough, two probably would be, given the way zipquincy phrased it. "Most" wouldn't normally be used with one but it could be used with 2/2. And if you do imagine intent as part of the background reason the question was asked, even if it doesn't ask about it explicitly since it would be too hard to answer, then given the way casting tends to work in hollywood, hiring two actors of the same non-white ethnicity to play unrelated aliens of the same species does hint at some kind of conscious intent. | |
| Sep 28, 2015 at 21:27 | comment | added | ThePopMachine | @Hypnosifl: Let me go back to the letter of the wording. Do you think zipquincy's intent is that a population of one satisfies the question? I happen to think a reasonable person (including zipquicny) would think the intent of the question is: For aliens where we see more just a couple, are there aliens where they are played almost entirely by non-white actors because that is the character design? That's where possible the "intent" comes into it. | |
| Sep 28, 2015 at 21:24 | comment | added | ThePopMachine | @Hypnosifl: The issue is that normal human languages come with assumptions and context built in. If zipquincy agrees with my interpretation, he/she can clarify in the question. If not, he/she will be stuck with the how the voting goes. Right now, that is +5/-9. What are the comments for than to discuss how to interpret the question and suggest how to improve it? | |
| Sep 28, 2015 at 19:36 | comment | added | Hypnosifl | @ThePopMachine - Again, my understanding of the purpose of this site is that there are never cases where one should answer a question different than the one intended by the asker because the intended question doesn't "make sense" to you. If you think the intended question violates one of the rules of the site then you should vote to close it for that reason (but I don't see how even an arbitrary question like "which Trek aliens were played by an actor whose first name starts with W" would violate any rules), or suggest a way in which the questioner could edit it to make it acceptable. | |
| Sep 28, 2015 at 18:45 | comment | added | ThePopMachine | @Hypnosifl: I'd feel a lot better if it didn't allow only two either. Basically you need some critical mass for the question to be meaningful. Where's the cutoff? I don't know. That's why the 'creators' intentions' is the only interpretation that makes sense to me. At any rate, the question has some problems and the current voting shows that. | |
| Sep 28, 2015 at 18:30 | comment | added | Hypnosifl | @ThePopMachine - Even if it's a bad question, I'd still stand by the principle that it's wrong to interpret a question differently than what the asker intended, so the key issue is whether zipquincy meant it to concern the creators' intentions or only what was shown onscreen. Anyway, if your issue is specifically with the fact that the question as currently worded could technically include aliens where we've only seen a single member of their species, would you consider it a decent question if zipquincy edited it to specify that it should be about species where we've seen more than one member? | |
| Sep 28, 2015 at 18:17 | comment | added | ThePopMachine | @Hypnosifl: Evaluating the creators' intentions is the only reasonable means I see of differentiating between "there's this one alien who isn't white" and "there are these four aliens who all are [the same non-white appearance]". And even ignoring the facts on the field, I don't think anyone who asks "Is there a set which is mostly A?" means "is there a set of one?" in normal discussion. In normal discourse, the former implies you are interested in cases where the 'most' is not degenerate. | |
| Sep 28, 2015 at 17:53 | comment | added | Hypnosifl | @ThePopMachine - I would say the only thought that should go into interpreting a question is in figuring out what the person asking the question intended, one should never knowingly change the intended meaning of the question because one doesn't find the actual question "interesting" enough. Do you disagree with this principle, or do you agree but think that zipquincy meant the question to be about the creators' intentions, not just about what we saw onscreen? If the latter, hopefully zipquincy will comment to clear up the issue. | |
| Sep 28, 2015 at 17:39 | comment | added | ThePopMachine | @Hypnosifl: If you take the question in the most literal form, it just isn't an interesting question. Take the Halanan (maybe I'm wrong on this example, but the point still stands). We have exactly one member of this species and she happens to be non-white. So we list that species?! Yes, technically 1 of 1 qualifies as "mostly non-white". I'm pretty sure if we combed through all the one-off background aliens we have several dozen examples. Oh and then it becomes a list question. Point: you need to apply a little thought in interpreting a question, don't just go by the letter. | |
| Sep 28, 2015 at 17:32 | comment | added | Hypnosifl | @ThePopMachine - "Aliens-of-the-week with only three examples are useless for this issue" How do you figure? The question as currently written says nothing about the creators' intentions for the alien species, whether they would have hired actors of different ethnicities had the species appeared more often, it only asks "what species (in any Star Trek Series) are shown with most members of the species we see being acted by mostly non-white human actors". So, it's perfectly possible to answer the question as written by pointing to "Aliens-of-the-week with only three examples". | |
| Sep 28, 2015 at 17:26 | comment | added | ThePopMachine | @zipquincy: You edited out the important qualifier with a stroke of the '...'. My point is about aliens where we have recurring species so we have hundreds of examples of actors. Examples: Vulcans, Klingons, Bajorans. Aliens-of-the-week with only three examples are useless for this issue. | |
| Sep 28, 2015 at 17:17 | history | edited | zipquincy | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 28, 2015 at 17:16 | comment | added | zipquincy | @ThePopMachine I fully disagree with "In TNG and forward basically every alien species ... is played by a mix of actors". This is not what I've seen AT ALL (although I have not watched all of DS9 or Voyager). When its single-race, its almost always white; when mixed, its most often mostly white. Of course proving would take more time than I have. // I've reworded the question to make it clear that it is my impression there is mostly white actors for aliens, but that the question is about what non-white acted aliens exist. So even if my impression is wrong, the question stands. | |
| Sep 28, 2015 at 16:39 | comment | added | ThePopMachine | ... of Ligonian society as a whole. | |
| Sep 28, 2015 at 16:38 | comment | added | ThePopMachine | zipquincy: The question is still flawed. The correct answer is, almost everyone was played by white actors in TOS because it was 1960s America. In TNG and forward basically every alien species we see in a recurring role eventually is played by a mix of actors. The best and possibly only exception (still debatable) is the Ligonians where a reasonable argument can be made that it appears they probably intended that the entire species would be played by black actors. But we only ever saw like six of them and they represented a royal court, so it's easy to argue they might not be representative. | |
| Sep 28, 2015 at 15:26 | history | edited | zipquincy | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 27, 2015 at 19:04 | comment | added | ThePopMachine | Related, BTW: scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/102522/… | |
| Sep 27, 2015 at 15:00 | comment | added | zipquincy | I've improved my question wording. Please upvote if you downvoted before. | |
| Sep 27, 2015 at 15:00 | history | edited | zipquincy | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 27, 2015 at 5:36 | comment | added | Lexible | @ThePopMachine Only if one accepts Hollywood white-washing. | |
| Sep 27, 2015 at 5:00 | comment | added | ThePopMachine | @Lexible: for all the species where we only see a few aliens, we have no basis to conclude the species us uniformly "based on a particular human race" (whatever that means). Even for the Ligonians, mentioned in Praxis's answer, Memory Alpha is just describing what we saw. The lack of a basis still stands. | |
| Sep 27, 2015 at 4:56 | comment | added | Praxis | @Lexible : Hehe, your "seemingly" is good enough. I just wanted to explain my reading of it. ;-) | |
| Sep 27, 2015 at 4:40 | comment | added | Lexible | @Praxis That's fair... I guess it is interpretable that way... hmmm... how about I retroactively pre-pend a "Maybe..." to my comment? :) | |
| Sep 27, 2015 at 4:35 | comment | added | Praxis | @Lexible : Hmmm, I didn't interpret it as TOS-centric. The question title refers only to "Star Trek", the star-trek-tos tag wasn't used, and it seems that TOS is mentioned in the question body as a clarification about the nature of the costuming... | |
| Sep 27, 2015 at 4:23 | comment | added | Lexible | @ThePopMachine The questioner is asking specifically about TOS, seemingly, as opposed to the franchise as a whole. So your otherwise excellent points don't really hold up. | |
| Sep 27, 2015 at 3:48 | comment | added | ThePopMachine | This question is based on a flawed premise. Many species have members played by actors of many human ethnicities. To name a few: Klingons, Vulcans, Romulans, El-Aurians, Bajorans. These include the species where we see the most examples. So you can't conclude any particular species is based on only a particular color of human actors. The premise is false, so the question is useless. | |
| Sep 27, 2015 at 3:38 | answer | added | Often Right | timeline score: 10 | |
| Sep 27, 2015 at 3:16 | answer | added | Praxis | timeline score: 10 | |
| Sep 27, 2015 at 2:54 | comment | added | Often Right | Are you interested in the other series, like TNG? | |
| Sep 27, 2015 at 2:49 | history | edited | Wad Cheber |
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| Sep 27, 2015 at 2:48 | comment | added | Jason Baker | Weren't the TOS Klingons basically white actors in blackface? | |
| Sep 27, 2015 at 2:44 | history | asked | zipquincy | CC BY-SA 3.0 |