Star Trek has always loved its “character trying to overcome their base nature” trope, which overlaps but is distinct from more general “fish out of water” characterizations.
TOS: Spock wants to overcome his base human nature and prove himself more Vulcan. This is a neat twist on the concept, which is ironic since it’s the first one!
TNG: Data wants to overcome the limits of his programming to become more human. Worf constantly struggles against his animalistic Klingon nature to fit into human society. Worf is actually the poster child for this sort of thing because he’s distrusted on all sides and is constantly forced to prove his loyalty/bravery/honor to one side or the other.
Voyager: 7of9 is a Borg who has to learn what it means to be human.
DS9: Odo has to struggle with rejecting his heritage so as to fit in with ‘good’ society. He also ends up being forced to prove his loyalty. And I seem to recall storylines about Jem’hadar fighting to overcome their programmed (and drug-reinforced) loyalty to the Founders.
Speaking of DS9, I think Quark’s family, Rom and Nog, were good examples of previously single-characteristic aliens breaking out and showing some diversity.
I think Quark does that too. In one episode (I can’t remember the title. I stink at episode titles) Gowron calls him “an honorable Ferengi”. In the episode where he becomes an arms merchant, we see that Quark has a conscience and obeys it even over the call to profit. When Nog is shot and appears to be dying, Quark is deeply troubled that his nephew might be bound for the Vault Of Eternal Destitution, Quark finds excuses to give Nog money. Quark is greedy. He does things that break Federation and Bajoran law. But he’s not evil.
I disagree. There’s a reason why people have translated the works of Shakespeare to Klingon - Klingons are by far the most beloved race among Star Trek fandom. As anyone who’s watched Deep Space 9 will tell you, Klingons are cool. They’re honorable warriors, loyal friends and passionate lovers. Unlike the milquetoast Federation races (including the humans), they actually seem to enjoy life, seizing it with both hands and digging in with everything they’ve got.
Yes, they’re barbarians - but they’re barbarians in the awesome, Robert E. Howard sense, primal man uncorrupted by modern civilization. They’re not orcs.
Generally I enjoyed the Ferengi on Deep Spoace Nine. Their depictions were much more interesting, nuanced, and varied, certainly compared to their really terrible introduction in The Next Generation.
However, there was one episode whose memory still puts me off: Nog goes on a double-date with Jake and behaves really disgustingly. And at the end–if I recall correclty–Jake chalks it up to cultural differences and forgives Nog.
That can all be true. But if you decide that your big violent passionate fighters (who are also lovers) are gonna be played by Black actors, man, that’s still not great.
If instead they’d decided to cast Asian actors in that role, and cast most Vulcans with Black actors, that would’ve been playing against traditional stereotypes. And when they went a step further and decided that, just like humans come in all colors, so do Vulcans and Klingons, that was even better. (I don’t know enough ST to know if the Black Vulcan on Voyager was dark-skinned via human or Vulcan ancestry, but I hope it’s the latter; and I don’t know whether all Klingons have essentially the same skin tone).
I remember that. Nog treated their date like crap, in line with how Ferengi society treats women. Jake reads him the riot act, but is later corrected by his father, who tells him to respect Nog’s culture.
It’s an illuminating episode, because it demonstrates how liberal priorities (and make no mistake, Trek has always been one of the most liberal shows on TV) have changed since the 1990s. Back then, it was all about respecting other people’s culture and not criticizing them for acting different from you. By 2021 the needle had shifted, and now you’re not supposed to condone mistreatment of oppressed groups (like women) by anyone - even if it’s “part of their culture”.
I’m not going to track down all the actors who played Klingons, but the guys who played Gowron and Martok, two of the most important Klingon characters on DS9, were both white, as was the actress who played the mother of Worf’s child. The only black actor I can recall who played a Klingon was Tony Todd, who played Worf’s brother.
Fair–like I said, I’m going off of other folks’ greater expertise, specifically SoaT’s comment that Klingon culture “harkens back to a “less civilized” portrayal of a human-like race with brutish characteristics and, whether intentional or not, played largely by black actors.” If that’s not the case, what I said isn’t, either.
Tuvok was 100% Vulcan (at least he had a Vulcan mother and father)
I think TNG made Klingons more 3 dimensional (compared to TOS).
The culture values honor, but that doesn’t mean some (such as Duras) aren’t above doing dishonorable things in order to gain power. They value strength in battle but also enjoy food and opera.
Not saying they are 100% well rounded, but IMHO they were made more “realistic” (and more importantly, interesting)
Brian
(OT – several board game video producers use Kilngon subtitles in their videos to point out rules mistakes they make)
I have some uber-lefty friends who find it problematic when white actors play Klingons. I’ve seen a few earnest discussions about whether it counts as blackface or not.
It doesn’t have to be, but that’s a link to a white person wearing makeup to darken their skin, apparently using a makeup with a name like Negro #1. That’s blackface.
That was pretty much the debate - is it blackface any time a white actor darkens their skin, or is it only blackface if they’re specifically trying to appear as a Black human? Certainly, it could be. The original Klingons were unquestionably yellowface - they were explicitly called out as “Oriental” in the script, and are clearly meant to be a stand in for communist China. The connection between TNG-era Klingons and Black people is a lot less deliberate.
I’m not sure how much the name of the make up matters, at least in terms of this specific question. Would casting a white guy as a Klingon be less racist if the make up tin were labelled “Walnut” or “Pantone 18-1112?”
It’s significant in the discussion of systematic racism, in that it was broadly seen as acceptable to market makeup like that. I’m not sure it’s significant in the specific question of representation on Star Trek. They didn’t choose the name of the makeup, it’s just what the shade of makeup they wanted to use was marketed as. Aunt Jemima was a racist stereotype used to sell pancake mix, but that doesn’t mean that pancakes made with Aunt Jemima mix were racist pancakes.
