But it’s not a lie in the sense that no one is trying to intentionally deceive the people of the 24th century. If the program and Sisko lived today, his objection would be more valid. The 1960s are still in living memory and it’s not inconceivable that makers of the program could be trying to whitewash history. But Sisko lives in a post-enlightenment society. He has never personally experienced racism nor does he know any human who has. He can’t relate to a black man in the 60s any more than, lets say, Picard. Sisko also knows for a fact that the program has no malicious ulterior motive because racism is gone for good.
As for being annoyed of historical accuracy, Sure, I get sometime annoyed about historical inaccuracies in TV or film. But Sisko took it very personally when he had no reason to.
In a sixth season episode “Far Beyond the Stars” Sisko has visions of himself experiencing life as a black man in the 1950s - this is probably why he takes the 1960s simulation more seriously than others do.
Sure he has. He had that Vulcan hounding him through the Academy, who thought that all Vulcans were superior to all Humans.
Sisko himself expressed his prejudice against Ferrengi, which led to a lecture from Quark paraphrase: You look down on us because we remind you how you used to be. But we’re nothing like you. We never had any world wars or holocausts. We’re better than you.
Racism is still alive. It’s just become directed against people from other planets.
This is why I loved DS9. While I still enjoy TNG, it was full of Roddenberry’s Rose colored humanism, where all humans are moral vanguards living in utopia, and everyone else is violent and superstitious and prejudiced. Everything in DS9 really fleshed out complex, dynamic characters, prejudices, grudges, Realpolitik…it was the smartest of the Star Trek series’, IMO.
Forgot about that episode. I guess Sisko would be a bit more sensitive because of his experience.
Technically that’s speciesism, but I get your point.
I always liked the Ferengi as a species and was disappointed that they got watered down by the end of DS9. I’d like to think the modernization of Ferengi society was not as good a thing Starfleet expected it to be. Instead of screwing each other, the Ferengis would concentrate their efforts to screw other species. I also like to think that Quark would be the real power behind his brother’s throne. Lets face it, choosing Rom to be Grand Nagus was beyond retarded.
I liked the Ferengi, but couldn’t help but wonder if there is a subtle anti-semitic jab somewhere in there. “Ferengi” being some sort of Arabic loanword, they’re short greedy little men with big ears and big noses with a lust for profit and women. That sounds like as unwholesome a Jewish stereotype as you get - Wagner couldn’t have written them worse himself. Nevermind the fact that Armin Shimerman and Aron Eisenberg played two of the most notable Ferengi on the series - as far as I know no one else has made that charge, though feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
I understand that Ferrengi is actually derived from the Thai word Ferang. They are not Jews, but stereotypical Americans as seen by other nations.
Edit - I see from the wiki article that Ferang may be derived ultimately from an Arabic source.
My vote for most vile ST dude was Annorax, the temporal scientist who killed many billions of people in probably hundreds of iterations of different civilizations over the span of hundreds of years. A worse mass-murderer is hard to imagine: Annorax | Memory Alpha | Fandom
It’s not just the two of them…all four of the major Ferengi on DS9 were played by Jewish actors…Armin Shimerman, Aron Eisenberg, Wallace Shawn, and Max Grodenchik. And you’re not the first person to make the comparison.
There were 6 major Ferengi on DS9, played by 7 different actors - in addition to those four (Quark, Nog, Grand Nagus Zek, and Rom, for those who don’t recognize the actors), there were Liquidator Brunt (played by Jeffrey Combs, and appeared in one more episode than Zek), and Ishka (played first by Andrea Martin, later by Cecily Adams). I have no idea if any of those other actors are Jewish, however.
Shimerman also played one of the Ferengi in their first appearance in the first season of TNG. He’s one of the many people who consider that appearance a disaster.
I just watched t he episode you refer too: the second part of “The Maquis.” He’s saying that Earth is a paradise, and it’s easy for Starfleet Admirals, living there, to think that Federation citizens anywhere should be saints always amenable to reason; but on the frontier where he and Jim Kirk (but not Jean-Luc Picard) lived, things were not nearly so easy.
While I agree that DS9 was best when it was dark, that bit wasn’t quite about evil; it was about moral ambiguity, of which the show was made.
But he’s not being unreasonable. He doesn’t order his staff not to participate; he just doesn’t want to be do so himself. He and Vic are not friends, and he doesn’t owe Vic anything. Maybe Kira & Odo feel they are and do, but so what? They’re not him.
I woulda preferred a reaction along the lines of: “What are you, nuts? It’s a fucking hologram! Get outta my office and stop wasting my time with this shit!”
Crystalline Entity gets wacked by a woman with understandable motives. Wrong but what does DATA do. He pulls up her dead childs voice and condemns her with it. She is under arrest. He just twists the knife.
Then there is Doctor Carol Marcus.
Has Kirk’s son and never tells him about it or tells her son. Telling her son may have alleviated his prejudice against Star Fleet but noooOOOOooooo, we’ll just never mention it.
Then she uses proto-matter in the Genesis Torpedo. Savak’s use of the word ‘you’ is in the plural in TSFS. “You used proto matter” Carol Marcus had to know it was there. It was her project. If she didn’t know then she is just incompetent. Plus it is her mania for finding an absolutely lifeless planetoid for the project that leads to Khan getting the Reliant.
The word “Ferengi” is related to Franj, Firang, Phiringi, and other related words in several languages that variously mean Europeans, Americans, or white people in general.