Wtf? This whole jumping on Dooku as being racist for seeing the possibility of racial stereotyping in a TV show isn’t making a whole lot of sense to me. All the things listed are pretty common racial stereotypes of asians, I thought.
I always figured the Ferengi were supposed to be jewish, and actually I have many of the same problems that Miller does regarding the simplistic behaviors of the myriad races on Star Trek. The only time any of them have any depth at all (from what I’ve seen, I don’t claim to know a lot about the franchise) is when one of them turns “good” (i.e. sides with the Federation).
Without belaboring the point, I think the OP’s observation of the characterization of Ferengi as de facto Asians is a legitimate one, if unusual and archaic. The stereotypes Dooku mentioned – sneaky, lying and manipulative – “Mysterious Orient”, fancy whip-weapons, being short and chauvanistic – are all pretty well reflected in ‘Yellow Peril’ pulps in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
But I agree the ‘only interested in profit’ thing is a stretch when applied to Asians-- that’s a stereotype attributed more to Jewish/Romani.
Oh, and TheQuagmire’s wrong. Science fiction has a long history of presenting accounts of race and ethnicity and other sources of social conflict in allegory. Plenty of people think that Jar Jar Binks is a warped Stepin Fetchit with a stylized West Indian patois. (And lest I be accused of anti-semitic exclusion, Watto’s a thinly-veiled Jewish Stereotype, too.)
SO: Ferengi as wily Asians – at least as seen in the FIRST episode they appeared in? Why not.
ASIDE: That Tasha Yar episode was just — arrrgh. I found that episode so unappealing I almost gave up on watching ST:TNG after that.
The Federation is a liberal-leaning Western utopian society.
The Klingons are a hodge-podge of “noble warrior” societies. Sometimes Japanese, sometimes mongols, sometimes Spartan, sometimes medieval European.
Cardassians in TNG were Isrealis, and Bajorans were Palestinians (opressed, but too often resorting to terrorism). That was pretty damn clear. In DS9, the Cardassians got more evil and the Bajorans more early Isreali-like as they tried to build/restore their society.
The Borg aren’t any human society, but an ideal of the collective overcoming teh individual.
The Ferengei aren’t supposed to be Jewish, but mostly due to their choice of actors, they come out looking that way.
I’m basing my observation on TOS, which is the one I’m most familiar with, and in which the cold-war metaphor is obvious.
In that show, Klingons were Russian, and Romulans were another superpower - not the clear enemy, but closer to an enemy than an ally.
Romulan dress is very like the stereotypical Chinese proletariat. Vulcans were supposedly very closely related to Romulans, but allowed reason to rule them. Hence Japanese.
Someone-or-other asked the question recently: Who is more racist? They guy who sees the army laying siege to Helm’s Deep, and decries the (to him) obvious black stereotyping, or the guy who says “Hey, cool! Orcs!”
Thanks for this. It means alot to me, and I sincerely appreciate it.
Miller and Askia explained better than I did what I was trying to say about the Asian stereotypes. The “only interested in profit” thing was certainly more prevalent in the late 80’s - Rising Sun and all that. Also remember I’m only talking about their appearance in this first episode, where they were presented rather differently from the way they are now.
And I see no point in responding to TheQuagmire’s buffoonish troll post.
Neither. The guy seeing black stereotypes in the orcs is simply more sensitive to racism. In this case, I would argue over-sensitive. But to say that seeing racist stereotypes in a work of fantasy makes the observer himself a racist is an intensely stupid proposition.
Unless, of course, you’re talking about this idiot.
No. The Vulcans, as a race of stoics and philosophers, are obviously Greek. Their cousins and cultural descendants, the Romulans, are Romans and the Federation at large, whom they helped bring civilization to, is obviously the modern Western world.