Is it possible to keep fannish pairing preferences out of this? It's a hell of a lot bigger than that...
The way the original petition is written seems... harmless? I dunno. If it's been co-opted by fetishizing fans who just want it so they can drool over it, that's not his fault. I know I'm opening myself up to some fan-fail here. If someone can explain to me why the original wording of the petition is itself offensive, I'm all ears, because I can't detect it myself.
Media portrayal is part of civil rights movements, and of course nobody can ever agree on what's a positive portrayal and what's not. And the original Trek was incredibly progressive for its time in terms of depicting racial integration and sexual almost-equality (I can't bring myself to say 'equality' in a Trek context without the spectre of Janice Lester looming in the back of my brain, but I digress).
I wonder if a lot of fans jumping on this bandwagon are doing it because they remember how influential and progressive Trek was in the '60s. I think that's a simplistic view, though -- you can't artificially recreate that circumstance again.
Re: I just realized, I need Star Trek icons
The way the original petition is written seems... harmless? I dunno. If it's been co-opted by fetishizing fans who just want it so they can drool over it, that's not his fault. I know I'm opening myself up to some fan-fail here. If someone can explain to me why the original wording of the petition is itself offensive, I'm all ears, because I can't detect it myself.
Media portrayal is part of civil rights movements, and of course nobody can ever agree on what's a positive portrayal and what's not. And the original Trek was incredibly progressive for its time in terms of depicting racial integration and sexual
almost-equality (I can't bring myself to say 'equality' in a Trek context without the spectre of Janice Lester looming in the back of my brain, but I digress).I wonder if a lot of fans jumping on this bandwagon are doing it because they remember how influential and progressive Trek was in the '60s. I think that's a simplistic view, though -- you can't artificially recreate that circumstance again.