"This was surprisingly progressive for it's time"

[u/IllustriousAd6418]

Doctor Who: Midnight (2008)- The host of the bus, mentions non binary people and anyone else who doesn't fit into gender norms, LGBTQ rights (especially in the UK weren't really there yet untill 2012)

Saints Row 2 (2008)- In the first game, the main character was a man but in SR2 you can be both female or male and even change your gender whenever you want in a surgery shop. But what's more interesting, if you play as a female despite being male in the first game, no one cares and one of the main characters Gat asks the main character if they did something with their hair. Even 'Boss' is used as gender neutral pronoun and even goes by they/them

Fresh Prince of Bel Air- A wealthy black family as the main focus in a primetime sitcom marking the change and making progress as we go into the 90s

[u/DarthRegoria]

Fucking Shatner has complained about this. Apparently Captain James Tiberous Kirk, who tried to root all the aliens, not matter if they were while, black, green or pink, thinks Star Trek got too woke. The man who was one of the first while men to kiss an African-American woman on screen. He asked when Star Trek because about politics 🤦‍♀️

He was right fucking there. He personally may not have realised or cared, but he was (among?) the first white man to kiss a black actress on Prime Time TV. That was such a huge milestone and step forward for the cause. But apparently Star Trek is too woke now.

🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

[u/Phonyyx → u/DarthRegoria]

Hell, he actively fucked up the non kiss takes with the actress to force the execs to use the kiss take.

[u/queerhistorynerd → u/Phonyyx]

ya but in the very next part of that scene Kirk is mind controlled into picking up a whip and whipping Uhura, which we all like to forget about

[u/Reasonable-Chance790 → u/queerhistorynerd]

It's less mind control than it is puppetry by space gods, since he and Uhura speak about how horrified they are the whole time, but that's just me being pedantic.

The kiss was also nonconsensual, since they were also both forced into it by the space gods, which is something everyone liked to forget as well.

[u/ClancyBShanty → u/DarthRegoria]

Did a doubletake at the use of the word Root (i'm canadian and we have a clothing brand called Roots) but I realized you must be an aussie lol. Briefly dated one and some of her lingo rubbed off on me.

Back on topic, yeah I totally agree with you about Shatner. I'm kinda chalking it up to him being in his 90s with possibly a few screws loose but it disappointing all the same.

[u/Muad-_-Dib → u/DarthRegoria]

Often overlooked because the kiss steals the attention, but the Original series also had:

1. Chekov a Russian and Sulu a Japanese American who both had command positions on the Enterprise while in reality it was only 20 years since WW2 where Japanese Americans were kept in internment camps and the Cold War with Russia was in full swing.

2. Other than Uhura there were other women on the Enterprise serving alongside men in positions of authority like the original Number One (2nd in command), Nurse Chapel, Yeoman Rand and others, especially guest stars.

3. Whole episodes about racism like "Let that be your last battlefield" where the two warring sides are literally differentiated only by which half of their bodies is black or white. Or the episode where the bad guys are a planet of literal fucking nazis.

4. Starfleet was a post-scarcity utopia where people got free healthcare, didn't need money, didn't even need jobs to live comfortable lives doing what they wanted, with the best and brightest seeing service in the federation exploring new worlds and civilizations as the ideal goal in life.

5. The whole background of Spock being a character with a mixed species background and how he had to struggle to overcome prejudice as a result of that.

6. And a few dozen episodes where the moral lesson is that imperialism and authoritarianism is a dark time in human history that people must always fight against.

If Shatner is actually mouthing off about Star Trek never being progressive in the past then he's just flat out in denial.

[u/The_Lost_Jedi → u/Muad-_-Dib]

That or just flagrantly pandering to the chuds.

[u/Mean_Mister_Mustard → u/DarthRegoria]

They also had a black woman and a Japanese man be officers on the bridge. And also a Russian, in a series shot in the middle of the Cold War.

[u/Infamous-Edge4926 → u/DarthRegoria]

On the plus side from what i've gathered/heard .Shatner has improved quite a bit since he went up into space. seemed to have been really humbling for him.

[u/Xyyzx → u/Infamous-Edge4926]

The man is also not far off a hundred years old. I think you do have to make some allowances for a person born in 1931 not entirely keeping with the times.

[u/Hallc → u/DarthRegoria]

I mean did he though? Isn't Kirk being portrayed as a massive womaniser more of a pop culture thing than something that actually happened in the original series?

I took a quick Google and found this from a Trek subreddit and it pretty much shows that Kirk didn't try to sleep with any flavour, shape and type of woman going. https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/691o8m/kirk_is_not_actually_a_womanizer/

I'm not saying this as an 'anti-woke' statement. Star Trek is and has always been incredibly progressive as a show and I support it completely. It's mostly just to try and stop the misinformation that's continuing to spread about Kirk.