Gene Roddenberry once said that he had “no belief that Star Trek depicts the actual future, it depicts us, now, things we need to understand about that.” He helmed a show that, in its very first episode, promised to boldly go where no man had gone before... and go there it did. Throughout its run and multiple spinoffs, Star Trek made powerful social commentary in line with its creator’s vision.
The original series ran from 1966 through 1969, in an overlap between the civil rights movement’s height and second wave feminism’s. Bigotry abounded, with workplace inequality a big issue for both groups. Despite the Civil Rights Act’s declaration that employers couldn’t discriminate based on sex, race, color, national origin, or religion, equality
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The episode shows Commander Data, an android, ordered to submit to disassembly and experimentation. He understandably resists, but because he is a machine, he has no right to refuse the orders. Legally, in fact, he is the property of Starfleet. Captain Picard spearheads an effort to get Data the rights he deserves, ultimately taking the matter to court. He is found to be a sentient lifeform, and is saved from disassembly. Within the episode, Picard mentions that Data being Starfleet’s property is essentially slavery, making it very clear what message the episode is intended to convey. Although Data is biologically different from the organic members of the crew, he is not an entirely different, inferior species. He feels emotions; he learns by experience; he forms both platonic and romantic relationships; he is, in many ways, a person. For centuries the “they aren’t real people” argument has been used against oppressed groups to justify oppression, but what defines a “real person?” What differences could justify withholding fundamental rights, could justify cruelty or hatred? If this episode is to be believed, certainly not superficial things that one cannot change, from skin color to …show more content…
The station’s schoolteacher, Mrs. O’Brien, is observed teaching a class by a religious figure of the planet Bajor, Vedek Wynn. When Wynn sees science that contradicts her belief system being taught, she immediately retaliates. Children are pulled out of school when Mrs. O’Brien refuses to alter her curriculum in accordance with the Bajoran faith, and ultimately the school is bombed, an action presumably organized by the vedek. Wynn rallies Bajorans behind her in the name of religion; Mrs. O’Brien is shunned and even threatened. Another vedek, Bareil, travels up to DS9 in an attempt to diffuse the situation. Vedek Wynn manipulates a young Bajoran woman into assassinating Vedek Bareil by telling her that it is her duty to the Prophets (Bajoran gods) to do so. The murder attempt fails; it is revealed Wynn hopes to become the next Kai (the Bajoran equivalent of a pope) and Vedek Bareil was one of her major competitors for that
Throughout her book the Second Shift Arlie Hochschild examines this modern oppression of women. She closely observes dozens of families and conducts countless interviews over the portion of about 10 years starting in the early 1970s. Her research provides an in depth analysis of...
A timeline of the 90s features similar white on black hate discrimination as found in The Watsons. In 1991, Rodney King was brutally beaten by white LAPD officers following a car chase. 1993 saw members of the Fourth Reich Skinheads, who attempted to bomb a church in Los Angeles and kill Rodney King, get arrested for their plots (Ross). The year 1993 also featured the release of the very first black American Girl doll; her name was Addy Walker. This first doll was depicted ...
In “In Living Color: Race and American Culture”, Michael Omi claims that racism still takes place in America’s contemporary society. According to Omi, media and popular culture shape a segregating ideology by giving a stereotypical representation of black people to the public, thus generating discrimination between races (Omi 115:166). In “Bad Feminist: Take One”, Roxane Gay discusses the different roles that feminism plays in our society. She argues that although some feminist authors and groups try to create a specific image of the feminist approach, there is no definition that fully describe feminism and no behaviors that can make someone a good feminist or a bad feminist (Gay 304:306). Both authors argue
...better in the 1950’s. [22] Given the historical context in which the book was written, its popular reception, its persuasiveness, and the realities of the history of race relations which it exposes, the book’s significance cannot be denied.
Since its start, the television industry has been criticized for perpetuating myths and stereotypes about African-Americans through characterizations, story lines, and plots. The situation comedy has been the area that has seemed to draw the most criticism, analysis, and disapproval for stereotyping. From Sanford and Son and The Jefferson’s in the 1970s to The Cosby Show (1984) and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in the 1990s, sitcoms featuring black casts and characters have always been controversial. However, their significance upon our American culture cannot be disregarded. During the 1950s and 1960s, 97% of the families were Caucasian. In the first five years of the 1990s, nearly 14% of the television families were African-American (Bryant 2001). These statistics obviously show the substantial impact our American culture has had on African-American television families.
"Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the single most important piece of legislation that has helped to shape and define employment law rights in this country (Bennett-Alexander & Hartman, 2001)". Title VII prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, age, gender, disability, religion and national origin. However, it was racial discrimination that was the moving force of the law that created a whirlwind of a variety of discriminations to be amended into Title VII. Title VII was a striving section of legislation, an effort which had never been tried which made the passage of the law an extremely uneasy task. This paper will discuss the evolution of Title VII as well as the impact Title VII has had in the workforce.
In 1964, Linda Brown along with the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) challenged the Separate but Equal doctrine, and won (Askew). Discriminatory laws that lasted for 99 years, starting with the Black Codes, moving to the Louisiana Separate Car Act and Plessy v. Ferguson, to everyday laws, finally became overturned. They permanently hindered a large group of people as seen by literacy rates, household income, and household ownership, but those numbers became more equal as time went on. Unfortunately, due to humanities extreme ignorance, we don’t see these issues recurring today. People discriminate against homosexuals, for example, and they don’t get equal rights. People must look to the past and use the knowledge of their mistakes to never make those same mistakes again.
In American culture today, women continue the struggle of identifying what their roles in society are supposed to be. Our culture has been sending mixed messages to the modern day female, creating a sense of uneasiness to an already confusing and stressful world. Although women today are encouraged more than ever to be independent, educated, and successful, they are often times shamed for having done just that. Career driven females are frequently at risk of being labeled as bossy, unfeminine, or selfish for competing in many career paths that were once dominated by men. A popular medium in our culture such as television continues to have significant influences as to how people should aspire to live their lives. Viewers develop connections with relatable characters and to relationship dynamics displayed within their favorite shows. Fictional characters and relationships can ultimately influence a viewer’s fashion sense, social and political opinion, and attitude towards gender norms. Since the days of Bewitched and I Dream of Jeanie, where women were commonly portrayed as being the endearing mischievous housewife, television shows have evolved in order to reflect real life women who were becoming increasingly more independent, educated, and career oriented throughout the subsequent decades. New genres of television are introduced, such as the workplace comedy, where women are not only career oriented, but eventually transition into positions of power.
In today’s world, the American still has barriers to overcome in the matter of racial equality. Whether it is being passed over for a promotion at the job or being underpaid, some people have to deal with unfair practice that would prevent someone of color or the opposite sex from having equal opportunity at the job. In 2004, Dukes vs. Wal-Mart Stores Incorporation was a civil rights class-action suite that ruled in favor of the women who worked and did not received promotions, pay and certain job assignments. This proves that some corporations ignore the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which protects workers from discrimination based on sex, race, religion or national origin.
Ann Perkins, Jones’ character, is supposed to be an ethnically ambiguous person and in reality, Rashida is biracial (Glamour). Leslie Knope, the white protagonist of the series, frequently uses words like ‘exotic’, ‘tropical’, and ‘ethnically ambiguous’ when complimenting Ann. The ‘compliments’ also act as the only instances where race is spoken about in reference to Ann’s character. One would believe that Leslie’s constant complimenting of Ann is beneficial to viewers with a biracial identity, but there are some serious problems with Leslie’s behavior. There has been an historical and recent fascination with ‘mixed’ children. This fascination has crossed over into fetishizatoin of biracial or mixed children and people. Biracial people are seen less as people and more as a kind of spice that bell hooks mentions in her work “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance” (21). They are something that helps liven up the blandness of the pervasive white culture. Another harmful aspect of Ann’s depiction relates to her class. In Edison’s work, she notes that “biracial individuals living in a middle- and upper-class environments are more likely to be perceived as biracial (rather than black) than those living in working- and lower-class environments” and that “‘color blind’ portrayals of middle- and upper-class Black and biracial characters support the notion that race no longer matters (at least for middle- and upper-class people)” (Edison, 302; 304). Ann’s character is a successful college-educated nurse which is not problematic until one realizes that her race is never truly discussed. This feeds into the stereotype that race does not matter and that all people in the U.S. have the same opportunities. Again, the lack of racial representation leaves one character the duty of depicting a whole group of
While the 1960s were a time of advancement for minorities, it was also a time of advancement for women. In 1963, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, which outlawed discrimination in the workplace based on a person’s sex (Foner 944). To ensure that women would have the same opportunities as men in jobs, education, and political participation, the National Organization for women was formed in 1966 (Foner 944). The sixties also marked the beginning of a public campaign to repeal state laws that banned abortion or left the decision to terminate a pregnancy to physicians instead of the woman (Foner 945).
During the 1950‘s suburbs such as Levitown were springing up all across the country, and the so-called American dream was easier to achieve for everyday Americans than ever before. They had just come out of two decades dominated by The Great Depression and World War Two, and finally prosperity was in sight. The need for women to work out of the home that was present during the war was no more, and women were overwhelmingly relegated to female-dominated professions like nursing, secretaries, and teachers, if they worked at all. Televisions became very popular, and quickly became part of the American cultural canon of entertainment. Leave It To Beaver is a classic American television show, encompassing values such as respect, responsibility and learning from your mistakes. But, at least in the episode used for this essay, it is also shockingly sexist to a modern viewer. This begs the question, what does the episode The Blind Date Committee1 say about the gender expectations of the 1950’s?
The classic network era is one of the most easily recognizable and distinct eras in television history. Both Bewitched and I Love Lucy were huge sitcoms that took up issues of gender representation and patriarchy in their programs through the representations of the main male and female characters of their respective series. While both of these series pushed boundaries when it came to the representation of women, in the end, the costuming of these men and women, how the main characters are introduced, and the domestic environment that the atmosphere takes place in, all serve to reinforce traditional gender norms and reveals that patriarchy is dependent on maintaining dominant ideas about masculinity and femininity.
The dynamic of gender roles within 1960s society is the most prominent issue within Mad Men. The show does not shy away from the conformity of the time. Behind the pristine hair and perfectly stylised clothes - the men are in control and the women are ultimately suppressed of any power.
In today’s age it can be difficult for many to imagine a world in which applicants were denied employment for factors such as their gender, race, religion or national origin. We have grown accustomed to living in a country that provides legislative protection in the case of discrimination in and outside the workforce. Yet, this was not always the case. It has been a mere 52 years since the illegalization of “discrimination in education, employment, public accommodations and the receipt of federal funds on the basis on race, color, gender, national origin and religion.”(BL pg.98) This new set of legislation is known as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Although it did not make amends for year of abuse and discrimination,