MovieChat Forums > Wil Wheaton Discussion > It's really weird how ST promoted this g...

It's really weird how ST promoted this guy as the great white hope for the universe.


It was the late 80's, early 90's - he was just a fresh faced, preppy white teenager onboard the Enterprise, son of the Doctor, but somehow, the writers went above and beyond in promoting him as... the prodigal son, child genius, intelligent beyond his years, smarter than the adults around him, promoted to bridge duty, white privilege to the extreme, the next coming messiah, with superpowers to stop space and time. ENOUGH! It was embarrassing! Why? Just because he was young, white, and preppy looking?

Him being promoted to having bridge duties should have been enough! Would they have done this with a young black or asian character? You bet your ass they wouldn't. It smacks of white privilege. It was very strange, and I always loathed this plot scenario they were pushing.

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Benjamin Sisko's kid was just as annoying in Deep Space Nine, it had nothing to with race but more to do with Gene Wesley Rodenberry inserting a little of himself into the show via Wesley Crusher, that’s a theory among Star Trek fans anyhow.

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I notice the righteously-indignant OP has completely ignored your extremely reasonable reply. How DARE you not feed him more material for being triggered?!

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I hate white privilege. They should go back and digitally remove him from all episodes. Or at least have him self-identify as black.

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Maybe they can digitally replace him with Todd Bridges and even add Gary Coleman too!

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That would make the Wesley episodes worth a re-watch!!!

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Whatchu tawkin' bout, whynotwriteme?

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[deleted]

So you (and I mean you yourself) have no problem with an annoying black or Asian character that people would hate in perpetuity?

You (and I mean you yourself) wouldn't call that some form of racism?

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wouldn't happen since they wouldn't be getting enough screen time to warrant be labelled as "annoying" in the first place, compared to Wheaton's character. It would, however, be racism if such people were used as a way invalidate the tcs argument since no black or asian character in history has ever been pushed onto viewers the way the person described above has

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what is the tcs argument ?

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Oh, for crying out loud, another woke wanker snowflake in need of unnecessary diversity for its own sake!

Gene Roddenberry was white, it was his show, he wanted a child prodigy, so there ya go.

Granted, Wes Crusher was rather insufferable as a boy genius, and having the crew smile at every little thing he did, but he DID make mistakes, and they could be quite major. But don't forget, he had an alien paedophile stalking him, so there was a chance he could take the boy out and do us all a favour.

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yo got trolled .

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ST:TNG was never a favorite of mine, but I watch enough snippets of different episodes to know that your use of the Great White Hope is pure BS, more indicative of your own racism.

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Didn't the Traveller (a paedophilic stereotype in his own right) call Wesley the next Mozart at some point?

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I don't know, as I said I watched a few snippets of ST:TNG, but am not really familiar with it, or the episodes.

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The Traveller was an alien who saw Wesley's potential and could harness it to manipulate space and time, like in the episode "Where No One Has Gone Before", and in a few other episodes as well.

I mentioned the paedo thing because in the scenes with them together, the Traveller would stare at Wesley a bit too much, and it gave viewers a sense that Wesley was being "groomed" by him.

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"Why? Just because he was young, white, and preppy looking?"

Literally, no. Because he was a fucking genius, ya whackjob.

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