MovieChat Forums > Star Trek: Voyager (1995) Discussion > IS TUVOK WOKE?

IS TUVOK WOKE?

posted 2 years ago by [deleted]
5 replies | jump to latest

I hate to ask this, as I love Tuvok as a character, but as far as I recall, in all previous Trek movies and TV show episodes like TNG and so on, we never saw a black Vulcan, and we saw PLENTY of Vulcans. And also, didn't Enterprise, a sequel show yet a prequel, not show any black Vulcans, neither?

All this talk of changing established characters and their species to a different race and so forth is attributed to the current woke movement that started in the 2010s, and yet I've never seen anyone bring this up from a show that aired in the 1990s, as a kind of precursor.

[–] liscarkat (16592) 2 months ago

Tossing in a little diversity when it doesn't matter isn't quite woke. If they forced it by changing an existing character like Spock from white to black, that would be woke. Since it had never been specified that all Vulcans were white, there was no reason not to assume some might be non-white, so having a black Vulcan wasn't woke.

[–] Kowalski (59228) 2 months ago

😂WHAT A STUPID SET OF RULES

[–] [email protected] (5507) 2 months ago

When the series premiered it never occurred to me as it did to some fans that it was "odd" to have a black Vulcan. To me it made more sense than a white Vulcan!

We always heard (and saw) how tremendously hot Vulcan was with a very strong sun. Made more sense that Vulcans would be darker rather than light skinned.

[–] aavfreak (2886) a month ago

I have to agree here. Having a black Vulcan is no issue. Changing the character of Spock from white to black would be problematic.

It's the same thing we saw with the little mermaid. Decades of marketing and merchandising as a red haired white mermaid, then suddenly she's black. Those in favor kept saying that mermaids are fictional characters, so they can be whatever color they want. That's absolutely true. Mermaids, as fictional creatures, can be black or purple or rainbow colored, or whatever. But changing an established character is something different.

I see no issue or "wokeness" with Tuvok being black.

[–] Zinger (2174) 2 months ago

Woke involves being lectured at.

Tuvok made me raise my eyebrow somewhat because it was never established that their planet was essentially a copy of earth in terms of race and ethnicity BUT they never lectured me about it. They just did it. Fine.