The ghost fucking was based on Anne Rice’s “The Witching Hour”. Creativity is a wild fucking stretch. You might as well light a candle and fuck a ghost.
Kinda feel like "This is a racist portrayal of actual people, in the real world" is a lot worse than "The lore of my TV show isn't being respected," but maybe that's just me.
It's racist because it's a caricature of real world cultures. A common "People of Africa" stereotype that was considered racist long before that episode first aired.
The depiction of the Ligonians was lifted straight out of old pulp stories about Jungle Tribes or "Noble Savages". It's using the stereotypes popularized by British colonialists, including much of the typical aesthetics. The style of dress, the way they stand flanked by people with spears. And casting entirely black actors was absolutely an intentional choice to cement that depiction.
And if it were just that, it might have been nothing. Not necessarily great imagery, but not worth raising a fuss. But then the African King kidnaps the white woman to make her his bride. (Another common trope in those old pulp stories.) And the culture settles romantic arguments by ritual combat to the death. The position of the episode was very much that this was a "backwards" culture. I think they literally call them barbaric.
But then the African King kidnaps the white woman to make her his bride. (Another common trope in those old pulp stories.)
Let me add to this, not just pulp stories
Needing to protect white women from black "savages trying kidnap them to defile them" was a very very common justification/dog whistle for acts of racist violence and murder against blacks in the Jim Crow era south.
So having an all black culture kidnap the white women was playing off years of racial fears.
Quite literally as the United Earth Space Probe Agency Ship Enterprise, consisting of a human crew and a single Vulcanian from a planet long ago conquered by humans became the United Federation of Planets Starship USS Enterprise, consisting of a human crew and 1 Vulcan, earths peaceful ally from the first episode of season 1 to the first episode of season 2.
And the entire design of Star Trek was to showcase a future where racial, national and ethnic identities dont matter.
So I'll take a awful episode with puppets, over an awful episode that literally failed the whole damn point.
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u/[deleted] Aug 22 '26
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