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Exploring ethical questions from Superhero movies and TV shows, sci-fi, and everything else geeks love!
Matthew : Hello and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics. Today we're going back to Star Trek. We're talking about an episode from DS9, Deep Space Nine, called Far Beyond the Stars. But this is an episode that really touches on so much of the history of science fiction, the role of black authors and women authors and non-white male cis heterosexual authors in science fiction, the role of a show like Star Trek to do commentary on not only its own culture but the genre it sits in and even the show itself. There's just so much that this episode gets into and why I highly recommend, if you haven't seen the episode or haven't seen it in a while, hit pause, go watch it and come back. Don't worry, even if you haven't talked about it, even if you haven't seen it. We're not going to be going too deep into the details of the episode. We'll give you a quick synopsis.
But even if you haven't seen it, I think you're really going to enjoy a lot of the themes and stuff we talk about today. So as usual, I'm joined by my co-host, Ricky. Ricky, how are we doing today?
Riki : Very good. This is at least in the top three for me for Deep Space Nine episodes. And to the listeners, if you're still here, this isn't necessarily an episode of television where the plot matters per se. Like so, listening to this discussion, I don't think will affect your enjoyment, future enjoyment of watching the episode if you have not seen it before. Yeah.
Matthew : Let me give you a quick summary of the episodes so people understand what's going on. The episode focuses on Captain Jake Sisko. I'm sorry, Captain, the episode focuses on Captain Benjamin Sisko, who is the captain he's played by Avery Brooks and the character is black. Although that aspect of his character has just never been talked about really before this episode, in part because Star Trek is supposed to be this utopia where capitalism and racism and sexism and all the isms have pretty much gone away. In this episode, we're in the middle of a war against a group called the Dominion.
There's a group called the Prophets that are kind of guiding Benjamin to be a leader. And he's having real doubts about the war. He's not sure if he should stay in the war.
He's not sure it's just wearing down on him, seeing all his friends die, not knowing that there's an end. And he winds up kind of falling unconscious and having a vision. And this is something that has happened in Star Trek before through some alien means or whatever. And there's a little bit of techno babble that explains this is probably being another vision from the prophets like he's had in the past.
But in the vision, he becomes Benny, a science fiction author in New York City in the early 1950s, dealing with the fact that this magazine really enjoys his writing, really enjoys the writing of one of its authors who's a woman. But the fact that those two, a black man and a white woman are on the staff is not something that anyone can know about. They, there's a staff picture that's supposed to happen, but they don't want these two to have their pictures taken because they want people, as the editor says, Douglas, we just want this to be believable. And the character of Douglas is going to be really important in this because again and again, he'll say, it's not that I have these racist feelings. It's just that people won't buy it.
Keep the readers. At one point, as he says, I'm not a crusader. I'm not here to change the world. I'm just an editor of a science fiction magazine.
That's become a very important concept. But Benny Russell goes home and he has this idea to write a story about a space station with a black captain. And basically he, in the vision, he comes up with the idea of Deep Space Nine and he writes it and he brings the story in and all the other writers in the office love it, but the editor says, we can't do this.
We can't publish a story about a black, black man as the captain of a space station. And Benny kind of resists and fights back some, but accepts it. Um, Benny has a lot of other, uh, hard things go on, uh, that we'll talk about. And eventually they decide what if this was a dream?
What if we write it as though a black man is dreaming of a world in which a black captain could exist on a starship, a space station far in the future. The editor very reluctantly decides to go along with it, but the publisher decides to pulp the whole man, pulp the whole issue. They just won't publish anything this month. And Benny is fired because the publisher just refuses to engage with this kind of content of a black man being a captain in outer space.
And, uh, Benny, that has very important scene at the end of it, where he kind of breaks down, but says, again, you know, I'm a human being. You can't deny these stories. They live in my imagination. You can't take my imagination from me.
I, I fight this. And we end with, uh, back as captain Benjamin Cisco on the space station with him seemingly have more, having more resolve to fight the fight that he has to fight. Um, there's a lot else that goes into the episode, but I think that kind of covers the, the, the, the, the, the basis of it.
And I'm already a lot longer than I expected that to, I just, there's so much for the episode I want to talk about. Ricky, that, that kind of cover the, the, the main points.
Riki : Yeah. Very good. Yeah.
Matthew : So I wanted you to talk about a couple of the ways in which there's a deep commentary happening in this episode, because obviously it's about, um, racism in the science fiction world, but there's a lot of ways in which it's clearly commenting on racism at the time of the 1950s, but also racism in 1998 and sexism.
And in some ways it's even being somewhat critical of Trek itself. The, the actress who plays Kira on the show, most of the characters are played by actors from the, the show itself, just in the different roles in Benny's world. But Nana visitor who plays, uh, Kira in this, she plays Kay Eaton, a woman writer who publishes under the name Casey Hunter. And this is kind of a, a dig at Star Trek itself in a way, because one of the, um, original and, and really powerful writers of Star Trek was a woman named Dorothy Fontana, who wrote under the pseudo name DC Fontana. So there's kind of a call out there as well as the fact that I think it's really interesting and important that this is written by a, there are no people of color in the writer's room at, of Star Trek at the time this is being written. And so in some way it like, and I don't know to what extent that's a meta commentary or the author is trying to like push their own publishers and their own producers to be like, Hey, we gotta get some people of color in here. But there's a lot of ways throughout the show in which they're kind of offering these critiques of science fiction writing in general, not only in the 1950s, but also in the 1990s, including Star Trek itself.
Riki : Yeah. I, I don't know that I would say that's a call out of Star Trek. I mean, it was the reality at the time is what it's pointing out. And we obviously can acknowledge that it's not a great reality that women had to hide their gender in order to be accepted into this writing world. But, you know, that's not to, to excuse what happened. But I think it's an acknowledgement as much as like a criticism, I think. Right.
Matthew : I think so. And there's, yeah, that was on Dorothy was writing on the original show some years ago, but as I said, it's an all white cast, all white writers room, even here in the 1990s, they do ask Avery Brooks to direct this episode. Um, and normally you direct an episode that you have a very small part in because the idea is that you can't really do both. But the writers and interviews about this episode said that it was really important to them that the black man be, be kind of in control of this episode because they acknowledged like we wrote this, but there's a lot obviously that we're talking about that's not our experience. Yeah.
Riki : And I watched an interview with Ira Baer, who is the primary writer of this episode, and he talks about the fact that like from the beginning, Avery Brooks was in the discussion, like he went to Avery and said, this is an idea I have, like, do you want to do this first off? And then like, do you want to direct it was offered to him? So yes, I do think acknowledging again that there were no black voices involved in the writing of this is, is fair. But I do think like Avery doesn't have a writing credit, but he was heavily involved in crafting this to its final place.
Matthew : Very much. And he and a number of black commentators on this episode that will be quoting from various points have praised the writers and said, look, you know, obviously it's better to have a diverse room writers room, but they definitely did it as good a job as they could have. And a very good job at that with this episode.
Riki : And I think that's the thing. Like, you know, we had this discussion, I guess last week from, from perspective of listeners, right? Where is it okay for non black people to talk about these issues?
I absolutely do think it is. And I think it's okay for non black people to write, you know, television episodes, movies, et cetera, about these issues, but you have to involve people from that group, whether it's black or women or whatever. Like you can't just write it from your perspective, like an outsider's perspective. You have to get more of an insider's perspective and then get the, get the appropriate feedback on like, Hey, does this feel like an authentic story? Right. Yeah.
Matthew : So I think so often when you hear commentary like that, um, and that's true for, for black writers, for women writers, for, for queer writer, for any time a story is created within a particular context and is now being observed and commented on from people outside that context, then, you know, it, it's just important to understand like what's your place and it's not that people only in that context can talk about it.
But if you're outside of it, you need to know what you do or don't understand. Like a lot of the men who are very critical of, um, Ms. Marvel or Captain Marvel, the movie is Captain Marvel. Yeah.
Right. Captain Marvel, I think was a lot of men who were not necessarily listening to women talk about how this character that others saw as flat or not having a journey, like had this very powerful journey that men don't understand because they haven't experienced what it's talking about. Um, and it's a controversial example.
I get it. I'm not trying to open that up, but just I definitely feel like that's another good example of where anyone can talk about anything and that's good, but knowing the context becomes super important. And yeah, that's the listeners, but also here, as you said, for the creation is episode of every Brooks, gonna have such an important role.
Riki : I think it's very important, like from a historical analysis of like the television program, deep space nine to say, Hey, like this was very important as every books, uh, Captain Cisco being the first black lead of us of Star Trek, of a Star Trek show. Right. That is important and needs to be acknowledged.
And that pushes the boundary further. And now, now we're having this discussion about, well, what about the writers? Like, were there, were there writers and say, no, maybe there weren't. You know, I don't know the full list, but it seems to be the case, right? Like, so I think this is, this episode is progress. Yeah.
And I think it's a perfectly fair criticism to say, Hey, like, why was this written by a white guy? Right. It's, I think it's because that's, that's all there was available. Right. But they did it. I think they did it well. It is the my synopsis.
Matthew : No, I think it's very true. Yeah. Cause for an all white group, you're just therefore not ever talk about racism. And I think just far worse, you know, in that kind of regard. And I think there's sort of a meta thing happening in, in the episode as well, because one of the things that the episode is all about is imagination. And we're going to talk a lot about Afrofuturism, which is kind of this great movement of black science fiction writers and, and kind of a movement within black science fiction and black speculative fiction of imagination, of being able to imagine a world that doesn't necessarily have racism or, or black people get to have much more empowered roles or, or whatever it is. And there's a way in which the entire show is written by white people.
So I'm not saying it is Afrofuturism, but it is a similarity in that. The show isn't about how Captain Cisco has to overcome racism within Starfleet to become captain. The point is that it is a show of imagination of saying, we want to imagine that by the 23rd century, humanity has evolved enough that him being black is completely not important to whether or not he becomes captain. And I think this episode, and yes, it comes fairly late in the show, but I think it's somewhat important, is doing a really interesting thing of saying, okay, now we've done this imagination thing. And the whole show is about, let's show you a world where racism isn't a thing.
Kind of like how we talked about how Schitt's Creek is showing a world where homophobia is just not a thing. But now this is what I was saying, but there's a price to that imagination. And that that that, us imagining that isn't an easy thing. And we did actually face a lot of racism when we said, Avery Brooks is going to play our captain and things like that. Oh, absolutely. And so I love that this episode is about, let's actually talk about that process of imagination and the cost of that imagination.
Riki : I mean, this era in Star Trek, within a two year span, you had every Brooks, Helming, Deep Space Nine, and then Kate Mulgrew being Captain Janeway on Voyager, right? The first woman captain, at least to lead a show. Right. And yeah, the fandom and internet was very different at the time, but I do believe that there were a lot of loud voices who were decrying both of these selections.
Matthew : Yeah. And in some ways the internet is not that different today. But, but yeah, I think it's a really important part of this conversation.
Riki : Well, I think the voices are always going to be there, but it was, they were less loud. It was harder to find them, I
Matthew : imagine, or for them to be heard. Avery Brooks didn't have an Instagram that he had to think about shutting down because of the people directly commenting to him and stuff like that. So let's talk about the episode itself. What for you is the power of the story of, particularly in that it's a story of failure?
Uh, you know, Benny has this great idea and he brings it forward and he is beaten down both metaphorically by the magazine editor and then publisher. But also literally he sees his good friend get shot by clearly very corrupt and racist cops. And then when he, he just sort of raises his voice, not even being violent at all. They start fighting him and he fights back and he gets very violently beaten.
Riki : Yeah. This episode hits hard. Star Trek usually handles racism in a very kind of hamfisted way with alien races, right? Where the alien races that they encounter are like a monoculture. The Klingons are warriors. The Romulans are devious. And then that just kind of becomes their characteristic. And then the racism that's depicted on the show is usually like human versus one of these other races or one of those races being racist against another one in the galaxy.
And yeah, I don't, it's, it's hard to find examples of like human racism in terms of color of skin because yeah, that's not really a thing in this future. And that was by design from the very beginning, right? That Gene Roddenberry wanted to have this multicultural crew for the enterprise. It was very important that, you know, a whore, a black woman was on the bridge. Sulu Japanese, a check off.
I think later, later on in season one or maybe in season two, check off. A Russian, right? At the time, 1960s, tensions were very high as they are again between the United States and Russia and to have, you know, this American cast with, you know, American sounding cast, I'll say with a Russian on the bridge, right? Was this example of this is the future we could have?
Yeah. Where none of them care about these, these issues. They are all part of the human collective. They're all part of the Federation. You know, they also have the Vulcan, Mr. Spock, right? So like having that was very important to the DNA of Star Trek from the beginning and was never, I don't think it was ever really acknowledged within the show. You know, they're just accepted as a thing.
Matthew : It was just very, again, it's that imagination of we're imagining a world where we don't have to talk about that. And I'm glad you brought up accents. Because one thing in my research for this episode that I didn't even realize is that when George D'Acai played Sulu, not only was it one of the first times we'd seen an Asian man in a place of command and sort of respect in that regard, but it was one of the first times we saw an Asian character who didn't have a thick, almost caricatured Asian accent. You know, because George D'Acai sounds like an American. He sounds, which he was, he, you know, person of Japanese descent, but grew up in America, speaks like someone from, from that background. And, and the character of Mr. Sulu doesn't have the kind of Charlie Chan, the highly care, you know, caricatured racist accent. So just one other cool thing about, about all that.
Riki : Yeah, yeah. George D'Acai was actually, you know, was actually imprisoned, right? In the concentration camps during World War II, because he was, he was Japanese, Japanese descent. And he's talked about that a lot and acknowledges that is like an important part of his personal history and why he is so active and involved in issues. And I do, yeah, like accents within Asian communities is interesting because I, you know, I don't know how I speak, but I think I have a little bit of an accent, not as much because I've grown up in the United States. My parents have much stronger accents. And I actually, since we're talking about this, I'll mention this, that I recently watched, rewatched Godzilla minus one in the English dub because I had heard it was quite good and I found it very interesting because it was very good. And pretty much all of the voice cast for the dub was Asian, Asian American.
The lead was played by a Japanese American actor that I'm quite familiar with, Darren Barnett, I believe his name. And they're, they're all, I think most of them are, you know, like very, very American. But you can, I could hear it. I could hear the accent. And especially when they pronounced like Japanese names, like people's names or place names, it was very, it was very good and accurate.
And I was like, this, this is very nice to hear. So yeah, like George Takei, you know, has a pretty medium accent, I would say. And I think he's speaking in his normal voice. Right. But there is, there is something there and that gives it that authenticity. You're right. Yeah, for sure.
Matthew : And getting back to the episode itself, what were some of the dynamics that you really appreciated in terms of how they told this story of Benny trying to get this article published and the other writers supporting him and then the editor kind of coming down on it and, and how it all plays out?
Riki : Yeah, I loved, because pretty much most of the scenes take place in that room, like the common room in their office. I think some of them may have like the little, little personal offices off to the side or their desks or whatever, but they're all sitting there talking and talking about the issues or their stories, they're reading their stories and, and talking about giving feedback and stuff. And it was, I know that some of these characters are supposedly modeled after real science fiction writers, right? Like they're not named after them, but the people have commented on, like the chief O'Brien's character, I think writes about robots. Like they mentioned that and people have said, we think that's probably like a reference to Asimov was very famous for his robot stories.
Matthew : And, and so famously for beings, what, what I think today we would see as autistic coded, which is very much who that character is as well.
Riki : Yeah. And I, I think the key to this episode, I love it all. I love all of their performances. You mentioned the thing about Nana visitor being a woman and having to hide her identity, right? Like, but, but the key is the bad guy, one of the bad guys, at least the, the editor, right? Played by the guy who usually plays Odo Renee, Averton, and he's such a, such a complicated character in this episode. And you can, it's, it's one of those characters where you're like trying to root for him and then he does something that, that is wrong.
And then I come on, man, just do the right thing. But you, you understand his position as well, right? Because it's his job on the line. And it's a very complicated dance of like his boss, the owner, the publisher has told him what to do. And it's like, do you, do you go along with that? And do you pulp the magazine and fire Benny?
Matthew : I think the fact that we meet him and we never see or meet Mr. Stone, the publisher, his boss is very intentional. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think Douglas definitely, to me, he represents that. Like, you know, I don't have the exact quote, but the, the Dr. King quote about, uh, you know, if you uphold the status quo, those who say nothing in the face of injustice are, you know, doing injustice themselves. I'm butchering the quote, but it's the idea of that you have to stand up against injustice and not just shrug your shoulders and say, there's nothing we can do. And, and, and he very much represents that, but he's also, he's the middle manager. He's not, as you said, he's not the one making the decisions. He is, and like the other white writers refusing to protest the decision. And we'll talk about that in a bit, but also the fact that we never get to, we, you know, Benny never gets to talk to Mr. Stone.
Douglas sees the pain that this causes, but Mr. Stone never does. And I think that's also a powerful point here about like the, the way society is structured both in the fifties and also in the 1990s and also today, you know, the manager of a local store tells us about the corporate policy that is kind of sexist or racist or, or classist or whatever it is. And we might yell at that person and they're enforcing this policy and like, you know, maybe more people shouldn't do that, not maybe, but they're not the ones who set the policy and the people who set the policy, we have no access to. And so, yeah, I think there's so much who is character that is so interesting there.
Riki : Yeah. It, it very much reminded me I was listening to a news story and I apologize. I don't remember which publication it is, but I was listening to a news story about, oh, no, no, I do. Sorry. It was 60 minutes.
It was an interview with Leslie Stahl, one of the co-anchors, and she was talking about how her boss, like the editor, I suppose, a producer, I guess for television, stepped down in light of everything going on. And when he did, everyone else in the room was like, do you want us with you? Like, do you want solidarity? Do you want us to quit too? And he said, no, like you have to stay here. Like it's very important.
Like this is what I have to do for me personally, but you have to stay here and keep fighting. Right. And that's, that's kind of the complicated situation with this is that is Douglas a bad guy? Like, I don't know.
Yeah. Like he does some not great things in this, but you can also see that the caring right to some degree that he has for the situation, for the people under him. And is he fighting a good enough fight against Mr. Stone and the invisible Mr. Stone?
Matthew : We don't know. I had a very different reading of it. I see him very much as a villain here. And, and I think the episode is setting him up to be, but I definitely understand your perspective.
Riki : Well, it is setting him up to be because he's the one we see delivering all the news.
Matthew : Well, like to me, I think one of the things that, and you're right, I think it sets him up that he is the face of a system. And so I'm more angry at the system than at him. But one thing is that they, they set up the magazine that they're writing for that I think is called like great adventures or some are fantastic tales. And they set it up against this other magazine called galaxies. And at one point they mentioned like the name of some real life science fiction authors who are writing for them.
Highland is the one I remember, but there's a couple of others. And all of them were writers who in actuality were using science fiction to push politics, to push social justice ideas. Highland had a lot of great ideas about sexuality and, and liberation in that regard. He also had some ideas that I think we'd look at as pretty fascist today.
And I think I've often been on the show very critical of, but whatever. He was definitely pushing using science fiction to push social conversation. And galaxies is presented as different from this magazine where Douglas specifically says the quote is I'm not a crusader. I'm not out to change the world.
I'm a science fiction editor. And to me that was very telling. And it fits to me very much in a conversation that was alive in the 90s, but it's also very much still alive today of to me, Douglas represents all those people who say, Oh, I don't want politics in my Star Wars. Why does it have to be so much politics and Star Trek?
I just want a good story. And, and that's exactly what Douglas is trying to say. And his, his comment that as an editor, his job is not to try to address social change and to address the problems of the world. Like that's the whole, that's everything that's wrong with that part of science fiction writing. And I think that that's, I think you're right that I can have sympathy for Douglas, the person, but I think he's very much represented. The fact that he is willing to be a cog in this machine that is being called out is I think very problematic.
Riki : Sure. That's fair. But I mean, they're all a cog. They're all cog. Yeah. And the machine. And again, like when Benny is fired, no one else leaves in solidarity, right? They're going to stay.
They're going to keep writing their stories. And that's a, that's a question you have to ask yourself, right? Like if you're in that situation, we can, we can judge them to some degree and say like what we would do, but ultimately like it's a very limited scope of a story.
And I think it's more important to keep your seat at the table in situations like this. And that to me includes Douglas, right? Because he was willing to, he was willing to publish the story under the dream synopsis.
Right. And he was like, if we change it to dream, like, I think that works. And I believe like he was kind of excited about it, or at least like happy, right? He was like, yeah, I think that'll work. Like let's go. with it.
Matthew : Oh, I got a very deep impression. To me it was he was very much support, like, because he's also the one who calls out the character of Herb, who I don't know if he's based on a specific author, but very much kind of representative of Jewish liberal science fiction authors who were often sometimes rightly, but mostly unfairly accused of being communists or fellow travelers or things like that. And Douglas is very quick to call him that, to say that.
Say, oh, you know, you're just being a pinko or a red or something like this. And to me, I think the critique of the show, I think you're right that if you're going to have a seat at the table, continuing to fight from that seat at the table is very valuable. And like we talked about in Andor, there's definitely a lot of that discussion of, you know, Mon Mothma doesn't want Bélorgana to leave with her because she wants him to keep having that seat at the table in the Senate. But in this, it feels all the characters sort of express sympathy, but none of them are willing to risk themselves and their jobs.
Not, it seems like kind of a strategy, but just out of their own personal caution. Essay I read by a person named Joshua M. Patton, who's right, he writes on the reference of the other things he said, the article link will be in the show notes. And he's a black author himself. And he wrote, these writers understood the injustice being done, but nonetheless let Benny stand down, indirectly supporting the status quo. Thankfully, the Star Trek of today is more inclusive from the folks beyond the scenes of the quality of stories given to historically represented demographics in a way. Far beyond the stars wasn't just an indictment of the real world, but also the Star Trek itself sometimes failed its own ideals.
It's one of those three decks later, it's still the most powerful episode of D.Says9. And he then goes on to talk about how the character of Herb Rostov, as well as the woman writer, each of them kind of express sympathy for Benny's cause, but none of them are willing to do it themselves. All of them are willing to protecting their own position than actually standing up and joining in the fight. And you know, I thought very significant that at one point, Nana's character says, you know, there should be stronger women in science fiction, but she's not writing them herself. She just, it's the sort of wishful thinking that all those other characters have of, it would be great if these things happened, but they're not happening. Yeah.
Riki : I mean, that's, this is the kind of thing that's cyclically a problem everywhere. Right. Right. And I would take the long perspective on this, that from her perspective, like there aren't enough women.
She has to reach a point in her career where she has enough confidence and enough clout to write that story and have it be published or like be, be the editor herself, like pay her dues long enough to be an editor and then approve that story. Right. Like that's kind of unfortunately like what has to happen unless you have someone closer to the top of the power structure, just decide to break it all and say, effort, which is obviously not the case. And like in terms of Douglas, the current editor, right? Like we wish he could be that guy, but it's clear like his power dynamic is very weak. And if he were to make a stand in this scenario, and either he would either be fired or he would say, I quit.
He's going to be replaced with some yes man, the next yes man who will just also fire Benny. So like you probably are not accomplishing much other than like making this figurative stand. And then what do you do? Right. So that's why I have more empathy for that character. That's right. And I say that, like I acknowledge like he's not doing the right thing.
Yeah. But he seems to be enough of a person who maybe like in the future and that sucks. Like I think and that's the point of this episode. Like this episode sucks from the perspective of Benny Russell. Yeah.
Matthew : I mean, that's what it's fantastic. High quality episode, but it's hard to watch because it's not about a victory in that kind of a way. Yeah. Although it is in a way and I think that's what we're going to get to in a second. I guess like to me the first time I watched this episode, I was a little disappointed that Benny doesn't focus his anger on Douglas. He talks about being angry at all of them. And I kind of had a no, but Benny is the Douglas is the bad guy. Herb and all these other characters were standing up for you. And then I read some more about this episode and read kind of, you know, some of the critiques of those characters as that they're not looking for a seat at the table.
As you're saying, they're just they're just protecting themselves. And to me, I think his indictment of all of them that he labels Douglas as, you know, that the others are being just as bad. Because I think what you're saying about the seat at the table, that works if they then turn around and say, fine, if you won't let a black man write a story about a black captain, I as a white man, or I as a woman am going to write a story about a, you know, black captain, but they don't. And the other person of character who Avery Brooks himself describes as like the character being played by the actor who normally plays Bashir. And he says that this character is the brown man with an English accent who kind of holds himself aloof from Benny's struggle. He's the person you'd think of as the most natural ally that all of them are just kind of like withdrawn. And they're sort of saying, okay, well, Benny went too far on the limb.
The lesson we're all going to learn is not that we should go out there with him, but that we have to pull ourselves back. Like, and I think you're right. It's not an easy question. I don't think there's a line where I can say like, this is what allies should do, or this is what allies shouldn't. This is when allies are fighting and this is when allies are protecting themselves. But I think the show is raising that very, very question.
Riki : Yeah, I mean, that you bring up a very interesting point that I wasn't sure if we were going to talk about. But the character of Julian Bashir, I guess the actor, I think this is a very interesting situation.
Again, like we're talking about late 90s, early 2000s. The actor Alexander Siddiq is British, but he has Arabic ancestry. And he's, oh my gosh.
Yeah, like I listened, I watched an interview with him where he says, he says his full name. And I'm going to try to read it right here. And apologies.
This is my first time trying to read it. But Siddiq, Al-Tahir, Al-Fadil, Al-Siddiq, Abdulrahman, Muhammad, Ahmed, Abdel, Karim, El-Madi is his full birth name. And he goes, he goes by Alexander as an actor. Right. And I think we can all understand that that is for obvious reasons.
And especially like in this time period, like 90s, 2000s. He did not make a big deal of his ancestry. There is no episode in Deep Space Nine where they talk about the issue of his race. And yeah, I think like you could see this episode as a critique of that, like not of the person, but of the idea that, hey, like sometimes you just got to keep your head down. If you think you're next in line. And you know, that goes back to the uncomfortable poem of like first they came for. Yeah. And the question of like, when do you make a stand? Right.
Matthew : Yeah, I think it's a really hard one. And you know, in some ways that that's both a frustrating, but the great part of Star Trek is often, we don't get to know what happens next. You know, I'd love to know does Herb or Julius, who's the character being played by Alexander, or any of those characters, do they wind up writing a story like we were just talking about, or do they stay down, you know, because you'd hope that watching Benny lose it like this and be destroyed by the system that they would start to write differently. But we just don't know.
So it's got a great question. The episode raises one of the other important things I think about this episode is that we see Benny very consciously code switching a lot. And we see Benny in two different worlds. He spends some of his time at the magazine where he is very kind of like shy. He's almost always looking down while talking to people until the scene at the end. He's somewhat reserved. And that's very different from when he's in Harlem, which they specifically kind of call out because they're close to the polo grounds.
And I'll say more about that in a second. And there he spends a lot of time with his fiance, who is played by the woman who's playing his romantic partner in Deep Station itself.
Riki : The original character is Cassidy Yates. Cassidy Yates, thank you. Played by Penny Johnson, I believe. Penny Johnson. I don't remember the name of the in this universe character.
Matthew : Who's gonna, Penny Johnson, we talked about her before. She's a fantastic actress. She's a big part of Orville. She was actually in ER early in her career, which I've been watching recently. And yeah, and it's mostly said at this diner that she works at, that he spends a lot of time at, that we get a character named Willie Hawkins, played by Michael Dorf, who is 100% Willie Mays.
Like they kind of wipe the serial numbers off. But you know, if you want to say some of those authors are representative real life people, this is very much Willie Mays. And even he is, I think he's a very important part of this role, because he is at that point, one of the epitomies of black success. He is, this is shortly after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. He is a very well paid, living a high style of life, has girls who are into him, is very egotistical about it, very arrogant, but you know, in a kind of charming sort of way, although also off-putting somewhat. But he's living the high life and even he says, he has to live up in Harlem, because the white people are happy to pay him to hit baseballs, but don't want him living among them. And Michael Dorf is just clearly having so much fun playing that character. What did you think of kind of the way of seeing Benny in this world?
Riki : Yeah, I think, I mean, I think you're probably right about the Willie Mays comparison. I looked up Willie Mays's career. He was a rookie in 1951 and I think this is supposed to take place in like 52 or 53. 53, yep. Yeah. So, and he played for the New York, at the time, New York Giants. Right.
Matthew : And then was an MVP. And they called out specifically, Benny Russell asks him, if you're so good, why are the Giants in fourth place? There you go.
Riki : Well, I mean, he was the MVP in 1954, so wait a year. Yep. Yeah, I mean, A, just always, Michael Dorf always delightful in Star Trek. And good to see him without the makeup and be able to act without the makeup. I think he's a great actor in the makeup, but this episode really showed how great of an actor he is.
And also expanded his range because he got to play a very unwarf character. Yeah. Yeah. And then very charming.
Yeah. And he's, yeah, those scenes, I love those scenes because it's a good contrast. And it's good to see those characters interacting in that way in a more, I guess, more natural setting.
And then like a modern, like past from us, but from deep space nine, like still modern, contemporary to us, like as a 20th century, 21st century Earth. And to see them be able to act in that setting together was nice and a good, a good use of all of them. So yeah, like I think it's important for the show to show Benny like his home habitat. Right.
Matthew : Well, I think it's especially because I think in, if you just watch him among the other writers at the office of his magazine, his sort of angry outburst feels so out of left field because he, I think they would say, oh, he's a shy guy. He never talks much. He's quiet and the like, and he's so different at home, not in a rude, angry way, but just, you know, he dances with his girlfriend and he steps up to police. Well, the second time, the first time he's very cowed by the police. I think for very understandable reasons, they're, they're, they're, they assume he must be the janitor and wondering why he's so well dressed.
How can he possibly be paid this way? Um, and yeah, I just really love those scenes because to me, it really shows like how much he like, there's almost a science fictional aspect of him. He is traveling to a different world. He's going to a different world by leaving that community and going into the white world of writing.
There's a writer about Afrofuturism who talked about how one, one idea of Afrofuturism is you can see the, the slave ships as spaceships. Because they're taking people to a land where they don't understand the culture. They don't understand the language. They don't understand any of the ways people treat and they're all being treated as inferiors, which you think about it, like how often is that how humans are treated in science fiction. They're taken prisoner by aliens and taken to these strange worlds and don't know the language or the culture.
Um, so yeah, I, I think there's so much that's added to it by so much depth and all these different levels of how the show was written, how this episode was written.
Riki : Yeah. I do. And I love like the characters are not good. They're evil, right? But the, the two cops, the police officers being played by, um, two people who usually play the Dominion characters, who are the antagonists in the, the future part.
Matthew : It's the actors who played Ducat and Waylon, the, the actors, the, the lead, the, the lead, the lead, thank you, the lead Dominion guy, or representative and then the lead, um, Hordassian. Yeah.
Riki : And both of, both of them are just amazing actors. Like that, that's part of the, my love for deep space nine is that these, these villains, these antagonists who are very secondary characters, like they're not in every episode.
But when they appear, they just like bring it. Ducat is played by Mark Alimo. And I think he may be the best part of the space nine infrequently as he shows up. And then Wayoon played by Jeffrey Koons, the, the reanimator is a, is a great fun villain to have. Like he's, he's got this like smartness. And then Ducat, like, we've not never talked about Ducat, have we?
Matthew : No, we haven't. He's a villain that's be worth, uh, uh, talking about. Yeah.
Riki : Because for me, like, you know, I love Sinestro from Green Lantern. And he's that same villain who absolutely believes that he's the hero. And he's doing the right thing to just like psychotic degrees. Right.
Matthew : And, and like, there's a whole thing about religion that we've even gotten into and he becomes eventually like just as convinced as the, if Cisco is a representative of one group of aliens, that he's the representative of another group of his paw race. I did comment to my notes that I thought, um, Renee and Armin, the actors who play Odo and Quark respectively, must have been really thrilled by this episode because they didn't have to sit in a chair to do makeup for two hours. And that's probably true of the actors who play Armin.
Riki : Well, again, like all of them, it's a nice break. And they, they got to act as themselves, not as themselves, but without the makeup. Right. And I think that adds to this. Like everyone really seems to bring it.
Yeah. No doubt, like they understood the importance of this episode. And so brought it in that sense. But I'm guessing like being freed from the makeup chair gave them like more stamina and energy to be able to act.
Matthew : More hours in the day. Yeah. Benjamin Cisco is probably like, what are you all doing here so early? I'm used to, you know, you come in and I either come in late because you won't have chair and I don't.
Riki : And you had mentioned earlier, Benny Russell's like final scene in the writing room where he has an emotional breakdown. Right. That scene is so powerful. As you said, Benjamin Cisco was the primary director for the episode, but they have, for scenes like where he has to act, they have a secondary director there. And I watched an interview talking about how the second director called cut on the scene. And Avery kind of like kept going. Yeah. Kept weeping, like crying out because like that was how much he was into this character in this moment.
Matthew : And I think this is one of the areas where understanding context really matters because that is a frequent critique brought against the show, particularly from white critics, so probably not exclusively, that he's overacting or that he goes too far. And then one of my favorite pieces about this by a man named Roger A. Snead writing in the free voice of Black Man. And he talks a lot about the concept of Black pain, which he makes all one word as the sort of like, you know, generational trauma that's passed down as generation after generation of Black people going all the way back to kidnapped slaves through slavery and Jim Crow and all of it, experience the horrors of racism in different ways, but still there. And that we rarely get to see just the full depth of that. And he writes, while many of the reviews and analysis of this particular episode acknowledged the torturous history of race in this country, they do not adequately connect that pain, that Black pain to Brooks's reading of that scene. Simply put, critiques of Brooks's performance, particularly the breakdown, emanate from a white culture that cannot fathom Black pain.
Riki : Yeah. I mean, I'm Japanese. I can't fathom it. And I would say like, yes, when I watched the show growing up, I thought Avery Brooks did a lot of overacting, make the phrase we use, right? And more specifically, he draws very strong breaths in between his sentences. Is that good acting or bad acting? Like, I don't know, like I'm not an acting coach.
But even like his outburst in this episode, the force in his voice, like it is not that different from Captain Picard in when he's being... There are four lights. Yeah. Tortured by Gal Madrid.
There are four lights. Like that. So it's hard for me to, again, like I'm not an expert on acting and all that. But like, are they so different? I don't know. I don't think so.
Matthew : I think you're right. And I think, again, to me, this comes down to the central idea of all of this, which is imagination, which is that, you know, I think part of the idea here is that in the same way that Douglas and Mr. Stone assume that readers cannot imagine a world in which a black man could be captain of a space station, that a lot of the people right watching this show, I think, including myself to some extent, because I had some of those thoughts the first time I watched it, that we have a failure of imagination because we haven't experienced what this character is experiencing. And with the actor who's playing in his experience, so that black pain, that we have trouble imagining that this isn't overacting, that this is actually how a character like Benny Russell might react. And that's what kind of the whole point of the episode is saying is to ask us to, instead of looking at something and say, oh, I can't believe that, to say why is it that someone who has a different experience than I am can imagine that. And what can I learn from that?
Riki : Yeah, I think that's a very good point, because when you think about the Captain Picard scene, you know, he has been physically tortured by like a pain device. He's also been psychologically tortured and manipulated for days, maybe weeks.
He's sitting naked on the floor handcuffed. And so yeah, like that that scene when an audience member tries to imagine what it would be like, it's like, oh, yeah, like that would be painful, I would be shouting and screaming like this. And then you transfer to the Benny Russell scene. It's like, I don't know, like would he be like this? And yeah, like you have to, you have to put try really try to put yourself in his shoes of it's not, it's not physical pain, although he did have some physical pain from being beaten by the cops. But the psychological pain, the emotional damage of like he has, he's been told like his story is not going to be published. He has been fired.
He has been, as you said, abandoned by his friends, his coworkers, if they've turned his back on him and will not stay in solidarity with him, he's alone. Right. And it's very different. It's a very different pain. But I think it is he moated appropriately to the situation.
Matthew : And I think one of the things that this episode does so well is we often talk about how shows, you know, they'll tell a story about racism by focusing on a white character who experiences it. And maybe the white character goes through a journey and becomes less racist or less sexist or homophobic, whatever it is.
But we're still focusing on their reactions to things. And I felt so interesting is that when Benny is calling those people out, calling out the people who sort of stand up for him, but, but don't. And I actually found a quote that I think is really relevant to this. Where at one point Douglas says after explaining why he thinks that, you know, readers won't buy this. And that therefore it is actually even just talking about, even before he's written the story, he's talking about why they can't have Benny's picture or the woman's character, her picture in the magazine. And Douglas says, I wish it was different, but it's not. And Benny responds, but wishing never changes anything. And so to me, that's again part of that critique of you sitting here feeling bad about it, doesn't mean anything.
You've got to do something. And then when Benny is very critical, and I can imagine that a lot of the writers would have that kind of reaction of that allies who've been called out might often have of, wait, no, no, I'm one of the good ones. Why are you mad at me? The camera never shows them. We have no idea how all those other writers react to what Benny is saying. Because the writers, the point of the episode is we don't care. We're not making it about Herb feeling hurt that, you know, this person he thought was an ally, he was an ally to would be would calling him out. It's just focused on Benny himself and his reactions.
Riki : Yeah. And why and why cut away from that performance? Yeah, exactly. I think a lot of comments online, I read about this episode, a lot of people talked about being of our generation, watching this as a kid or a young adult, like even into the 20s. And it's like, okay, it's like an okay episode. And then rewatching it as a like a fully grown adult, 10, 20 years later, and feeling the impact a lot more. And I think that's part of the effectiveness of this, of having this story in Deep Space Nine and science fiction, is that it's just a, it's a good story. It's well acted, it's well written. And to some degree, I would say like it's snuck in to Deep Space Nine. But now it's there. It exists. And even if you missed it the first time, if you come back to it, like it can still impact you and change your perspective on things.
Matthew : I mean, there's a lot of ways, I think in terms, we often talk about how older episodes have or haven't aged well. Oh, yeah. I think this one is aged fantastically. And in part, in a sad way, because we're still having the same debates, you know, like, every, every time people say like, oh, I don't want all this woke stuff in science fiction or fantasy or whatever, it's the exact same debate as what's happening in this episode.
Riki : Yeah, I, I, yeah, I just think people, people should watch this, or like you had, you did watch it, rewatch it. And just like sit with, it has your perspective changed. Yeah. Since you watched it last.
Matthew : Now, there's a lot more I wanted to get into this episode. We've only briefly touched on Afrofuturism. There's a lot of really interesting things this episode is saying about religion and black religion that a lot of commenters had a lot to say about. We, this is the first and I think only time we hear the Bible referenced, and in a positive way. Oh, character is like, I'm surprised you're quoting the Bible. But it ties into like the Benjamin Cisco as a religious figure. And also, I think there's a lot we can say about, you know, what this story has to say about the largest story of DS9 and his role as a war leader. And what is this episode really about in terms of inspiring him that, particularly because not a few episodes later, he makes some very ethically questionable choices that, that help win the war. And I think we're going to discuss that.
And I also cover everything how like in some ways, I think it is a victory in that he doesn't allow his imagination to be dimmed even if the world is crashing down on him. But we've gone about an hour, my blood sugar is plunging. And I, so I'm going to suggest Riki and is if you're okay with it, let's end our episode right about here and plan a continued discussion.
Riki : Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's so, it's so deep. You're right. Like I did so much reading about Afrofuturism and you mentioned it and I apologize. Like we didn't go down that rabbit hole. There were like so many other holes in this tunnel.
Matthew : But it's very important. I was doing research, yeah, when I found this article on Black theology that I hadn't even thought of. But yeah, like that, that, I mean, I think we mentioned last week when we talked about magical Negroes is Benjamin Sisko a magical Negro.
I don't think he is, but I think there's some argument to that. And the fact that as the first black man in a major role in leadership and start in Star Trek, he's also cast as this religious prophet figure is really interesting. So there's a lot we can talk about.
Riki : Yeah, I mean, I touched about the other Star Trek, the other black Star Trek characters. And there's definitely more I want to say about that, because I think it is, it is always going to be an ongoing discussion. And I think that's the important part is not to like just lock something that happens on a TV show in a vault that it has to inform the next thing.
Matthew : Yeah, I think so. All right, well listeners, thank you so much. As always, write in, let us your thoughts. We'll do feedback when we get to it. Readers as always, write in, let us know your thoughts, all the information in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening. May the force be with you.
Riki : I have friends everywhere. Thank you.