Self-Reflection (and Rant): My Wonder Woman vs. Discovery Responses

[labingi]

This is ramble (okay, rant) about why I may be responding as I am to Wonder Woman: 1984 (liked it okay) and Discovery, especially S3 (kind of hate it). I am socially on the left but increasingly find my responses to pop culture out of step with some of the more prominent left-leaning responses. To wit, Wonder Woman is being panned and most of the left-tube seems fairly strongly pro-Discovery. So why am I out of step? Rambles and spoilers below.

Wonder Woman: 1984
This one is easier to explain. I think my overall enjoyment boils down to I don't care about Wonder Woman. I went in with low-to-no expectations and zero background knowledge from the comics (beyond basic WW canon: jet, lasso, etc.), and so I had a decently good time.

I agree with most of the "moral" (as Jessie Gender put it) critiques of the movie. Putting Steve in Dude's body was not morally explored and that was creepy. Diana shouldn't be mooning over Steve for seventy years. Why not more Amazons and less reliance on men for meaning? Barbara was stereotypical, etc. I just found it decently fun, and here are some reasons why.

Complaint: Diana is not realistic as a role model for young women. Is she supposed to be? I mean, I guess the answer is yes, but I always assumed she was basically a goddess who could do anything and we should all just sit back and let her be infinitely better than all of us. (I know she's technically a demigoddess, but honestly, she has the powers of a god.)

Complaint: The Egypt stuff was racist. I think this gets a little conflated with Gadot's politics, but just based on the movie… yeah, there's superficiality and stereotyping. But I do disagree with one complaint: that the emir fellow was presented as an evil megalomaniac for making his "want my kingdom back" wish. He didn't mean it. It was a joke. He obviously didn't think Lord (sp? This is how much I care) could really grant him any wish, and he was clearly being flippant. And maybe that sums up the whole thing. I just didn't take it that seriously.

But one thing I really liked that no one else seems to care about: the idea that a growth mindset destroys everything. That is an absolute 100% correct diagnosis our global civilization's single worst problem and one that is, indeed, killing us, right now. The general response to this part of the film seems to be "Yeah. 'Greed is good.' It was the '80s. We get it." And, yes, there's an '80s reference, but you know what: our global rate of consumption in the '80s was astronomically lower than it is now. This not an '80s problem. This is a since-the-80s problem, and more broadly a since-Columbus problem. I would not so lightly dismiss a story for pointing it out (even if really broadly), given how little we talk about it and how swiftly it is bringing down a secular apocalypse. Yes, the film won my goodwill there.

Discovery: S3
(Note: I've had disappointments with Disco since S1, but S3 was by far the worst for me, and I'll focus on it. Here, too, it seems to be many people's favorite season?)

I think it's fair to say Disco has a lot of goodwill from the left, in part, for its generally very good swing at representation (despite a few flubs). And this always makes me nervous when I critique it. Am I unhappy with it because my closet racist/sexist/homo-/transphobic/etc. inner self is coming out? I mean, maybe in part: I can't authoritatively say no. But that's not the core problem.

Part of my dislike for Disco (especially S3) is very like my dislike for S7 of Buffy, and I was comfortable with representation in Buffy. It was about empowering middle class white women, i.e. my folx. I disliked S7 (enough to publish an essay on it) because I felt it put its political message before good storytelling. Its message was that spreading the empowerment of women is good. That's fine. Its story (to me) was a mess of internally inconsistent, shoehorned in plots and characters. I'm not going to get specific because it was almost 20 years ago, and I don't remember the details. But I felt like we (the audience) were supposed to applaud for the Scoobies and Slayers doing stupid things because "girl power." But being stupid is not empowering. Being stupid is disempowering. A bad story sends a bad message.

I feel similarly about Disco. I feel like it puts the message of empowerment-through-diverse-representation ahead of good storytelling, and I am expected to applaud because "representation." I feel like I'm supposed to be aglow because Disco has given a strong black female hero protagonist. But she's poorly written—execrably written—and that can't be good, not for black women, not for anything.

Burnham is just the most prominent example of the same move over and over. I feel like I'm supposed to applaud because the core crew of Discovery has saved the day again when I can't suspend my disbelief for it because it is all so unbelievable. The idea that they figure out the Burn in less than a year when the galaxy hasn't been able to for over century or something—unbelievable. The idea that Osyraa would be stupid enough to end up in hand-to-hand combat with Burnham after being spun up as a multidecade strategic genius—unbelievable. The idea that By-the-Book-Federation Guy thinks Loose-Canon Burnham should be captain—unbelievable. And I could go on, but I won't. I'm sure there are infinite disagreements over what counts as "plausible" in space opera. My parameters are mostly character/psychology based (vs. science, etc.).

And this bring me to my core problem with Disco. It's not dialogic. It's anti-dialogic.

Dialogism, a term coined by Mikhail Bakhtin, is a narrative practice in which the characters, have their own "centers," their own backstories, concerns, agendas, lives, etc. that impinge on each other as the story unfolds. In a dialogic story, characters will act like people, even if it's not convenient for the plot, even if it troubles simple morals and straightforward closure. To cite one of Bakhtin's paradigmatic texts, Ivan Karamazov will spend a long chapter talking to his brother about this poem he never wrote because that is the sort of thing he would do, and his brother will listen very nicely because that is the sort of thing he would do.

The other main narrative strategy is based on assigning plot roles. There's a protagonist, and then there are people whose purpose is to help propel the protagonist's story: antagonist, love interest, foil, mentor, etc. This can make a great story, see Star Wars (the original trilogy). And it's not mutually exclusive from dialogism at all. Star Wars actually has a lot of dialogism: check out Leia's response to being rescued. Conversely, The Brothers Karamazov has a sort-of protagonist (Alyosha) and a sort-of antagonist (um, Smerdyakov? Ivan??). But when the plot functions take over from the characters as people, two things happen:

1) The characters feel like cardboard.
2) It feels very dehumanizing. (More on this soon.)

Disco is this kind of story. Its narrative structure is based on plot functions. Burnham is the protagonist. Book is the love interest. Osyraa is the antagonist. Saru and Georgiou are kind of mentors. Tilly is the sidekick, and overall the crew are the faithful band of merry men. And, yes, it's more complex than that. But on the whole plot function dominates.

This kind of narrative structure dehumanizes the characters because it manipulates their personhood in order to make them fit their plot function. (No, not always.) For example, no one objects to an ensign (Tilly) being made acting captain, though that move promotes her over many people's heads. No one objects because the narrative wants to say she's awesome and everybody loves each other. Stamets and Culber instantly decide they've always wanted a teenage child as soon as they meet Adira because the narrative is supposed to be that they make a cute non-traditional family. Detmer is set up in the start the season as having some weird reaction to their time jump and then has an outburst that is totally unhinged, and then it just stops because I guess there isn't room for that story? Adira suddenly and dramatically announces that they are non-binary despite our having no exploration of what this means because the narrative needs to represent non-binary people but can't divert off Burnham enough to do the work. Burnham is always superhumanly brilliant at everything because the narrative does not want you to forget she is the hero. Stamets is angry at Burnham for not letting him go rescue Culber and Adira, but then gets over it in two seconds because the narrative needs the ending to be 100% happy. And so on. And yes, there are exceptions: Georgiou, Saru, and sort-of Book are usually exceptions.

I think the fundamental reason I love the dialogic and loathe the plot-function approach is that I have always known I'm not the hero. From the time I was old enough to be aware of peer groups at all, it was very clear to me that in the plot-function model, I was an extra. I was off on the periphery of the camera while the focus was on the extroverted blonde girl who was good at flipping on the bars or something. See, this style of storytelling really is dehumanizing because it really says that 95% of all the people only exist to make the hero heroic. We are all ultimately resources to be used up in their story. It is storytelling for the 1%, not the financially richest 1% maybe, but the cutest, toughest, loudest, smartest, Burnhamest 1%.

And this especially grates on me in a narrative that purports to be all about inclusion. Because it's hypocritical. It's not inclusive. It's exclusive. It excludes real exploration of Adira's gender identity (or Trill identity, which was barely touched on). It excludes Detmer's mental health. It excludes By-the-Book-Federation-Guy's feelings about the importance of following regulations. It excludes anyone's normal resentment about having a junior officer promoted over them. It excludes the intelligence of everyone in the galaxy who can't figure out in over a century what the Disco team can in a year (and no, it's not all about being able to travel fast, not across that big timeframe). It excludes any exploration of who Burnham actually is because she can't stop being heroic for long enough to have a coherent, psychologically realistic personality or arc. Because ultimately this structure backfires on the hero too, just as abuse hurts the abuser.

Now, to be clear, there have been lots of times Disco hasn't done this, especially in S1 and S2. It's done some good stuff with the Klingons. It got some interesting nuance out of Tyler. Burnham's Vulcanness was initially interesting. Spock was a good character (though he ain't my Spock). Pike was a win. Both Georgious have been good. My complaints about Saru are minor. I love Disco's Amanda and its Sarek is good. Stamets and Tilly are both good characters when they're not being pushed around plotlines. It is by no means an all-bad show for me, even in S3.

But overall it leaves me… angry, and this why: it dehumanizes people—it dehumanizes me—and expects me to applaud because it represents us.

Comments

[lilacsigil]

Discovery just doesn't read like that to me (except for the part about praising people for the role they're in rather than their achievements, that's always been a bit off, and very much so with Tilly this season). I like Michael very much - she defines herself by being heroic and is actually a really bad team player and bad commander. Stamets and Culber with Adira felt very much like a generational queer adoption to me - two older queer people feeling responsible for and looking after a much younger one is very much a thing that happens in queer community. And I didn't feel her announcement was dramatic at all, just "this is who I am". I do wish they followed up more on Detmer, but that's always been a Trek problem. It feels like it focuses a lot of people who don't usually get focus, and while I would like it to extend to everyone, it doesn't always, and again, that's a common Trek problem (in particular in TOS and avoided best in DS9).

[labingi]

Warning: Ranting follows...

I like Michael very much - she defines herself by being heroic and is actually a really bad team player and bad commander.

I agree this is the overall orientation of her character, and if this were actually explored, it could make a compelling character (akin perhaps to Starbuck in BSG). But, for my taste, it's not explored. There's the occasional finger wag about how she went off half-cocked, generally fizzling into her being praised by the end of the episode for saving the day by going off half-cocked. In fact, this is pretty much the exact conversation where Vance(?) says, "You defied orders but you it worked, so I'm making you captain." There are no consequences. There are no layers. There's just adulation. Maybe that's a problem with the world around Michael more than Michael herself. Maybe she comes off as akin to a smug "spoiled brat" to me because the world around her is always "spoiling" her, never calling her on her BS, not really. (I had this response to Theseus in The King Must Die: character with potential surrounded by sycophants = very annoying character.)

Stamets and Culber with Adira felt very much like a generational queer adoption to me - two older queer people feeling responsible for and looking after a much younger one is very much a thing that happens in queer community.

I agree, and that's actually a separate peeve for me (more ranting, sorry). Discovery won't do science fiction with its queer characters. Pretty much 100% of their plots boil down to "depict the best-practice queer community norms of whatever year the episode was written in." There's no speculation, no exploration, no cultural evolution, no "23rd century." It'll look dated in five years. And as a reader and writer of social science fiction, I find the lack of imagination, the ethnocentrism really galling.

I also agree TOS and others have done a poor job fleshing out their minor characters, arguably a lot more than Disco. I've actually pondered quite a bit why Detmer, for example, bugs me more than Sulu. I think it's mostly bias, honestly: nostalgia goggles, handicap points for 1960s sci-fi, and a bit of "get off my lawn" at late-Millennial, Gen Z social norms of behavior.

[labingi]

One more small bit of Disco complaining, sorry...

And I didn't feel her [Adira's] announcement was dramatic at all, just "this is who I am".

In The Lost Language of Cranes (c. 1985), there is this scene where the gay son comes out to his parents and he says in a calm voice (I think I have this quote right): "I'm gay. I'm gay. And it's not just a question of homosexuality; it's a question of secrets."

That's not "dramatic" either. He's calm, collected; it's brief, to the point. But it sounds really dated today. (I know these conversations still happen, but it would feel odd to have Stamets say it, for example. Like, why do you have to explain this this way?)

That's Adira. Their tone of voice is calm, etc. The scene is calm. But the situation suggests that being non-binary is this weird, shameful thing no one understands that requires awkward coming out declarations. Is that really how the writers want to depict Earth society in 3100 CE or whatever? Because if it is, fine: let's explore why Earth has it in for non-binary people and has swung back to being gender binary. But there is no such exploration. There's no worldbuilding. There's no narrative about what non-binary identity might be in the future. And that's a huge failure or imagination and, I'd argue, responsibility to the project of Star Trek, which is looking to the future.

[EDIT: I just wanted to add, fair point that "dramatic" was not the best word.]

[lillibet]

I thought Detmer's situation was actually remarkably worked-out over multiple episodes. She had a traumatic experience. She tried to bottle it up, pretend she was ok, and refuse offers of help and support. She had a very public outburst that made her confront her problems. She reached out for help and accepted the support of her best friend, possibly in ways that open the door to that relationship growing into more. She met a new challenge in a way that was cathartic. She faced another challenge that she could not surmount, but didn't let that tear her apart again. She worked with a team to meet a challenge entirely beyond her and supported her friend/partner in being the one to save the day instead. That seems like consistent focus on her and her issues in a way that I found unusual in Trek writing, if ellided and short-cut compared with the real world. I wonder what would have made it more satisfying for you.

[labingi]

My partner observed that he thought that was the narrative they were going for, and I agree. What would have made it more satisfying for me is if it had been treated more realistically. Her initial problems with processing, especially in sci-fi frame of reference, felt more like alien intervention or a time-travel illness than trauma. It seemed pretty extreme and disconnected from the rest of the story, and no one seemed to notice how extreme it was, which was odd. Ditto her outburst at Stamets. That felt completely unhinged; it almost felt psychotic. Yet it was treated like, "Wow! That was rude!" Then, she had a hug with Culber and everything was fine. Yes, there was talk about how it was good to reach out and get help, and presumably the help happened behind the scenes. But that's part of the problem: as a psychological exploration, 95% of the story happened off-screen.

For comparison, I just rewatched the pilot of DS9, and I love DS9, but the pilot had its ups and downs. One of the downs, for me, was Sisko's trauma over losing Jennifer, though it definitely got more depth than Detmer's (Sisko is the protagonist). But his whole relationship with Jennifer was constructed as a series of meet-cute, date-cute, baby-cute, death-sad. She was cardboard, which meant his responses to her were cardboard (poor Brooks did not know what to do with all that), and it felt like a plot being rammed home rather than an exploration of the human psyche. (My armchair suggestion for DS9 would be, if you're going to do it, take at least half of season 1 to do it, not 15-ish minutes of one episode). (See I can complain about things beside Disco.) For the record, Kira and Odo are awesome from moment one.

My suggestion for Detmer would be if it's not something the series actually wants to explore, don't do it. If you're going to do it, make it a major part of the season.

Examples of writing trauma well, for me, include Buffy's coming back from the dead or loss of her mom; Hawkeye's trauma near the end of MASH). But, of course, they are protagonists and get a lot of screen time. For another example, see every moment of Kira's behavior in the pilot, which screams coping with lifelong trauma: the anger, the cynicism, the forcefulness, the distrust, the willingness to take big risks. Another good ST example is Picard's response to being Borgified, something he's still very much dealing with as late as ST: Picard.

[lilacsigil]

Yes, I did think it was fairly well done for Trek writing, but what I found unsatisfying was that they did a lot with the buildup and then had a very, very quick resolution - I would have liked the resolution to be equal to the buildup.

Also I ship Owo/Detmer so obviously I want to see more of them.

[labingi]

I can imagine Owo/Detmer being a cute couple. :)

[egret]

It definitely feels like they are rushing the stories. Trek seasons were usually longer than 13 episodes. I agree that their handling of “who gets to be captain” is illogical and internally incoherent. I don’t understand what we’re going to do in this far far future. But I live with it because I’m happy there’s new Trek, and I like Discovery more than Picard or the nearly unwatchable Lower Decks. I’m looking forward to the Pike show.

[labingi]

Interesting. I quite liked Picard, despite its plotting problems. I also can't abide Lower Decks, but I put this down to me rather than the show. The show seems to me well written, with lots of really loving callbacks to earlier Trek. It's just aimed at Gen Z teens, and is depicting Gen Z teens with hyper-fast "cutsie" speech doing teen things while being in Starfleet. I think it hits its target audience really well. I'm just not its target, and I gave up on watching it for my own sanity after ep. 1. (My family likes it though, so I hear it in the background.)

I've stuck with Disco partly because the family watches that too (though my son seems to have given up recently). And because I like ST. And sometimes I like Disco. I'm kind of on the fence about whether it would be healthy for me to watch S4.

[egret]

Yes, it is the voices that drive me mad - they are always shrieking. Puts my teeth on edge and I end up turning it off. It is probably true that I am not its target audience either.

[vilakins]

The idea that By-the-Book-Federation Guy thinks Loose-Canon Burnham should be captain—unbelievable.

Absolutely. Burnham is the worst choice for a captain. If they're writing Saru out, then Tilly would be next best despite her inexperience as at least she's done command training. Vance (or Tilly) should have given Burnham some sort of special ops role where she could go rogue without endangering the crew. She's a Kirk, and I much preferred Picard.

[labingi]

Burnham would do better as special ops, yes. I'd go further than you and say she's a Kelvin Kirk, and I find her annoying for many of the same reasons I find him annoying: continual reward for not respecting the chain of command, for one thing.

Prime Kirk, I think, gets a bad rap in pop culture. I mean, he definitely has his moments of sheer, scenery-chewing idiocy. (We just rewatched "Requiem for Methuselah": oh God!) But he also has a lot of episodes of being very plausibly a very good captain (ex. recently rewatched "Balance of Terro," "The Menagerie"). And I think he's aided by being in an episodic format, so the bad episodes don't accumulate into a bad plot arcs you can't get out of.

[lillibet]

I'm among those who found Wonder Woman: 1984 pretty bad. This article from a friend, while disagreeing with my conclusion, still manages to lay out the reasons why I found it annoying.

[labingi]

That's a really good article. I resonated with a lot of it, but here's one thing:

This difference comes out of whether you want to see this film’s story or whether you want to see a Wonder Woman superhero movie. It’s strange that the movie has a really good idea what to do with Lord and his path, some idea what to do with Minerva’s, and almost no idea what it wants to do with Prince’s.

That may be it. I don't really care about seeing a Wonder Woman move. Hence, it worked for me.