So how awful is Gene Roddenberry?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

It's hard for me to speak of a man that I have not met as of yet.

[Yukaphile]

Godwin's Law much? But no, my grandfather was way more progressive than he was. Don't give me that tired "well, it was fair for its day" crap. Because there existed people back then who saw how much bullshit that was, otherwise we'd have never gotten the Feminist movement to where they actually changed perception enough to acknowledge how bad some of these old-fashioned things are. Honestly, though, I can relate in one way, given that the US and other Western (and Eastern) powers were so overwhelmingly patriarchal in those times that it's a miracle most men weren't one step away from date rape and stuff. That was the very rape culture Feminists rail against today. And they proved it. It's also why I'm inclined to cut a lot of slack to women back then even though assholes today like to judge them, even if they're not committing crimes, as though we can treat them the same way with a modern perspective. Shit, Wonder Woman. She was pretty amazing in her comics, I hear, even in the 1940s, but put her on the JSA, and she became a goddamn secretary... seriously.

And technobabbler, that's another reason I'm inclined to shit all over Roddenberry. Not only was he rampantly misogynistic and only saw women as booty, but he didn't even contribute that much to Trek's overall progressive ethos. That came from the minds of other people like Gene Coon and DC Fontana. The man, when he tried his own original work, just from what I've read and watched with Chuck's reviews, was derivative of other people's works. TMP? 2001: A Space Odyssey. Early TNG? TOS. And then there's the way "Balance of Terror" was taking inspiration from that old sub... movie or was it a book? Been a while since I watched Chuck's reviews. Point being, I don't credit him for Star Trek's progressive message and for only contributing the kind of misogyny that plagued the franchise for so long that a tiny minority of fans cling to that in the stereotypical way people think Trekkies are. He doesn't deserve so much praise and doesn't deserve to be cut slack because of the "fair for its day" tripe.

[Makeshift Python]

You sometimes go over the top Yuka.

[Yukaphile]

Because if there's one universal constant, it's that other people on the Internet repeatedly restore my lack of faith in humanity.

[Makeshift Python]

[Madner Kami]

Because if there's one universal constant, it's that other people on the Internet repeatedly restore my lack of faith in humanity.

Because? Yuka, you are focusing on one detail, think and write yourself into a rage about the subject and then are completely surprised if people see more nuance or percieve and judge a given situation differently than you do.

Was Gene Roddenberry not the best human being alive? Yup, he had flaws. He cheated on his wife, fleeced money out of people and had an overblown ego. At the same time he had to run a show on a shoe-string budget and has shown a behaviour that isn't exactly out of the ordinary. If you think peple cheating on their spouses is something that rarely happens, then... well... I'm sorry, but you haven't been paying attention or only had limited social contact outside your home. Proverbially speaking, everybody does it. Everybody has always done it. Everybody is always going to do that. I remember a study made in the UK that showed that 1 out of 50 babies isn't actually from the father that the mother named. Now that doesn't excuse the behaviour or make it alright, if the pair agreed on a monogamous relationship, but it's a simple fact of life and certainly nothing to move someone near a Hitler on a scale of the "Worst human beings" to ever have existed.

[Yukaphile]

It's honestly other people's reactions to his behavior that probably get me the most upset. People cite him as the creator of all that is good within Trek, when he barely did anything. Those working on TOS blamed his objectifying of women on his bad divorce with his wife, when she wasn't at fault and it was his own inherent personality, another form of victim-blaming. And that he stole money from people, as you said. If people weren't to this day so insistent on acting as if he had a hand in the high-water successes of the franchise, and praise him as a progressive saint like some of the champions of the movement that people love who are (mostly) virtuous people, then I wouldn't get so mad.

[Makeshift Python]

He created Trek. That's indisputable. Many other writers have added a lot to what he established, but in the end it's all because of his creation and he deserves that much praise. It's no different than George Lucas having his own idea of Star Wars and taking in ideas and suggestions from many creative peers in order to bring it to life.

[Yukaphile]

Lucas was a humble and kind man. Gene is not.

[Makeshift Python]

My point is that he created Trek, and you seem to want to discredit him by saying "he barely did anything". And for what? Because he might have been Don Draper in real life?