I'm pretty sure the word "Chakotay" means: generic stereotype that is just barely not overtly racist.
Chakotay
- Thread starter JeffinOakland
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I'm pretty sure the word "Chakotay" means they were too lazy to come up with an original name, and just did a variation on a name already used:
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Chekote
Just like the name Janeway also first showed up on TNG.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Chekote
Just like the name Janeway also first showed up on TNG.
I can agree that the similarity between Chakotay and Chekoté is a bit annoying.
But they always did seem to have problems coming up with names. There are a lot of similarities in the names of planets, species and characters.
Not to mention how they screwed up the Native American space settlements. How many Native American settlements were they actually? We had Mintaka in TOS, Dorvan in TNG and Trebus (Chakotay's homeworld) in Voyager. Just like it was some trend among Native Americans in the 22th and 23th century to leave Earth and find planets in space to settle on. I thought that the Star Trek earth in some ways had settled all old conflicts and all opression so why did they leave?
As for Chakotay's homeworld, obviously Dorvan was supposed to be Chakotay's homeworld but in some way they managed to screw it up.
As for Chakotay himself, despite how they managed to screw up his background (they were to lazy to bother to come up with a real tribe for him, instead creating some Hollywood fake rubbish), he was a great character with enormous potential and Beltran actually did a good job in portraying him, considering the somewhat sloppy writing for the character.
Definitely one of my Star Trek favorite characters!
But they always did seem to have problems coming up with names. There are a lot of similarities in the names of planets, species and characters.
Not to mention how they screwed up the Native American space settlements. How many Native American settlements were they actually? We had Mintaka in TOS, Dorvan in TNG and Trebus (Chakotay's homeworld) in Voyager. Just like it was some trend among Native Americans in the 22th and 23th century to leave Earth and find planets in space to settle on. I thought that the Star Trek earth in some ways had settled all old conflicts and all opression so why did they leave?
As for Chakotay's homeworld, obviously Dorvan was supposed to be Chakotay's homeworld but in some way they managed to screw it up.
As for Chakotay himself, despite how they managed to screw up his background (they were to lazy to bother to come up with a real tribe for him, instead creating some Hollywood fake rubbish), he was a great character with enormous potential and Beltran actually did a good job in portraying him, considering the somewhat sloppy writing for the character.
Definitely one of my Star Trek favorite characters!
The same sort of problem showed up in ENT: Fallen Hero. We'd already met the Andorian Shran in episodes, but here we see a Vulcan ship called the Sh'Raan. Sh'Raan. How lazy at inspiration can you get?
Voyager had a villain named Valen (A Minbari not born of MInbari!) in The Void.
That's proof that Voyager's Writer's Room were all living in a fishbowl, or complete bastards.
That's proof that Voyager's Writer's Room were all living in a fishbowl, or complete bastards.
For what it is worth:
CHAKOTAY: This is not a real Native American name. It is the name of a character on the science fiction show "Star Trek: Voyager." The actor who plays Chakotay is of Mayan descent, but the character is from a fictional tribe called the Anurabi and his name means something like "Man Who Walks the Earth But Who Only Sees the Sky" in that language. But of course, it's not a real Native American language. It's a Star Trek language, like Klingon.
Native Languages of the Americas website © 1998-2011
Contacts and FAQ page
CHAKOTAY: This is not a real Native American name. It is the name of a character on the science fiction show "Star Trek: Voyager." The actor who plays Chakotay is of Mayan descent, but the character is from a fictional tribe called the Anurabi and his name means something like "Man Who Walks the Earth But Who Only Sees the Sky" in that language. But of course, it's not a real Native American language. It's a Star Trek language, like Klingon.
Native Languages of the Americas website © 1998-2011
Too be fair, I can imagine how hard is must be to be creative 500+ episodes into working on the same basic premise. I think quite a lot of the meh feelings both VOY and ENT have been treated with have to do w the laziness/lack of creativity evident in broad swaths of both series. A Native American character is great. A Native American character who is a mélange of various tribes and customs seems ignorant, lazy and very nearly racist. To me, its like all Asian people are the same which is ignorant and racist.
He started as a Sioux, then a Hopi, then, finally, the BS tribe they made up for the show.
I wonder, too, if the effort to be authentic for every single character, setting, situation, would eventually cause an overload in continuity and a backlash from fans and/or organizations. If you make it up, you can have it be interesting and "authentic" (to your conformities) but not run the risk and headache of making a larger mistake.
Just to stress the point, Mayans are Native Americans too.
Wikipedia says that the scientific community is in an argument about whether North America and South America are one continent or two, but so long as Mexico stays where it is, it's still a single landmass.
Wikipedia says that the scientific community is in an argument about whether North America and South America are one continent or two, but so long as Mexico stays where it is, it's still a single landmass.
If Chakotay was Orthodox Mayan... He would Cut out the heart of a virgin (Kim or Kes?) and offer it still beating to Kinich Ahau in exchange for passage home to the Alpha Quadrant.
Well you take all his clothes off and then make dotted lines with a Sharpie marker that you can trace later with a carving knife.
I wonder what sort of "research" was done into Native American culture to inform the Chakotay character. Probably "The Lone Ranger." But I dig how keen Chak is in exploring his spirituality, though, especially. And all of that might've worked out alot better and been less objectionable to some, had he been just a regular guy, when he started off. But being cut off from home, he might have started exploring tribal customs and visions and stuff like that, on his own. Like, that's not how his community actually was at all, back home, this was just an "experiment," on his part, that he might've coloured more to his liking and emotional needs. As clumsily as this aspect of Chakotay was handled, I still like the guy, save for his taste in women ...
So you were more into Jenny Delaney?
LOOK!
Aggressive women give him a soft on!
LOOK!
Aggressive women give him a soft on!
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