This point was raised on another forum, and I wonder what you guys think:
Discovery is, within a modern American context, a reasonably diverse cast. You have a seemingly straight, seemingly white captain, an alien first officer, a science officer who is gay and in what we would consider an "interracial relationship" today, a half-desi chief of security (who replaced a full desi one who was killed), a black woman, and a white woman who is arguably not neurotypical.
However, there is one way in which Discovery is not diverse at all. All of the human characters appear to be American, either explicitly or judging by their accents. The decision to have the two British main cast members not use their natural accents and play as Americans (explicitly in the case of Ash Tyler, since he's from Seattle) is in particular rather odd.
The other Trek shows at least made an attempt to be a bit international in their depictions of Earth:
TOS had a Scotsman and a Russian. Uhura's descent was never made clear, but since she spoke Swahili, presumably she was either from Africa or her parents were.
TNG had Picard (canonically French, but British in his presentation), and Geordi (theoretically Somalian). Worf was raised by Russian parents, and while Troi's father's heritage was never made clear, they didn't make Marina Sirtis hide her accent. Yar came from an off-world Human colony with its own unique culture as well.
In DS9, The Sisko family were the only human main characters who came from the United States. O'Brien was of course Irish and married to a woman from Japan. Bashir's place of origin was never made clear, but he and his father had English accents.
Voyager was more homogenized in terms of the acting cast, but the origins of the characters were diverse. Torres and Chakotay were both born on offworld colonies, with the latter clearly not growing up in the homogenized, pseudo-American culture of the Federation.
Enterprise had Malcolm Reed (English) and Hoshi Sato (Japanese, theoretically). Mayweather was theoretically interesting given he was not only born offworld, but on a ship as part of a cargo freight-carrying subculture, but little was ever done with it.
Regardless, the point is that in every single previous Trek show, there was at least a character or two who was explicitly not American, plus a few more who may have presented as such, but at least had a backstory linking the to another part of the Earth or an off-world colony. Why in this particular case did the showrunners decide to go with an "All American" set of characters - to the point of even making the two Brits mask their native accents?
Discovery is, within a modern American context, a reasonably diverse cast. You have a seemingly straight, seemingly white captain, an alien first officer, a science officer who is gay and in what we would consider an "interracial relationship" today, a half-desi chief of security (who replaced a full desi one who was killed), a black woman, and a white woman who is arguably not neurotypical.
However, there is one way in which Discovery is not diverse at all. All of the human characters appear to be American, either explicitly or judging by their accents. The decision to have the two British main cast members not use their natural accents and play as Americans (explicitly in the case of Ash Tyler, since he's from Seattle) is in particular rather odd.
The other Trek shows at least made an attempt to be a bit international in their depictions of Earth:
TOS had a Scotsman and a Russian. Uhura's descent was never made clear, but since she spoke Swahili, presumably she was either from Africa or her parents were.
TNG had Picard (canonically French, but British in his presentation), and Geordi (theoretically Somalian). Worf was raised by Russian parents, and while Troi's father's heritage was never made clear, they didn't make Marina Sirtis hide her accent. Yar came from an off-world Human colony with its own unique culture as well.
In DS9, The Sisko family were the only human main characters who came from the United States. O'Brien was of course Irish and married to a woman from Japan. Bashir's place of origin was never made clear, but he and his father had English accents.
Voyager was more homogenized in terms of the acting cast, but the origins of the characters were diverse. Torres and Chakotay were both born on offworld colonies, with the latter clearly not growing up in the homogenized, pseudo-American culture of the Federation.
Enterprise had Malcolm Reed (English) and Hoshi Sato (Japanese, theoretically). Mayweather was theoretically interesting given he was not only born offworld, but on a ship as part of a cargo freight-carrying subculture, but little was ever done with it.
Regardless, the point is that in every single previous Trek show, there was at least a character or two who was explicitly not American, plus a few more who may have presented as such, but at least had a backstory linking the to another part of the Earth or an off-world colony. Why in this particular case did the showrunners decide to go with an "All American" set of characters - to the point of even making the two Brits mask their native accents?
Last edited:
