posted
Would I be correct in saying that only regular or semiregular characters are allowed to have accents? It seems that most other humans have American accents, unless accent is specifically called for, as in Worf's parents. I can't recall other minor nonrecurring or background humans (like crewman) with any kind of non-American accent.
This suggests a) that my memory (as usual, I'm old) is faulty, b) American English is the only language spoken by humans in the Federation, c) everyone learns American English at an early age, as well as their native tongues, so that they have no discernible "foreign" accent to their American English.
posted
The American accents aren't especially strong at any rate. While they're not quite "Mid-Atlantic American" (as Frasier's accent is, for example), they're hardly the sort of thing Jeff would furnish us with from the dialectizer.
Bashir's dad definetly had a cockney accent, although it was quite mild. His mum had an Indian-type accent (sorry, I can't be more specific) as well I think.
As an aside, the main reason we had so many black Klingons in TNG (and the reason why a black man was chosen in the first place) was to make make-up easier. White people have to have their faces coloured, whereas black people don't, no doubt saving a million hours a year in make-up salarys.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
posted
"As an aside, the main reason we had so many black Klingons in TNG (and the reason why a black man was chosen in the first place) was to make make-up easier. White people have to have their faces coloured, whereas black people don't, no doubt saving a million hours a year in make-up salarys."
If you're being serious, I don't think what you're suggesting is true. I'm sure all the face skin of any actor is covered with make-up regardless of whether they have facial appliances.
posted
Well, speaking as probably the only white person here who's been made up as a black person, and specifically a Klingon, believe me I can imagine how they've got enough problems without giving them a much-darker complaxion as well. . .
posted
I wonder about the decision to make "black Klingons." Before Worf, Klingons could be light-skinned or olive-skinned (explain that one!), but I don't think they were ever as dark as Worf. In the movies before TNG Klingons were fairly light IIRC (like Christopher Lloyd and Christopher Plummer). On early TNG, most of the Klingons were fairly light, too, and played by white actors (I'm thinking of that episode with the sleeper ship Klingons). Then, the Klingons seemed to get darker (maybe starting with Kurn?), such that dark-skinned Klingons played by blacks seem to be at least half of all Klingons. At least that's my impression from a limited viewing of DS9 and Enterprise (1 episode).
Does anyone remember any comments at the time when the Klingon "color line" was broken? Or did everyone seem to accept it pretty well. There seemed more resistance to the idea of a black Vulcan (Tuvok).
-------------------- When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
posted
Well, even the more light-skinned Klingons were darker than your average white person, particularly Kang, and Kor to a lesser extent. (Koloth is a glaring exception.) Since the nose appliances and straight-haired wigs and beards tend to hide the slight physiological differences between blacks and whites, it was only a relatively minor difference in coloration, so I can't imaging many people noticing.
With Tuvok, though, the differences between black and white weren't hidden. Most noticeably, all Vulcans before and after had straight or moderately curly hair, even Tuvok's black wife, but he had tightly curled hair.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying that there shouldn't be black Vulcans, merely that there was a more unexpected change of appearance there than with black Klingons. In fact, I can't think of any good reason for there not to be analogues of every human racial group on other planets. While we're now pretty genetically mixed and there are no "true" races, the differences of appearance were initially selected for environmental and reproductive reasons... and if an alien planet is as environmentally diverse as Earth, there can be just as much physical diversity.
posted
Racial differences are responses to local differences in environment. Racial differences appear and are maintained by lack of intermating or limited intermating between these local populations. However, if there is complete intermating between all populations, racial differences should, in theory, eventually disappear if environmental selection no longer occurs. To make a crude analogy, if you take a bunch of purebreed dogs of different breeds (ie, races) and set them loose on an island, after a few generations, they'll end up looking the same. Earth, of course, still has numerous cultural, racial, geographic, and economic divisions and does not yet have a single universal interbreeding society, so racial differences persist. But, if a planet has a very long history of a single universal culture, everyone might end up looking the same. How long this takes, who knows?
Registered: Oct 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
"As an aside, the main reason we had so many black Klingons in TNG (and the reason why a black man was chosen in the first place) was to make make-up easier."
'If you're being serious, I don't think what you're suggesting is true. I'm sure all the face skin of any actor is covered with make-up regardless of whether they have facial appliances.'
Why wouldn't I be serious? And it is true. I think it says in the Next Generation Compendium. Besides, the white/olive Klingons have to have every visible part of their body coloured, whereas Dorn doesn't. Besides, there's a world of difference between applying the base make-up that every actor would have, and putting on skin colour changing make-up. Brent Spiner's hour (at least) in make-up wasn't just them putting in his contact lenses.
And it's possible it was accepted more because it wasn't made a big deal. Or rather, the thing that was made a big deal was the fact that there was a friendly Klingon, not that there was a black Klingon.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
posted
As to the black Vulcans, I would think that if there is one black vulcan they all should have been black or close to black. They come from a planet where ultra violet radiation is a lot higher than on earth, therefore if one group of them used darkened pigment to counteract this then because of the increased uv then most of them should have been dark. A very high percentage of humans are dark and we have a lower concentration uv. At least it would seem that pastey white like Spock would have been abnormal. Paul
-------------------- "and none of your usual boobery." M. Burns
Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by Grokca: As to the black Vulcans, I would think that if there is one black vulcan they all should have been black or close to black. They come from a planet where ultra violet radiation is a lot higher than on earth, therefore if one group of them used darkened pigment to counteract this then because of the increased uv then most of them should have been dark.
The flaw in your reasoning is the idea that black Vulcans are dark to counteract the normal UV radiation on the planet. Perhaps, as it true on Earth, there are regions with varying levels of radiation.
posted
"That's true, but it's still mighty coincidental that the racially-mixed unified appearance of every alien species looks like a white human."
Right, that's what we've been saying. It's pretty fishy that most aliens either are all played by caucasians or mirror exactly the racial make-up of the United States (without Hispanics or Asians). I find it unlikely that on every single planet a light-skinned race became the dominant racial type. Maybe it's Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development, which would seem to be a godsend for white supremicists throughout the Galaxy.
Dark skin is the adaptation to UV radiation on Earth, but other adaptations may have evolved on other planets, such as hair, mineral deposits in the skin, tougher DNA, etc.
PsyLiam: I'm not going to say anything more about black Klingons, as I don't know that much about make-up. But is is true that they specifically sought to cast a black as Worf because of make-up concerns? With Starfleet Uniforms you only have to cover the head and hands.
-------------------- When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
Topic Closed
Printer-friendly view of this topic