Mitch Wagner (@mitch.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy)

People don't give Gene L. Coon and D.C. Fontana enough credit for Star Trek: https://mitchwagner.com/2026/02/12/people-dont-give-gene-l.html “STAR TREK is explicitly about colonizing “the final frontier” and about defending the borders, however defined, of an interstellar colonial power.”

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People don't give Gene L. Coon and D.C. Fontana enough credit for Star Trek > When attempting to critique the values of a long-running franchise like STAR TREK, it’s important to draw a distinction between _superficial_ issues and _structural_ ones. > > “Superficial” in this sense doesn’t mean “minor” or “unimportant”; it simply means that an issue is not so intrinsic to the premise that the franchise would collapse (or would be radically different) were it changed or removed. For example, misogyny has been a been pervasive problem across many generations of STAR TREK media, which have often been characterized by a particular type of leering-creep sexism that was distasteful at the time and has not improved with age. However, sexism and misogyny are not _structural_ elements of the TREK premise; one can do a STAR TREK story where the female characters have agency and even pants without it becoming something fundamentally different from other TREK iterations (even TOS, although there are certainly specific TOS episodes that would collapse if you excised the sexism). > > By contrast, the colonialism and imperialism _are_ structural elements — STAR TREK is explicitly about colonizing “the final frontier” and about defending the borders, however defined, of an interstellar colonial power. Also: > People don’t give Gene L. Coon enough credit for interrogating the Federation. I know it’s gotten better in recent years and fandom seem to be more willing, on the whole, to credit him and the equally fantastic D. C. Fontana with - quite frankly - doing much more than Roddenberry ever did during TOS’ original run, but it’s still not enough. Interesting, enjoyable and thought-provoking. Read more: larasramblings.tumblr.com https://mitchwagner.com/2026/02/12/people-dont-give-gene-l.html