Fans of Star Trek: Picard extoll the virtues of its third and final season largely because of the return of so many beloved legacy characters. Yet, any nearly 60-year-old storytelling universe needs to add new characters and stories if it is to keep going. Thus, Picard Season 3 gave Star Trek fans Captain Liam Shaw, one of the franchise’s best fictional characters that smashed harmful tropes about war veterans living with trauma. Shaw is played by Todd Stashwick and continues the Star Trek legacy of positive representation through its stories.When Gene Roddenberry pitched his “Wagon Train to the stars…” series to Desilu studios in 1964, he had an ulterior motive. The Great Bird of the Galaxy realized the power television had to advance social morality and political understanding. At the time, network censors prevented him from doing so on his first show, The Lieutenant, so he realized Star Trek would allow him to couch these messages in science fictional allegory. Shaw is a white, cis-gendered and (presumably) straight man. However, he was shaped by the Borg attack at Wolf 359 in Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Season 3 and 4 two-part episode, “The Best of Both Worlds.” He was clearly traumatized by it, suffering from survivor’s guilt and, possibly post-traumatic stress disorder. Yet, Captain Shaw is very different from other fictional veterans with similar experiences.Prestige TV dramas and comedies are often extolled guilty of this shortsighted depiction. From early seasons of Showtime’s Homeland to Bill Hader’s Barry, the “broken” veteran is driven to violence instead of being haunted by it. Classic films like Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter also present characters so damaged and haunted by their war experiences they are either presented as self-destructive or as actual villains. This continued into the era of the “War on Terror,” such as the 2009 film Brothers that turns the story of a veteran suffering from PTSD into a murder thriller. Such stories turn veterans’ suffering into harmful entertainment.
Fans of Star Trek: Picard extoll the virtues of its third and final season largely because of the return of so many beloved legacy characters. Yet, any nearly 60-year-old storytelling universe needs to add new characters and stories if it is to keep going. Thus, Picard Season 3 gave Star Trek fans Captain Liam Shaw, one of the franchise’s best fictional characters that smashed harmful tropes about war veterans living with trauma. Shaw is played by Todd Stashwick and continues the Star Trek legacy of positive representation through its stories.
When Gene Roddenberry pitched his “Wagon Train to the stars…” series to Desilu studios in 1964, he had an ulterior motive. The Great Bird of the Galaxy realized the power television had to advance social morality and political understanding. At the time, network censors prevented him from doing so on his first show, The Lieutenant, so he realized Star Trek would allow him to couch these messages in science fictional allegory. Shaw is a white, cis-gendered and (presumably) straight man. However, he was shaped by the Borg attack at Wolf 359 in Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s Season 3 and 4 two-part episode, “The Best of Both Worlds.” He was clearly traumatized by it, suffering from survivor’s guilt and, possibly post-traumatic stress disorder. Yet, Captain Shaw is very different from other fictional veterans with similar experiences.
Prestige TV dramas and comedies are often extolled guilty of this shortsighted depiction. From early seasons of Showtime’s Homeland to Bill Hader’s Barry, the “broken” veteran is driven to violence instead of being haunted by it. Classic films like Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter also present characters so damaged and haunted by their war experiences they are either presented as self-destructive or as actual villains. This continued into the era of the “War on Terror,” such as the 2009 film Brothers that turns the story of a veteran suffering from PTSD into a murder thriller. Such stories turn veterans’ suffering into harmful entertainment.
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