Cirroc Lofton, one of the stars of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, says he's in favor of the offensive Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Code of Honor" remaining in circulation.
Even a franchise as progressive as Star Trek is still a product of the time in which it was created. One particularly egregious episode, Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s “Code of Honor,” revolved around a race of black aliens dressed in culturally insensitive tribal attire—something many audiences didn’t consider offensive in 1987.
Now as CinemaBlend reports, Deep Space Nine actor Cirroc Lofton is defending the episode from a possible Paramount+ ban. Lofton, known to Trekkies as DS9‘s Jake Sisco, is currently working his way through the entire run of Star Trek:
The Next Generation and discussing the individual episodes on his podcast, The 7th Rule, along with Star Trek veteran Denise Crosby. Crosby, who played Security Officer Tasha Yar in “Code of Honor,” also thinks the season 1 episode should remain available to stream.
“Honor” has a reputation as one of the most loathed episodes among the fanbase. A low point, even for the generally weak first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the episode introduced the Ligonians, a race of aliens played entirely by actors of color and dressed in a 1940s tribal aesthetic. Think turbans and all the wild colors and patterns a white creative team would assume Africans wear on a daily basis.
In all fairness, though the greater public consciousness may not have found the Ligonians and their stereotypical “native” garb racially insensitive in the ’80s, many cast members did denounce the episode once they saw the finished product. Commander Riker himself, Jonathan Frakes, even tried unsuccessfully to prevent the episode from being re-aired. Michael Dorn, who played Worf on Star Trek: The Next Generation, has expressed his happiness that his character doesn’t appear in “Code of Honor.”
From the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Code of Honor
Believe it or not, the episode’s now outdated and offensive treatment of its African American actors is exactly why Cirroc Lofton thinks the Star Trek episode should stay on Paramount+. Lofton mentioned how important it is for younger people to learn from history in order to grow beyond it.
Lofton believes that if offensive content like “Code of Honor” is simply hidden away and forgotten, society can no longer use it as a benchmark to look back on and see how far we’ve come. In other words, if society can’t see the progress it’s made, then there is no progress.
Lofton isn’t against pointing out the problems with “Code of Honor” however. The actor is in favor of including a disclaimer at the beginning of the Star Trek:
The Next Generation episode, much like Disney+ did with certain episodes of The Muppet Show and Max has done with its Looney Tunes content. That way, viewers can be aware of what kind of offensive material the episode contains and decide for themselves if they want to watch it.
Paramount+ has put similar disclaimers in front of shows like Jackass, and it’s worked fine for them so far. With so many bright spots in the largely positive and inclusive Star Trek franchise, it’s important to acknowledge the missteps like “Code of Honor” if for no other reason than to highlight that even Star Trek has made mistakes on the road to its multicultural utopia.
If you thought she was reprising her Legion role in the upcoming Disney+ series, you may be disappointed, but the good news is she’s playing someone even more interesting. Our trusted and proven sources tell us Aubrey Plaza is playing Death — as in the actual personification of death itself — in Agatha: Coven of Chaos. The series spins out of the events of WandaVision and is expected to stream sometime next year.
To many Marvel Comics purists, the character Aubrey Plaza is playing may seem to be a few years late to the party. In the 1991 Infinity Gauntlet miniseries — which inspired 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War —
Thanos doesn’t kill half the population of the universe to achieve balance, but to win the affection of Mistress Death. She is a mostly silent and disapproving observer to the saga’s events, and later in the 2013 prequel miniseries Thanos Rising, we learn she has been manipulating the Mad Titan for most of his life.
While, as far as we know, Josh Brolin‘s screen version of Thanos had no contact with Death — at least not the personification Aubrey Plaza will play in Agatha: Coven of Chaos — it seems likely the events of the “blip” could play a major role in her motivations.
If Death has its own personification in the MCU, then that could mean that character was overfed the moment Thanos snapped his fingers, only to be suddenly starved five years later. That’s only speculation, but you wouldn’t think such a character would be unaffected by the events of Infinity War and the 2019 follow-up Avengers: Endgame.
In Marvel’s earliest appearances of Death — often called Mistress Death — she appeared as a cloaked and hooded woman whose face was a bare, white skull. By the time of Infinity Gauntlet, she was drawn mostly the same, except the skull was replaced with the actual live head of a woman.
More recently in Thanos Rising and Thanos, she appears as a woman not completely cloaked or hooded, but garbed in mostly black, with black hair and lips, and white markings on her face.
It will be interesting to see exactly what Aubrey Plaza’s character is up to in Agatha: Coven of Chaos. Traditionally she isn’t portrayed as some kind of scheming mastermind, but rather a being of cosmic power who is beyond questions of morality. Usually when she does commit overtly evil acts, it’s to manipulate those characters she sees as her harbingers, like Thanos.
This will not be the first time Aubrey Plaza plays a powerful Marvel villain. In FX’s Legion, she plays the powerful Shadow King. In fact, news of her Agatha: Coven of Chaos casting led many fans to speculate she might reprise the role, and that it was a sign Marvel was beginning to incorporate more characters from Fox’s X-Men franchise into the MCU.
Death could turn out to be only one of the big villains Aubrey Plaza will play in the coming years. Yesterday, we learned that Plaza was the top choice to play an undisclosed villain role in next year’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
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