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Re: CHAT: Star Wars and its conlangs

From:Andrew Smith <hobbit@...>
Date:Monday, May 24, 1999, 22:18
On Mon, 24 May 1999, Brian Betty wrote:

> I mean, when was the last time you saw black people and white people as > main characters on the same show when that show wasn't Star Trek, Sliders, > or some other scifi set in the future? All sitcoms are racially segregated, > and it makes me sick. There is more racial diversity in the original Star > Trek crew than there is on all of non-scifi television today all added up. > And that is *sad.* >
Other nations do marginally better in making programmes where protagonists don't need to be racially segregated. One genre which is overlooked, not without reason, are soaps. I'm not thinking of the glamorous American soaps from Planet Spelling, but soaps which are made to reflect the social realities of other nations. New Zealand's own soap, Shortland Street, set in a hospital, includes Pakeha (European-descended NZers), Maori, Pacific Islanders, and Asians. This still doesn't stop it from being a comedy show cast by Martians with NZ accents in my opinion, they can't be human! Even can't-act, won't-act beautiful people can be used to challenge racial bigotry. There are one or two American shows that I enjoy which are not racially segregated, I'm thinking of ER. I would like to do a culturally pluralist conlang one day, a sort of reaction to ethnic cleansing. - andrew. Andrew Smith, Intheologus hobbit@earthlight.co.nz "Orcs eat Hummers." - Old Orc Saying.