Roberto Orci, a writer and producer on the recent Star Trek films, is known for being outspoken and opinionated. When he says something outrageous, most of the time it's not that surprising because that's who he is. Today, though, he dropped some jaws with a racial slur when talking about Spock. Zachary Quinto as Spock in Star Trek Beyond. Image: Paramount
You see, Orci is of Mexican descent, and in his years as a huge Trek fan, he always connected to Spock, the Vulcan, on a very personal level. He related to him because they are both outsiders. This is a connection Orci has explained many times in the past, one that makes plenty of sense.
What makes less sense is his quote at Variety's #Inclusion Summit on Tuesday.
"I always thought of Mr Spock as a Latino, he's an alien, an immigrant," Orci said. "Just between us, and only I can say this, I personally used to call him Mr Spic."
Variety reports there were some audible gasps in the room. Orci continued.
"I said that not as a way to denigrate him, but as a way to get in touch with what it's like for an alien to come into what looks like a great world," Orci said. "He comes from another land. He's half human, I'm half Mexican. He has this cultural baggage that he brings in while trying to fit in as much as he can."
OK, but why then degrade the character and yourself? And if you have to do it for some reason, why do it in public where people are obviously going to take it out of context?
Orci most recently produced Star Trek Beyond, a film he was scheduled to write and direct but eventually did not.
[Variety]
Comments
Step 1: Condemn an artist for tapping into his personal experience of being outcast to identify with a fictional outcast.
Step 2: Point to the foolishness of sharing this identification, because of the danger of condemnation by stupid people.
It's fine, let the man appropriate the slur and rob it of it's racist weight, just like black people have appropriated the N word.
This is not something to be upset about.
I don't see a problem here. It's just a word, it's the intention of its use that matters, same as any other word. He was very clear that there was no racist intent and it's evident he chose that particular word for its consonance/pun value.
Thats something I say all the time. Offence should be in the intent, not the action. If it was in the action, I'd get offended every 10 minutes with the way the world works these days.
Someone calls me a propeller head, its not to be offensive, its to recognise a fact. I AM good with tech, numbers, and data manipulation. Most of the time its no different to that when someone gets offended.
They go looking for justification to feel hurt, when the reality is that no offence is intended. As someone that actually falls into about three minority groups, it annoys the hell out of me when someone goes out of their way to feel offended when it really isnt there.
I think the worst are the ones that get offended on behalf of someone else. If something offends someone personally, that's fine, but if they're getting offended on someone else's behalf they're robbing them of their ability to react for themselves. It's insulting and patronising to pretend one can decide that for someone else. I'd bet most if not all the people offended by his comment are doing this.
It's sad that sometimes the people who think they're helping minorities the most are the ones that are treating them like children, defenseless and incapable of choosing for themselves.
Quick! To the Outragemobile!
apparently PC says neither my friends or myself are not allowed to call ourselves "Wogs" as a badge of pride... apparently it degrades us... as my English side would say Feckin bollox
It is clear that neither the author of this article, nor those gasping in the room, understood the relatively simple point that Orci was making.
Political correctness is no substitute for rational thought.
Mr Spic!
LMAO
thats hilarious.
then again, i also find Russel Peters hilarious, so as a half German half Austrian Australian born 31 year old married to a half burmese half German girl. what do i care about racial jokes.
You are the future, friend.
I think that this raises the point that "racism" is a multifaceted issue. For African Americans to use the N word amongst themselves freely, but it becomes a social outrage for white people to use it is a good example. It's obvious that words change meaning depending on the context, so it's not the actual word itself that's wrong.
Political correctness thinks that that context is unimportant. This article demonstrates that political correctness is not necessarily correct.
This internet thing is a sad invention. I did not need to know how many stupid people are out there. Making a elephant from a fly.
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