10 Most Inappropriate Moments In Star Trek: The Next Generation

5. The Casting In 'Code Of Honor'

Star Trek Code of Honor
Paramount

An uncultured race of backwards, horny, barbarians who kill for sport and primarily just chase women around with their dicks. They're presented as intellectually-inferior, culturally-regressive, and absolute not on the level of the enlightened Starfleet crew who they're awkwardly inflicted upon in this Season 1 episode.

For reasons that somehow managed to escape everyone working on the show back then, the decision was made to cast every single member of this race as both black and speaking with a thick African accent. Jonathan Frakes, when fondly recalling his time on set filming this, has dubbed it a "racist piece of sh*t", and if anything he's being kind.

If the Original Series of Star Trek had put this out, it would serve as an awkward reminder of just how institutionally prejudice the entertainment industry was in the 1960s but, no, this was released in 1987 on one of TV's more allegedly progressive and enlightened shows.

It's almost comical to watch back and see how blatant the racial caricatures are but, according to other members of the cast, the actors on set were treated in such an undignified way that it's no laughing matter at all.

Advertisement
In this post: 
Star Trek
 
Posted On: 
Managing Editor
Managing Editor

WhatCulture's Managing Editor and Chief Reporter | Previously seen in Vice, Esquire, FourFourTwo, Sabotage Times, Loaded, The Set Pieces, and Mundial Magazine