Section 31 brings back the Shinites from the original series

This post contains Spoilers For “Star Trek: Section 31.”

There’s a tendency among TV and movie fans — or consumers of any kind of pop culture, really — to let past depictions off the hook by defining them as “of their time” or something that “couldn’t be made today.” It’s one of the most insidious habits we have as viewers, and it’s usually wrong. Marginalized people have been fighting for accurate representation on screen for as long as visual media has existed. ’70s-driven sitcom ‘It’s All in the Family’ It was considered network poison Before it became a huge hit, it was already a lesbian readership I was tired of sad gay love stories by the 1950sThe famous racist Disney film “Song of the South” was controversial Even before the 1946 release.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming that history was somehow more one-dimensional, obnoxious, or backwards by default than it is today, and that trap can lead us to give credit where it’s not exactly due. Case in point: When I was a young teenager, I thought “Star Trek: The Original Series” season 3’s “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,” which ties into the new “Star Trek” movie “Section 31” in an unexpected way (More About it later), she was A Really good A metaphor for racism. Sure, his visual representation of the social constructs of race—people with half-white, half-black faces fighting against people with nearly half-black faces—was a little heavy-handed, but I found Gene Roddenberry’s central message, about the power of bigotry to destroy society, important. It was definitely when you first came out, wasn’t it?

not quite. The original “Star Trek” series was endlessly groundbreaking in almost every way, including its depiction of racial diversity. It was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Nichelle Nichols is convinced not to quit the show Between seasons, after all. But despite the misguided eighth-grade epiphany that this not-so-stellar episode could change hearts and minds, “Let That Be Last Battlefield” was always considered obvious and over-the-top—if not downright offensive—by some. It came out in 1969, after all, when black Americans had already been leading the civil rights movement for years. By this point, America didn’t need a checkered face paint to know what was wrong with it. The episode also hinges on several false equivalencies running on “both sides” of conversations about racism, with the staff of the institution devoid of bigotry, apparently, considering the emancipation of slaves Lucai (Lo Antonio), a man of “extreme views” just like the old oppressor Beer. (Frank Gorshin).

The episode is, frankly, an ideological mess. The novelist J. Neil Shulman in his book “Profile in Silver” That Harlan Ellison, who coined one The best “Star Trek” episodes of all time“He hated that episode.” In John Tullock and Henry Jenkins’ 1995 book “Science Fiction Fans,” The authors list “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” as one of the TOS episodes that is “often considered among the series’ worst moments,” representative of the franchise’s “most generic elements” and “displaying its ideology in its varied forms.” Two-tone makeup for the central characters It has been compared to blackface. The racial symbol at the heart of the episode was so clumsy and imperfect that the episode’s central species, the Cherons, were never seen on screen again after 1969.

yet.

Let’s get one thing straight here: The new “Star Trek: Section 31,” the first “Star Trek” movie of the Paramount+ era, neither “solves racism” nor attempts. The brilliant, silly, fast-paced caper pulls as much inspiration from Guy Ritchie’s films, “Ocean’s Eleven,” and DC Comics as it does from Roddenberry’s honor-driven, upbeat series. There is no great metaphor here, nor any bigger picture. However, it does include the first Chiron fans have seen in over 50 years (except for a flashback background gag in “Star Trek: Lower Decks”). Their name is Virgil, and they are clearly a scene-stealing diva.

Virgil shows up around the time that viewers will begin to realize that “Section 31” is more camp than they expect, and that it has a sense of humor, tedium, and lightheartedness that hardcore “Journey” fans will either love or (perhaps more likely) hate. The character pops up in a scene early in the film, when we see what the mirror universe version of “Star Trek: Discovery” Philippa Georgiou has been in the years since the film’s introduction showed her killing her family and mutilating her love. Actor Augusto Bitter, whose previous credits include the film “White Muscle Daddy,” the horror series “Ezra,” and the short film “Chicho,” plays Virgil.

We learn nothing about Virgil in this film, and yet they still somehow manage to leave a strong impression. Their job title is never revealed, but it’s clear that they act as a kind of luminous host bar to Philippa, whose makeup and costumes in this scene reveal that we’re now meant to see her as an elegant Didi, not a tyrannical ruler. We instantly symbolize Virgil as a sort of footballing outsider—laughing when relaying the news that the bride was “quite wobbly when things came to a head” in the honeymoon suite—but also as a competent ally to Philippa with a flair for the dramatic.

Virgil is decked out in Glitter and Jewels, but it’s still clearly Cheron, a fact that’s never been addressed — and probably not a big deal at this time, and in this galaxy. It’s a refreshing contrast to the original series episode, where Deforest Kelley’s Dr. McCoy declares Cherons to be an inexplicable mutation, and dramatically says that if he had his biological abilities, he would be one of the most powerful specimens around. The implication there, of course, is that Chirons can never reach their full potential the way white and male humans can because of their surface-level physical difference.

As relatively inconsequential as the character’s existence is in the scheme of things, it’s only nice to see the Cheron native in “Section 31” freed from the confines of a fairly basic two- and two-horn metaphor. Instead, Virgil is given the gift of just being someoneare living their best lives in an uninterrupted bar and seem to be having a great time doing it. The Paramount+ “Trek” era wasn’t perfect, but it did an admirable job of rehabilitating some of the types featured in previous “Star Trek” shows that got the short end of the stick during first contact missions. The Chiron was among the most shallow. Despite their tragic, poetic TOS conclusion, viewers are told little about them — outside of their hatred of those who don’t match their appearance.

Now we know that long-forgotten species are made up of more than the sum of their conflicts, and perhaps this added layer offers a little redemption for a wonky original series episode. After all, if they can be an unconventional villain with a twisted sense of humor, the Shiron can be anything. Just, you know, not if they’re all doomed to kill each other for the sake of some painfully arranged lesson about forgiveness.

“Star Trek: Section 31” is now streaming on Paramount+.