I interviewed Michelle Yeoh a few years ago about #StarTrekDiscovery and I mentioned offhand that I'd written an article about what seeing her use her accent on the bridge of a starship meant to me.

She stopped and said "Wait, that was YOU?"

And then proceeded to talk about how much that article had meant to HER and how it contributed to the success of the show.

I can't think about it without crying.

(The original article: https://authory.com/SwapnaKrishna/On-Star-Trek-Discovery-and-Michelle-Yeohs-accent-aa6d2eb01b3a24970abf406c39146df33)

#MichelleYeoh #StarTrek #Oscars

(The site I wrote the article for took down all their pre-2019 content, so that's a personal copy of it.)

@skrishna wow that’s awesome!

I can’t help but ask … would you have preferred if the captain Georgiou character had been kept around instead of killed off?

I ask because it feels to me like a missed opportunity to have a character like that given a full tenure “in the chair”. But I don’t have your perspective.

And we could still have had the empress too as her mirror counterpart no?

@skrishna Michelle Yeoh is now the first Star Trek Captain to win an Oscar.

Her Accent included.

@skrishna omg! Yes and thank you for that article!! I never thought anyone would come close to Stewart’s Picard but she DID and then some. She was so incredible in that show. I was absolutely smitten

@skrishna
Okay... Tears in my eyes reading that piece, especially knowing her reaction. It's beautiful, and thank you for letting us readers share in that.

I'm having a hard time writing a response while trying not to co-opt an experience that is not mine. I keep deleting & trying again,

BUT in any case it's such an important thing for some of us to understand, and—considering that the written word can help us understand & feel something of someone else's experience—I greatly appreciate it.

@skrishna

Great story, worth boosting.

@skrishna

I had the same reaction when they showed Culber & Stamets getting ready to go to work. Just brushing their teeth, a normal, routine thing. Just a regular couple, doing what couples do.

@ScottSoCal YES. I'm not LGBTQIA+ but that scene, the normalcy of it, the fact that it's here in this universe without having to beg and plead for it -- it brought me to tears.

@skrishna That is AWESOME!

@skrishna that’s beautiful. Congrats. 🎉

@skrishna that is so wonderful.

@skrishna What a wonderful encounter!!!

@skrishna That's a fantastic story and original article. Thanks for sharing it (and also, what the hell, SyFyWire?).

@MJKellySmith I'm looking for it! Unfortunately, the site I did all this stuff for deleted all their pre-2019 content. I'm hoping I have a copy somewhere.

@tsalmoth Yeah I have a LOT of thoughts. And we had all of about one hour's notice, so a lot of stuff I wrote over there is just gone forever.

@skrishna Oh that's awful! I hope you can find it. Maybe the Wayback Machine has it.

@MJKellySmith Nope, unfortunately! I know I have the audio somewhere as well.

@skrishna amazing story

The interview unfortunately also doesn't exist anymore, but I found a transcript. Here's what #MichelleYeoh said to me about keeping her accent on the show.

I forgot about this: ”You know how it is. That's what we are."

I'm crying again.

#StarTrek #StarTrekDiscovery

@skrishna @LinuxAndYarn

#startrekdiscovery #michelleyeoh #startrek #oscars
Wow! Talk about an amazing experience ☺️☺️☺️ Sign me up!

@skrishna I would bloody swoon

@skrishna Interesting. To this White guy, the way Yeoh speaks on Discovery is unusual, but appealing precisely because it's unusual – TV shows tend to have a certain blandness problem. (Recall all the POC on TOS who were supposed to be from all over the world, but spoke with generic American accents.) It never occurred to me that to Asian fans, this would be a crucial bit of representation. Consider me educated.

@skrishna Ugh. Sadly, my reaction is both, "an hour? That's awful!" and "an hour? You actually got notice?" The amount of stuff lost because of crap like this is just so sad.

@tsalmoth We didn't get official notice, a person who knew a person emailed us! But I know what you mean.

@skrishna ❤️

@skrishna I LOVE this story.

@skrishna ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

@skrishna I loved your article!

@skrishna Sometimes when I'm feeling low I like to watch the Supercop outtakes in which she rides a motorcycle up a ramp and into the air and lands on top of a moving train https://youtu.be/CIAyyugbq54?t=38

@skrishna love this

@skrishna The joy of diversity is found in so many places.

@skrishna wholesome content!

@skrishna Michelle’s character is a badass women! Loved her in this roll.

@skrishna @ScottSoCal agreed - their story, with Adira too, I feel has been presented sensitively and yet with normality.

As with your original post - which has moved me incredibly too - representation matters, to all :-)

As an older white straight male growing up in the north of of England, seeing anything outside that monoculture was important and vital, I've seen what happens to people who don't let these things in...

@skrishna representation matters ❤️✊

@skrishna This means so wonderfully, tremendously much!!

@skrishna I knew I was gonna love ST:Discovery after Yeoh's interaction with Michael Burnham during the first 3m of the opening episode. If you don't know, now you know. ;)

@skrishna I honestly loved that.

I enjoyed most of Star Trek 2009, but the one thing they played as a gag that stuck out to me like a sore thumb was the computer not understanding Checkov's accent. Because my over-analyze-everything brain latched onto that and went "Oh... I guess that means either Russian accent is super-rare in the future or we never cracked the nut of making voice recognition accent-agnostic. That's... Kind of sad."

And I know they didn't intend it that way, but it's Star Trek. Shit means things.

@skrishna @marthawells I am just surprised you were able to remember anything after meeting her. My brain would have turned into a warm, happy fog.

@skrishna My dad used to make fun of Chekov’s bad Russian accent, but I think he was secretly proud of the Slavic representation. He was a machinist at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and the “nuclear wessels” line became a family joke.

Dear @skrishna What strikes me about the article (and this post) is the emotional integrity of your voice and the positivity of your tone. One of the things I like about the best sci fi these days is the widely diverse human beings that populate the alternative worlds that are imagined. This alone makes for much richer story-telling opportunities.
Best wishes,
ESM

@skrishna You saved Discovery!!!

@skrishna

YES! HA HA GREAT!

@skrishna

That's amazing!!! 💙 💙 💙

I'm grateful to you too!

@skrishna what a wonderful moment for both of you!

@skrishna

I'm firmly of the belief that Michelle Yeoh made ST Discovery what it was and her leaving was definitely the beginning of the end for me.
I still love the show, but it is much much less without her.

@skrishna Lovely piece!

@skrishna WOW…. Ehem… that kinda gets you in the… 😢🥰

@skrishna Wow, lots of people must be trying to get to authory to read this story. Archive.org has a copy now: https://web.archive.org/web/20230313184041/https://authory.com/SwapnaKrishna/On-Star-Trek-Discovery-and-Michelle-Yeohs-accent-aa6d2eb01b3a24970abf406c39146df33

@kctipton oh WOW, that’s impressive

@skrishna
Great article, other than "the bland tones of someone raised in the Midwest." The Midwestern accent is sexy and powerful, but like everything we do here in the Great Middle, it's subtly sexy and powerful. It says that you can push someone out of a drift, make a mean mac and cheese, and quote Leopold.

@skrishna ❤️😭❤️😭❤️😭

@skrishna

"(The site I wrote the article for took down all their pre-2019 content, so that's a personal copy of it.)"

Sci-Fi.com (Ok, ok, SyFy) shouldn't have done that. That wipes out literal decades of previous articles. Articles about Stargate, FarScape, Mystery Science Theater 3000, etc. How INCREDIBLY myopic.

@skrishna She is a big part of the #startrek resurgence that’s for sure!

@skrishna You should be proud. Accents are to be appreciated and never hidden. A very heartfelt post. I'll be seeking out to watch the series now.

@skrishna She was AMAZING in that show!!

@skrishna
Wow, what a compliment!

@skrishna Some people are just real!

@skrishna I loved her accent from the first moment, because it sounded authentic and like *her* — and for me to like it, it didn't even need to be similar to my own(*) accent. But I get how it touched you, and I applaud that, too.

(*) I always cringe when I hear people speak English with a German accent, maybe because we were always taught how bad that was

>>

Ok y'all, a few things:

(1) That article is from freaking 2017. There is zero point in critiquing it now. All you're going to do is get muted.

(2) If I knew it was going to go viral multiple times, and be read by an audience other than Asian American kids, I would have written it very differently. Please keep in mind that it was written FOR Asian American children of immigrants before anyone else.

Michelle Yeoh shared it on her Facebook page back when it first came out. Trust me, I have seen every critique of it, many of them are valid. But this was also a piece written in 30 minutes when I was very emotional and…just let it be, ok?

@skrishna Nice article! I'm happy Strange New Worlds has continued the trend of leaving in authentic accents, particularly with Dr. M'Benga. It really makes Starfleet feel like an genuine global alliance as opposed to an Americans-only club.

@pynkbites I haven't seen any writing specifically on it, but I have a feeling M’Benga's accent meant a LOT to a lot of people!!!

@jupiter People can critique away. Just don't direct it at me. I'm very aware the article has flaws.

@skrishna Hell yeah! I love M'Benga!

Michelle Yeoh honestly deserves to be captain of her own Trek show. They should be able to resurrect the Starfleet version of Georgiou for the task, considering how often folks rise from the dead in the franchise. 😂

@skrishna can't believe people are giving you grief about it. I'm not Asian, but I think I get the point of the article; it feels good to see someone you identify with in media you love. No need to sell it short. PS. My family doesn't have non-native-speaker accents and I also like hearing it because it reflects a richer world.

@skrishna the reason I follow you is because you express your genuine emotions about the things you love.

Please don't ever let people stop you from doing that or feel bad about it.

@amoshiashwili Don't worry! I'm not going anywhere. I have a little too much experience with this sort of thing for it to make me want to log off.

@skrishna

It surprises me how much small bits of representation — in fiction — affect me as an adult. Thank you for giving voice to that notion in your article & for your moving story about the interview.

I felt similarly seeing a Jodi Whittaker Doctor Who story about Partition (Demons of the Punjab, 2019). By then, my days as a South Asian boy in 1970's Britain had long since passed, but I still teared up finally seeing characters like my family front & centre in Doctor Who.

@skrishna I would have loved this back in 2017 if I had seen it then and I love it now. I’m a child of a Japanese immigrant and I know exactly what you mean. It’s a beautifully written piece about something that is significantly moving to many of us. It’s part of why I am proud that EEAAO was recognized the way it was this year and why I get such a charge out of Michelle Yeoh’s success. She’s an unstoppable talent and your writing played a part in her life - amazing ❤️

@skrishna @sarahijackson Life goals, right there! 👍

@skrishna as if i needed another reason to swoon over her.

@skrishna @HollyGoDarkly

What a lovely story.

@skrishna @AnnaAnthro

Not sure how this wound up in my timeline but I am SO glad it did!

Thank you for writing and re-sharing this story. I got a little teary. (Loved Micheal Yoeh as Discovery captain and her evil alter-ego, too.)

Representation is so important, and Gene Roddenberry was a pioneer.

I have ❤️ed Star Trek since TOS (I’m old! 😂). I was thrilled to see Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) in Voyager for similar reasons.

@atatassault @skrishna

WTH?

@kegill @atatassault Totally agree. The inside story is they hadn't been vigilant about their image usage and had gotten sued over using copyrighted stuff. Rather than try and fix the problem they just deleted everything before a certain time.

@skrishna @atatassault

Dear lord.

They could have kept the words and nuked the images, although that would be shortsighted as well.

@skrishna @atatassault

Here is a snapshot of syfy.com at the end of the day, May 19, 2017. I can’t find your article, but I don’t know where it might be.

https://web.archive.org/web/20170519231415/http://www.syfy.com/

Here is SyFy Wire, same date. Apparently blaster.com also archived everything. It’s DOA now.

https://web.archive.org/web/20170519200510/http://www.blastr.com/

@skrishna It's amazing how quintessentially white, upper class, North American Startrek is despite its supposed diversity. The few Brits speak in that upper class, public school voice. The few Black people it has speak in the North Atlantic, educated accents. No vernacular, no Southern accents. Things have started to change a little recently.