I think the reason Spock & McCoy’s relationship worked but Pulaski’s treatment of Data set off so many fans is the latter was completely one-sided. Spock was perfectly capable of defending himself; he had a rapier wit, gave as good as he got and sometimes was the one sassing Bones before the doctor even started anything. Whereas Data has trouble with social cues, nuance and humour. Without the witty repartée McCoy & Spock enjoyed, all you had left was a soft-spoken, almost childlike at times android politely correcting the mean lady who kept calling him a machine. It wasn’t a fair fight. And when you throw into the mix many people reading Data as an allegory for folks on the autism spectrum, well that just makes her look even worse. If the writers had done a better job, given Data some subtle zingers to throw her way, maybe it would’ve worked, but they didn’t. So instead of them bickering like an old married couple, Pulaski just looked like an asshole picking on the guy who couldn’t use sarcasm.
That, and the dynamic is slightly different.
While Spock’s status as a half human does make him part of an oppressed minority on his home planet, that’s not something that a human from outside the culture would necessarily be able to grasp the full implications of.
Instead, McCoy’s jokes are typically about Spock being a Vulcan, and Spock is able to shoot back with snarky comments about humanity.
It works because both species have roughly equal political power. Though Spock’s status as the only Vulcan onboard might tip the scales a little in that regard, fundamentally McCoy’s cracks about his ears don’t pose any threat to him, any more than his comments about “illogical minds” pose any threat to his human crew mates.
By comparison, Data’s position is much more precarious.
Though the Enterprise crew seem to mostly accept him, he still faces regular challenges to his personhood. He has to ask Captain Picard not to refer to Lore (the closest thing to another member of his ‘species’) as an “it”; he is challenged over his right to procreate; he is made to defend his ownership rights over his own body in a court of law on pain of being fucking dismantled.
And it’s the Federation— aka ‘the good guys'— who do this to him. Data’s rights and personhood are always considered conditional, even by his fellow crew members.
He can’t defend himself against Pulaski, not only because of his problems with communication and social cues, but also because— unlike Spock— he can’t really afford to make witty remarks about his own perceived areas of superiority.
His continued right to work on the ship and be treated as a person is basically dependent on the support of human advocates like Picard. Even if he didn’t genuinely seem to consider human nature to be superior to his own, going on about how great androids are was what got Lore taken to bits and stuffed in cupboard.
I’m not saying that Data necessarily has to worry about that happening to him on the Enterprise, but the fact that Starfleet probably wouldn’t care too much if it did happen (so long as Data wasn’t actually damaged) creates a bigger power imbalance between him and Pulaski than existed between Spock and McCoy, and so their interactions hit differently.
sorry but this is such brilliant commentary I have to reblog it
#yeah it’s important that Vulcans are not only social and political equals to humans - they seem to be regarded as#intellectual and cultural superiors in some ways#in the Federation broadly#McCoy mocking Spock’s Vulcan-ness and Spock firing back about humans feel more like Brits and Yanks making fun of each other#and yeah he definitely doesn’t seem to get that Spock is touchy about his mixed-heritage identity#(though that is partially because Spock refuses to talk about his feelings or his family ever)#But there is definitely an equal playing field nature to it#that is just not there between Data and Pulaski
preserving @specialagentartemis’s tags for posterity because yeah this—Brits and Yanks feels like such a relevant comparison
