When Spock and Kirk are on the bus and they are talking about how no one will listen to you unless you are using profanity every other word and Kirk starts listing off examples from the time period...
And then Spock says hmm "The Giants." It always seemed to me that line was supposed to be given ironically or for comedic effect, but I never understood the meaning. Anyone know?
Just with the context:
KIRK: You mean profanity. That's simply the way they talk here. Nobody pays any attention to you if you don't swear every other word. You'll find it in all the literature of the period.
SPOCK: For example?
KIRK: Oh, the collective works of Jacqueline Susann. The novels of Harold Robbins.
SPOCK: Ah! ...'The giants'.
I always took it as Spock referring to these two authors as "The giants" of literature of the period, which is part of the gag of them misunderstanding the popular culture of 1986.
Yes, it was a joke. They were referring to the popular trash authors of the day, and the horrible possibility that in the future they'd be taken seriously.
Charles Dickens was thought of as a popular trash author in his day, not a sleazy one of course, but now he's taken seriously and taught in schools.
Oh wow...I had never even heard of those two authors. I didn't think they were real.
shareHere is a similar joke, a guy wakes up 200 years in the future...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFJopF6WJNw