Week 8:  This Earth Thing… Star Trek and the American Dream

 

Continuing with Space Opera, we will be looking specifically at Star Trek as a social phenomenon. In particular, we will be investigating the historical development of the series, from Shatner to Seven of Nine. Star Trek is one of the most long-lived science fiction series, and has been through several incarnations since it’s birth. From the first inter-racial kiss, to the introduction of a female captain, the show has dealt with every political, social and scientific concern it can lay its hands on. Despite this, it still works to a strongly formulaic plot, and arguably extols one point of view; that of the American, middle-class white male. Along with Independence Day, we will be discussing the validity of this statement.

 

Main Texts:

 

Star Trek; all four series, and all of the eight films – try to watch one program from at least two of the series if you can.

Independence Day (A/S office)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

 

Discussion Topics

 

• Consider the enemies of the Star Trek world, in particular the Klingons, Ferengi, Cardassians, Q, and the Borg. What specific threats do they represent? Why in later series do the programmes introduce alliance with these races?
• Many space operas have some “paranormal” character (Spock in Star Trek, Troi in TNG, Odo in DS9, Kes, Tuvok in STV, “the force” in Star Wars, Talia, Lyta in Babylon 5, a telepathic race in Space Precinct, etc.). Is this a method of introducing “magic” to the story? Is it a device for getting out of tight corners in the plot?
•  Can Worf and Data, the true aliens of the Enterprise crew in ST:TNG be regarded as metaphors for the absorption/acculturation of the alien into western (American) society?

 

Essay Questions:

• Taking one series (Star Trek, TNG, DS9, Voyager), discuss how American social concerns and history affect plots, characterisation or social interaction.
• Given the chance, which Star Trek character would you push out of the airlock first? Justify this statement in the context of cultural and social dynamics between the crew and the audience.
• Compare and contrast the following characters:

 

Spock and Seven of Nine or Tuvok

Kirk and Janeway or Sisko

Worf and the Klingons in TOS

 

 

• Is Independence Day racist and anti-Semitic, or just over-eager to be politically correct?
• Discuss the presentation of American suburban life in Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

 

 

Quotes:

 

“Not surprisingly, then in early Star Trek history, critics and fans alike hailed the original Star Trek series as the first televised science fiction program to offer a positive view of the future. They credited Star Trek with bringing the first mass female audience to the genre. they lauded it for featuring the first televised interracial kiss. Indeed, Star Trek: The Next Generation even prophesied an end to the cold war by declaring peace between Klingon and human cultures, offered the cyborg as a model for new constructions of human subjectivity, and elevated psychology to the status of a hard science by bringing a counsellor to join the likes of science, weapons, military, engineering, and communication specialists. It placed at least one woman - however short-lived - in the non-traditional role of Security Chief. And Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager have finally put women and people of color at the top of the chain of command, at the top of Star Trek’s self‑created hierarchy”

 

Taylor Harrison, Sarah Projansky, Kent A‑Ono, Elyce Rae Helford, in Enterprise Zones: Critical Positions on Star Trek, Westview Press, 1996.

 

 

“Why did you agree to the cameo role in ST:TNG?”

 

“I enjoy Star Trek and think that science fiction serves a useful purpose of expanding the imagination. Although we may not yet be able to boldly go where no man (or woman) has gone before, we can do so in the mind. Science and science fiction stimulate each other. the script that the Star Trek producers provided for my brief scene was good and the actual filming in the Paramount studios in Los Angeles was fun. But I won’t be giving up the day job quite yet.”

 

Stephen Hawking, Radio Times, 17-23 Feb 1996

 

“At the end of the movie Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), Admiral James T. Kirk specifies the Enterprise’s course as “second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning”. Like the Lost Boys of Never Neverland, in James M Barrie’s Peter Pan, ST’s principal characters and narrative structure never really grow up. A large portion of ST’s psychological agenda is invested in the maintenance of sameness, most explicitly manifest in the fact that the starship Enterprise, as symbolic of this self-enclosed, hermetic, stasis opens and closes every episode of the original series except one. Although this type of closure reflects traditional television narrative conventions, the image of the Enterprise is crucial to Star Trek’s reveries of home as unblemished, ever-available and immutable.”

 

Ilsa J. Bick in Enterprise Zones: Critical Positions on Star Trek, Westview Press, 1996.