Science Fiction, Gender, and Race

Science Fiction, Gender, and Race: How Star Trek Has Failed to Live Up to its Progressive Ideals Justin Grays GNDR 360I-02 2 May 2012 Dr. Laura McCartan Grays 1 Table of Contents Section One: Introduction to Paper Section Two: A Brief History of Star Trek Section Three: Gender, Race, and Intersection. Section Four: Why Media Matters rd Section Five: The 23 Century: A Progressive Beginning Section Six: Problems in the Bright Future th Section Seven: The 24 Century: The Future is Less Bright nd Section Eight: The 22 Century: Progress is Lost rd Section Nine: Rebook: A New Take on the 23 Century Section Ten: Conclusion Section Eleven: Works Cited Grays 2 INTRODUCTION Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry, has been viewed as a progressive franchise when the first television series, now recognized as Star Trek: The Original Series, and the first spin-off series, Star Trek: The Animated Series, were compared to the social and political stances of gender and race in the society of the era. When keeping the views of American society of the 1960s in mind, The Original Series and The Animated Series had main characters, secondary characters, and supporting roles that alternated between defying traditional views of gender and race in society of that era. The Star Trek television shows made commentary about social and political mores of that time period. Because of television censor rules of what could and could not be shown on the air, Star Trek producers and writers had to find ways to appease the network executives so that the Star Trek series’ could be aired on American television. Though The Original Series and The Animated Series lasted only five seasons combined, the following Star Trek feature films continued with the theme of taking on issues of the human condition, featuring ideas about human growth, eugenics, religion, and politics. However, Star Trek: The Next Generation attempted to make similar commentary for the 1980s and 1990s as The Original Series and The Animated Series did for the 1960s and 1970s. The Next Generation had a harder time with making said gendered and racial commentary due to attempting to identify itself as being farther in the future than The Original Series was. There was also the Grays 3 changed role of Roddenberry’s position in the production of the series and his eventual death, and the differing views of gender and race from the new production staff members who had taken over from Roddenberry. Though a couple of episodes of The Next Generation were taken from scripts that were to have been used for the aborted Star Trek: Phase II, the aforementioned differences between The Original Series and The Next Generation are apparent in the roles given to the main characters. As the Star Trek franchise grew over time, into the creation of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999) and Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001), the commentary about gender and race in society tended to come in at a more gradual pace, despite the fact that the commanding officer on Deep Space Nine was African-American with a female first officer, and the commanding officer of Voyager was female with a Native American Indian first officer. Generally, the actors had to make suggestions and changes to keep the writers and producers from stereotyping gender and racial roles in the Star Trek franchise. However, the last Star Trek television series, Enterprise (2001-2005), and the latest film, Star Trek XI (also known as Star Trek), took a step backwards in the roles of gender and race for main characters in the series. The progressive stance of the Star Trek franchise began to evaporate throughout Enterprise, and became even more apparent when comparing Star Trek XI (which is a reboot of the Star Trek franchise) to Star Trek: The Original Series. HISTORY Grays 4 Eugene “Gene” Roddenberry created Star Trek in 1964, when he presented his idea of a “wagon train to the stars” to television studios. Desilu Studios picked up the series and presented it to NBC, and the first pilot episode, “The Cage,” was produced, followed by the second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” produced st in 1965. On April 21 , 1966, Star Trek entered production and lasted for three seasons, when it had been canceled for the perception of having low viewership; though the series had a Neilson rating of between 20 and 24, which would be a hit today, having a 30 share was iffy (Gross, 65). The fan base for Star Trek was powerful enough to bring back Star Trek in an animated form for two seasons, th starting September 8 , 1973 (Gross, 79-80; Reeves-Stevens, 16). The television franchise in the 1970s paused at the end of The Animated Series. In 1977, Paramount Pictures attempted to create a new television network, with Star Trek: Phase II as the flagship program, collapsed (Reeves-Stevens, 34). After the network deal collapsed, what was to be the feature-length pilot became the first Star Trek film: Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Star Trek continued to make films throughout the early and mid 1980s, but did not return to television until Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered in September of 1987. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine premiered in January 1993, running concurrently through the final two seasons of The Next Generation and the first five seasons of Star Trek: Voyager, which premiered in January of 1995. Grays 5 Star Trek: Enterprise, the only television prequel, aired September 26, 2001, after Voyager had completed its final season. The final episode of Enterprise aired on th May 13 , 2005, making 2006 to be the first year in 19 years to not have a Star Trek television series in production. Years later, the Star Trek film franchise was th re-launched with Star Trek XI premiering on May 8 , 2009, and an expected release th date for Star Trek XII being May 17 , 2013. The Star Trek movie and film franchise comes to being over 530 hours (or 22 days) of Star Trek. GENDER, RACE, AND INTERSECTION Gender is the set of social standards and expectations that are associated with and represent each sex (Dines, 4; Kesselman, 9; Peach, 2); it is not to be confused with sex, which is the physical or biological characteristics that make up a physical body. Race is the social or cultural concept that describes people based on visual clues from physical appearances and behaviors (Anthropological; Dines, 4), part of which is determined by ethnicity and common heritage, but not restricted to those commonalities. In this paper, gender is looked at over sex because social interaction is based off of the perceived gender of a person, or how the person represents their gender publically, and race is used over ethnicity because the social interactions used in this society because of the visual cues used to assign stereotypes to groupings of individuals. Grays 6 Race is gendered and gender is raced: the barriers in place in society that affect those not of the dominant gender also effect those not of the dominant race. Though there are differences in the privileges provided or denied between gender and race, the provisions and denials of the two are interlinked; however, gender and race are often not considered together when recognizing barriers. Audre Lorde provides an example, pointing out the “absence of the experience of women of color as a resource for women’s studies courses. The literature of women of color is seldom included in women’s literature courses and almost never in other literature courses, nor in women’s studies as a whole” (Peach, 72), citing the presence of William Shakespeare and Fyodor Dostoyevsky in literature, but showing that the works of authors, such as Zora Neale Hurston and Gwendolyn Brooks, are not included in literature selections. When considering concepts of gender and race in society, and the reflections that are shown in media, the intersection between gender and race needs to be considered, for oppression is an additive quality, placing members of disadvantaged groups at a further disadvantage. WHY MEDIA MATTERS To understand the impact that the Star Trek franchise has had on society, one must first recognize that the media’s representation of the world helps shape the views of a society. Because “media images help shape our view of the world and our deepest values: what we consider good or bad, positive or negative, moral or evil” Grays 7 (Dines, 9), a society will learn to accept or begin to demonize due to the images that are presented to them by those who control what is seen and recognized. The ideas represented in various forms of media affects members of society across gender, racial, and class lines. An idea of what creates gender and race, and what it means to be of a gender or race, is perpetrated through media sources. Myths and mysticisms about what normal gender roles and the placement of gender in society is dictated by what is observed and repeated in the media, through the use of commercialization and political and religious convenience. Portrayals of race and the cultural appropriations of history that create what it means to be of a certain ethnicity or background are repeated in televised and printed stories and are often repeated for the viewing audience to take in and mimic. These ideas and portrayals are then copied and reproduced as the viewership and readers come to expect to see what they see, as the mindset of those following the media become used to what is being seen and start to expect it.

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