Star Trek – the American Dream Continued? What This Is All About, Read the Last Chapter a Conclusion First
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If you're interested in a short summary of Star Trek – The American Dream Continued? what this is all about, read the last chapter A Conclusion first. UNIVERSITÄT OLDENBURG Magisterstudiengang Anglistik/Geschichte Navigation: MAGISTERARBEIT - Mit den Lesezeichen im Acrobat Reader. Oldenburg, im August 1994 - Please use Acrobat Reader’s bookmarks. Kleine Anmerkung zur Seitennumerierung Der besseren Lesbarkeit wegen ist das Do- kument als "Buchimitation" gelayoutet: Querformat mit 2 Seiten, wobei (mit einem kleinen Trick) jede "Buchseite" eine eigene The American Dream Continued? Seitenzahl hat. Die automatische Seitennummerierung des The Crisis of the American Dream in the 1960s Acrobat Reader kommt mit solchen Tricks and its Reflection in a Contemporary TV Series nicht klar und zählt jeweils 2 "Buchseiten" als eine Dokumentseite. Statt über 300 hat das Dokument für den Reader daher nur © 2003 --- Peter Müller 164 Seiten. Mail: [email protected] (Stand 04/2003) Acknowledgments 2 Acknowledgments On the academic side I would first of all like to thank Eric Sakurai of "Spock's Adventure" in Cincinnati, Klaus Köhring, who encouraged me when I told him that Ohio; I wanted to explore "the final frontier" with American David Thorlton for countless anecdotes and invalu- Cultural Studies as point of departure. Also I have to able information about America's popular culture of thank Robert McLaughlin and Paul Cornelius, who long the 1960s; ago initiated an interest in the academic study of popu- Peter Bruells for updating me on my CIC video col- lar culture that persisted until today. lection; Werner Koch for the Mandella; Renate Koch In the real world, I would like to thank: for reading an early version of part one; Toni and Jim Hewitt for the click in Rushden some Peter Neumann for nagging about the series; Klaus four years ago; Pannenborg for reading an early version of part all participants of the German TrekNet, especially two; Martin Noth from the "Vulcan Academy" in Braun- all those friends not mentioned by name, without schweig and Angela "Guinan" Klugius of "Data's whose tolerance this thesis would not have been Home" in Bremen; possible since I spent four months trekkin' across all participants of the international TREK echo on the universe; Andrea for occasionally calling me FIDOnet, especially Michael Marek and Vince back to Earth. Maiocco; And of course Karin, best of all friends and my wife. © 2003 – Peter Müller – [email protected] Table of Content Table of content Introduction 2 AN INTRODUCTION TO STAR TREK 1 THE AMERICAN DREAM 2.1 Reflections on Methodology 2.1.1 The Formula 1.1 Mythical Aspects: The Vision of "America" 2.1.2 Artist, Artifact and Audience 1.2 Religious Aspects: "A Citty Upon A Hill" 2.2 The Making of Star Trek 1.2.1 The Role of Puritanism 2.2.1 The Producer 1.2.2 The Reformation 2.2.2 The Format 1.2.3 Puritanism in England 2.2.3 Television Production Conditions 1.2.4 Puritanism in America 2.2.4 The Pilots 1.3 Political Aspects: "A Democratic Utopia" 2.3 The Series 1.3.1 Democracy and Melting Pot 2.3.1 The Crew 1.3.2 Manifest Destiny and Frontier 2.3.2 The Ship 1.4 The Main Elements of the American Dream 2.3.3 The Aliens 1.5 American Dreams, American Nightmares 2.4 The Audience 1.5.1 The Quest for National Purpose 2.4.1 Audience Ratings 1.5.2 The Crisis of the American Dream 2.4.2 Syndication 1.5.3 The Nature of the Crisis 2.4.3 Revival © 2003 – Peter Müller – [email protected] Table of Content 2.4.4 The Fans 3.4.1 Women's Liberation 2.4.5 A Cultural Artifact 3.4.2 Social Equality 3.4.3 Racial Equality 3 THE AMERICAN DREAM IN STAR TREK 3.5 Manifest Destiny 3.1 Science Fiction or American Myth? 3.5.1 The Prime Directive 3.1.1 "A Quintessential American Romance …" 3.5.2 The Pueblo Incident 3.1.2 "… in the Garb of Science Fiction" 3.5.3 Vietnam 3.1.3 "The Omega Glory" 3.1.4 Reflections of the Sixties 4 A CONCLUSION 3.2 A New Frontier 5 APPENDIX 3.2.1 "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" 3.2.2 "Assignment: Earth" 5.1 Bibliography 5.1.1 Monographs 3.3 Progress 5.1.2 Essays, Dissertations etc. 3.3.1 Paradise 3.3.2 Technological Progress 5.2 The Original Series: Episode List 3.4 Liberty, Equality and the Melting Pot 5.3 Acronyms © 2003 – Peter Müller – [email protected] 5 The American Dream Mythical Aspects: The Vision of "America" 6 Introduction During the 1960s, the American Studies movement, like society as a whole, lost its consensus. The pursuit of This thesis is written in the field of American Cultural happiness had turned into "The Pursuit of Loneliness"2 Studies. Academic research of the American experience and the American Studies movement had no valid expla- was sparked off in 1927 with Vernon L. Parrington's nation. book about Main Currents in American Thought, which initiated a whole series of investigations resulting in the The movement's claim to explain America was lost and American Studies movement. at least partly transferred to journalists, non academic culture critics and - television. Within and without the In the beginning this movement had "a substantive con- movement consensus was replaced by conflict and diver- sensus on the nature of American experience, and a sity: methodological consensus on ways to study that experi- "We are less inclined now to take readings ence". Its basic aim was "to probe for the fundamental from a single vantage point on The American meaning of America".1 Experience; instead we look upon America The "intellectual history synthesis", as Wise called this from a variety of different, often competing, 3 approach, dominated Americanist scholarship from its perspectives …" beginnings up to the middle of the 1960s. Scholars of that school certainly were critical of American institu- tions, but not of the American experience itself. 1 cf. Wise, Gene, "'Paradigm Dramas' in American Studies: A Cultural and Institutional History of the Movement", in: American Quarterly, 31 (Bibliography 1979), 306 and 307 2 Slater, Philip, The Pursuit of Loneliness: American Culture at the Breaking Point (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970) 3 Wise, Paradigm Dramas, 319 © 2003 – Peter Müller – [email protected] 7 The American Dream Mythical Aspects: The Vision of "America" 8 One of these new perspectives was that of popular cul- This thesis tries to heed the above considerations. Its ture. According to M. Thomas Inge "Popular culture is aim is to analyze how the crisis of the American Dream what we do by choice to engage our minds and our bod- in the Sixties is reflected in contemporary popular cul- ies when we are not working or sleeping" and its func- ture, with the original Star Trek series serving as a case tion is to "validate the common experience of the larger study. 4 part of the population". Part one begins with an examination of the American The American Dream, in essence, is an expression of Dream's historical roots. "The American Dream" is more this "common experience of a larger part of the popula- than just the immigrant's dream of success: it denotes a tion". unique set of specifically American social and moral ide- als. Therefore I believe it to be a rewarding enterprise in American Studies to examine samples of American popu- These values were extremely powerful and persuasive lar culture and see how elements of the American Dream for centuries. It was only in the maelstrom of the Sixties are reflected in them: the very nature of popular culture that for the first time they were fundamentally ques- implies that it epitomizes the value system of the society tioned by a significant part of the American population. producing it; on the other hand popular culture also Part two begins with a short discussion of methodology shapes society and thus possible changes in societal ide- and continues with "An Introduction to Star Trek" based als may well be foreshadowed in it. on that discussion. It examines the making of the show, its basic format, television production conditions, princi- pal characters, setting, and its impact on the audience 4 Inge, M. Thomas, Handbook of American Popular Culture (Westport, Ct.:Greenwood Press , 21988), xxvi and xxviii and vice versa. © 2003 – Peter Müller – [email protected] 9 The American Dream Mythical Aspects: The Vision of "America" 10 Part three traces the main elements of "The American Dream in Star Trek". It is dedicated to an analysis of how the Dream and its crisis in the Sixties are reflected in the original Star Trek series. Summing up it can be said that this thesis examines the historical roots of the American Dream and its crisis in the Sixties, and investigates how this crisis is reflected in the origi- nal Star Trek television series. © 2003 – Peter Müller – [email protected] 11 The American Dream Mythical Aspects: The Vision of "America" 12 1 The American Dream be." Vague as it may be he nevertheless called it "one of the motivating forces of American civilization", and cer- The term "American Dream" was coined by historian tainly there is a set of values specifically and uniquely James Truslow Adams in 1931. At the height of the American. Great Depression he described "that American dream of These values define what is American and they are so a better, richer, and happier life for all our citizens of strongly felt and widely accepted that after World War II every rank which is the greatest contribution we have as a House Committee was able to identify un-American ac- yet made to the thought and welfare of the world" in the tivities without ever defining what un-American was.