Mr. Spock, Get Us Out
of Here!
Even as a child I
could see problems with the original Star Trek, particularly in terms of social
and psychological concepts not only in the characters but also in the
narratives and assumptions about progress. Technology had made amazing breakthroughs.
Social relationships were, however, more than stagnant. They seemed to have
gone backwards.
Hierarchy was the most
obvious example. Why were there still ranks and titles and some above others,
others expected to be subservient? Sex roles also seemed set in Victorian
stone. The 1920's had more aggressive exploration of gender than any of the
worlds, let alone the star ship milieu. Even in episodes in which these
relationships and identities were questioned, the questions were posed less aggressively
than, far short of, the questions being posed by people in the streets of the
real world. What could have happened in the time between to humans and
extraterrestrials to make them less assertive of equality than the real world
of the 20th century? Why were they less aware of identity and how arbitrary
definitions do not always allow individuals to express who they genuinely feel
themselves to be?
A far more disturbing
quandary for my child mind came up, and it still persists to irk like an
irritant grain in my sensitive craw to this day, inspiring me at last to write
these things out. I am partly ashamed of my fellow human beings for not having
more sense. I was reflecting on how unbearable most TV shows and movies are and
wondering why anyone watches them, let alone loves and extols these
ill-conceived representations. There are sufficient good examples to raise the
question, Why not more like that? But the disturbing question, although it
might have been about the lack of intelligence and discernment being brought to
bear on what serves as entertainment and particularly creative, fictional fare,
was actually focused on the character Spock and further implications about the
human mind.
Spock is half Vulcan and half human. He is the
offspring of an Earth woman and a Vulcan man. The extraterrestrials in the
original and even subsequent Star Trek series and movies are almost all merely
shifted representations of human racial and ethnic groupings. Indeed, the races
and nationalities represented by the crew of the Enterprise are only slightly
removed from 20th century stereotypes. The presence of a black woman whose
original language is Swahili, a Russian man as part of the Federation, not a
Cold War adversary, and a Japanese man, a Scotsman with a pronounced accent as
if we are to believe the noticeable impact of broadcasts on language would not
persist in the future to eliminate such superficial and readily changed
features of speech. In the central cast of characters, Spock is the lone
non-human. He stands as prominent in casting as Cosby did in I Spy, a
ground-breaking role for an African-American. Spock fits right in, and he was
accepted by the audience including myself as a wonderful second fiddle to
Kirk's prima donna. He's always still a likely target of the humans' amusement,
the way WASP-minded Americans still often look at other ethnic, religious, or
racial groups. Think of the typical ethnic joke (if you are of an age and can
recall them). That's the attitude embodied in Spock's relationship with the
wholly human characters. His quirky logical limitations - Oh, those Vulcans! So
much like slavishly overly seriously adolescents! - serve as the focus of this
bemused secret superiority all the humans feel about his alienness, despite the
display of his enormous advantages, physical and mental, over the dominant
Earth humanoid group members.
But that was less apparent to me as a child and less questionable than this: How could Spock be half human and half Vulcan, the progeny of an Earth woman and a Vulcan male if these two groups were not the same biological species? Even as a child I understood the fundamentals of evolutionary biology. Apparently the writers on the show did not. Leaving out the expressed differences in actual biology - organ placement and blood composition - the idea that different creatures could breed together is something out of a previous time, but not surprising, really, that it was there, like a sore thumb, on this innovative, sci-fi show. Science fiction is always actually about the present. How could it be otherwise? It is a projection of now onto an imaginary future which is really just the present revealed, stripped of illusions and apologies for its failure to live up to potential. Technology and other changes, whether utopian or dystopian, are comment on the present state of things. Why don't we have cars that fly and women who are still sexy to a 14-year-old boy but also nerdy smart and lethal?
The mid-twentieth century existed culturally
and intellectually as a holdover hybrid of Victorian and medieval ideas. Concepts
of race and sex were still patriarchal and Caucasian Eurocentric; battles for
changing mores and struggles for equality were being waged on a 19th century
battlefield along lines defined in the late 1800's at best. The 20th century
arguably began in the 1980's, when certain understanding and awareness
translated into actual behavioral changes and a shift of values, and
consequently resulted in a resurgent backlash against those changes. I'm
limiting this to the United States, although arguably the rest of the world was
and is still behind, whether we like to accept that or not, in these attitudes.
But getting back to poor Mr. Spock, consider his character and unscientific origin. Is it not just a transfiguration of the dominant human attitude toward the familiar other? Spock isn't an Asian. He's not a Jew or a black fellow. He is like and unlike us. We like him because he's our Vulcan, almost like a pet. We can unleash his amazing capabilities, the nerve pinch, the mind meld, his savant-like abilities to calculate and draw conclusions and also build things on the spot from flotsam and jetsam and wee bit of otherly magic. It's just amazing what those folks can do with stuff!
All of that occurred to me as a child but it did not broach my sense of indignity until later. My incredulity that the creators of the show could miss the specifics of biological accuracy, and also could have technological vision without concomitant social change, dominated my childish impressions. I was just stuck on the fact that hierarchy is portrayed as immutable. Antagonism of groups based on physical and cultural difference, as well as rival power structures seeking to be the top dog, remains inevitable. Well, perhaps you have to address the audience where it is first in order to get them to move somewhere further along. Sure, and shucks, let's all be morons, which, of course, apparently when it comes to this stuff, we are. And yet the examples also remain, the great works that almost by magic flash insight about human nature in the way the characters in full human dimension leap off the page or screen. How can we be blind to those stark contrasts, or do we just set aside the memory of better fare because we are so hungry for anything at all, something novel, that we settle for a quick fix after the indignities of our day?
I don't have an explanation for why most of us, if not all of us, do not see the obvious and make constant leaps of innovation in our own lives, let alone why we watch these horrible and depressing shadow plays, the food for our own hypotheses and frames, our lenses on ourselves, others, and the universe. These obvious distortions in fictional characterization and narratives are in a sense mirrors for our own idiocy. Like the ideas we embrace and reject in our actual lives and choices, in our attitudes and behaviors, what piques our interest and tickles our fancy in entertainment reveals what's genuinely going on in our minds and helps delineate our active psychology.
Finally, I think of Spock making a radio out of junk and being able with the touch of a hand on the face and head to get into the mind of another. That's a metaphor, a magic moment of imagination, for this whole meditation. Why can't we be more like Spock not only in the choices we make for entertainment, but also in our lives and the way we go about understanding the actual world in our own creation of reality that serves as our vision of now and what we can be? I still prefer Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice remains the greatest miracle of human character presented on the page, with all its limitations. Too bad perhaps the author did not have a more fantastical inclination. But we have to meet our authors and the audience at the place they are, even if we might imagine further along where they, and we, could be.
KLK
7/18/20
Live long and prosper...
