Voyager's Reflection
comments? mlperkin@indiana.edu
People who watch Trek will often be called upon to defend their choice of
entertainment. As if watching actors in outrageous costumes screaming
songs at each other in foreign languages is somehow more dignified - much
less entertaining. Hmph. One defense Trek fans have often used is
that
Trek is a well-honed mirror of American society, showing both the good and
bad aspects. I agree with that assessment, especially as it pertains to
homosexuality. Though some may not agree, I also believe that the moral
messages Voyager beams out on Wednesday nights are just as much a
reflection of American society as The Original Series was in the 1960s.
In the 1960s - a period I vaguely remember - society was in a period of
upheaval. People held definite views...held them with a vice grip that
might take their death to loosen and by golly they had no compunction
against telling everyone how they by golly felt about things, either.
Loudly. The deconstruction of some of those strongly held moral values
was the order of the day for Star Trek, making it a bold darling of
protestors everywhere and a nemesis of those who Liked Things The Way They Were.
The moral climate of the U.S. in the 1990s, on the other hand, is
scattershot. People feel somewhat strongly about something for a few
minutes and then move on. It's an era in which political leaders and
other big shots make important decisions that affect millions of lives -
by reading the results of the latest poll. And it had better be a recent
poll, because Americans don't remember issues for very long. Nothing is
that important.
In 1968 we were still watching fairly new copies of civil defense
educational films like Duck
and Cover. Teacher would pick one
boy to pull down the curtains, another boy to close the door,
another boy to pull down the screen and one special boy would
get to open the big grey can and thread the brown film through the
sprockets and gears of the projector.
We would then sit in the dark and learn all about how to protect ourselves
should those damned Ruskies blink first and shower us with nuclear death.
According to the films, we were to throw ourselves to the ground to escape
the firestorm. After we picked ourselves up, we would then make our way
to a nearby, cozy bomb shelter to wait a few weeks for the go ahead to
come out once the radiation danger had passed. You don't see them
anymore, but there were a lot of buildings with the Fallout Shelter sign
(image) in 1968.
We believed it could happen. Not that most of us lived in constant terror
of nuclear annihilation, but the idea that war or even the death of the
planet could happen any moment was firmly planted and well rooted by the
time we reached the fourth grade.
In 1968, people were dying in the American south of the disease of being
the wrong color, or of being a friend of a person of the wrong color.
Water cannons and dogs being sicced on protesters were images for the
nightly news. Lynchings, human torching and other tortures were not so
widely publicized, but everyone knew it happened.
In this climate, a couple literally took their lives in their hands merely
to be seen together publicly if they were of different color. A mere 40
years before, people had sent their friends POSTCARDS of lynching images.
Only four years before, civil rights workers
were killed and their bodies
dumped in a swamp because they tried to help African AMERICANS
vote in public elections.
So when I was eleven years old I saw the Star Trek episode A
Private
Little War. In that episode, the rotten, misguided Klingons
(Ruskies) were giving the bad guys
guns, and the good guys had only
spears. WELL, of course Kirk and company
saved the day by restoring the
balance of power. They gave the GOOD GUYS
guns, and all was
well with that world. That's just the way it's done. There is no other
way. Except...at the end of the episode, Spock made a comment to
the effect that it was only a temporary solution, and surely there must
be a better way to handle it.
I was stunned. Literally. The episode rocked my world that night and
made me really re-think what was right and wrong. Fundamental changes
occurred to my psyche from watching an episode of Star Trek. Changes that
took years to fully come into effect, but it had to start somewhere. I
still vividly remember the confusion I felt that night when SPOCK, the
mighty mental Vulcan, couldn't figure a way out of the balance of power
problem. If HE can't do it, what hope was there for
us...except...maybe...don't up the ante every time the Ruskies build a
bomb? That thought, ladies, gave me nightmares where Duck and Cover
didn't.
I also saw Plato's
Stepchildren and THAT episode
changed me as well.
I grew up in a bigoted culture. I didn't understand why Those People in
the South were making such a fuss about voting and stuff. But then Uhura,
a character I hadn't paid much attention to before, was portrayed as a
hero in Plato's Stepchildren. Not only that, but Kirk's Caucasian lips
nearly touched her Negro lips RIGHT on the TV!
As Neo would say: Whoa.
I've not seen that episode since, but I remember it vividly. (And folks,
you WILL confuse me if you ask what I had for breakfast this morning.) Or
at least, I remember that scene. She's reclining on that stupid looking
couch, Kirk's overrated lips approached hers as he gripped her shoulders
tightly. I remember my jaw dropping. I also remember being disturbed
the
next time I heard a family member utter a racial slur. Thanks to Star
Trek, I learned a lot about diversity.
These weren't merely issues to us. They were grave facts of life you
fervently believed in - one way or another. You believed enough to DO
something more substantial than clicking boxes on a web based survey or
complaining on the newsgroups. Star Trek responded by giving us tough
shows that challenged us.
Well lets see here What important morel lessons have I learned - or will
a child watching today learn - from Star Trek: Voyager? How has it
significantly changed my life by holding a mirror up to the moral face of
my world and making me take a good look?
Gimme a minute, I'm still thinking.
All right, so Star Trek today doesn't challenge us to a great extent. I
still say Voyager is a reflection of today's society. It's a rare
Voyager episode that isn't an insubstantial piece of moral fluff,
compared to The Original Series. That pretty much sums up how society
as a whole behaves these days, in my opinion.
As a specific example, how about how Voyager handles the subject of gays
in American society? ARE there gays in the American Society? Or are
we
still a secret society to most people?
I just went to a sf con a few weeks ago, and it's the fourth or fifth time
I've served in the guest author function for them. This time, I mentioned
"my wife" and got the oddest looks. They hadn't realized.
Never occurred
to them. Hint: I aint subtle, people! Fem, I'm not. That
they were
surprised when I came out, that I had to make a point of doing so, says a
lot about how "secret" we still are, even to people you might think
would
be more enlightened than the average mundane.
In the U.S. military, no one (officially) asks and no one (officially)
tells. This official secrecy hasn't prevented thousands of gay military
personnel from being rousted, but it looks nice on paper.
Star Trek: Voyager has the same policy. Ask a producer and he'll claim
there are gay people...we just haven't seen them. In six years, we've
not seen one female/female or male/male kiss. Not even a fake one like
they had over on Deep Space 9 a couple of years ago. Evil Kes came
reeeeally close a few years back, but it wasn't Kes anyway, so there you
go.
As with American Society, Star Trek reflects the still largely secretive
nature of Homosexual Society. And as The Original Series did thirty years
before, Voyager reflects the moral fiber of current American Culture by
not caring overly much about the subject anyway.
It kind of makes me more curious than I otherwise would be about the next
incarnation of Star Trek, set to begin at the beginning of the second
millennium. Will the mirror ever reflect us?