Peripheral Post #2 - Sebastian

    In my personal experience, Star Trek is often presented by science-fiction/fantasy fans as the franchise of choice for more “discerning” and “intellectual” viewers. One reason I’ve seen cited to justify this assertion is the franchise’s progressive politics. To be clear, I’m not at all trying to deny that a vision of a more optimistic and progressive future is integral to the franchise’s DNA. As video essayist Leon Thomas notes, “[W]hatever else [show creator] Gene Roddenberry was, he was a true believer. He was a humanist, and he thought humanity had the potential to create a future like the one in Star Trek” (“Berman”). Yet Thomas also acknowledges that the franchise has appealed over the years to the political right, noting that “Starfleet is many things, but one of those things is the military” (“Star”). To be more precise, Starfleet is the military wing of a colonial empire. At the beginning of each episode, Kirk reminds us that space is “the final frontier,” even though America was once told that Alaska would be “the last frontier”; Earth has been thoroughly colonized, but the dream of manifest destiny can still be realized beyond our solar system. Indeed, Roddenberry initially pitched the show as “Wagon Train to the stars,” referencing a popular Western series from the last 1950s/early 1960s (Gibberman).  

    None of these observations are new, but I find them especially interesting in relation to the episode “Mirror, Mirror.” While Star Trek is often lauded for avoiding simplistic good vs. evil narratives, this episode does construct a very clear dichotomy: it repeatedly emphasizes that the Terran Empire in the parallel universe isn’t just “bad” but a perversion of all the “good” values that the Federation holds in the original universe. Moreover, the episode explicitly and problematically marks the Terran Empire as “Other” via costume design and set decoration. Salman Sayyid argues that the parallel universe is “beholden to racist caricatures framing the depiction of oriental despotism” (31). Yet the episode’s attempt to present the Federation and the Terran Empire as polar opposites seems increasingly unconvincing when one notices that these two political entities differ more in terms of their tactics than in terms of their actual underlying ideologies. In the parallel universe, Kirk and his entourage are horrified to learn that the Enterprise plans to bomb the Halkans unless they give up their dilithium crystals. Yet the episode begins in the original universe with Kirk negotiating with the Halkans to let the Federation set up a mining operation so that they can extract the crystals. The Halkans refuse, but Kirk implores them to reconsider. Again, the tactics – negotiation vs. warfare – may differ, but fundamentally both versions of the Enterprise crew amount to imperial agents seeking to exploit a planet for its resources.  

    I don’t know if the creators of Star Trek were aware of any critiques regarding the show’s imperialist sentiments. At the end of the day, it probably doesn’t matter; the author is dead, after all. But “Mirror, Mirror” does sort of read like Star Trek saying, “Yes, the Federation is an empire, but it’s not that kind of empire.” It reminds me of another trend that Thomas discusses in his video essays – the tendency in recent Disney films to include “bad capitalists” as villainous characters (“Late”). These films don’t present capitalism as the problem; rather, the problem is just a few greedy individuals abusing the system. After all, the spectator must understand that the people in charge of the Disney corporation are “good capitalists.” As with “Mirror, Mirror,” the system survives criticism by presenting the most blatantly unpleasant version of itself as ideologically disconnected from the system rather than as its logical endpoint. 

 

Works Cited

Gibberman, Susan. “Roddenberry, Gene.” The Museum of Broadcast Communications,

https://web.archive.org/web/20111011071758/http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=roddenberry. Accessed 17 Feb. 2021. 

Sayyid, S. “Mirror, mirror: Western democrats, oriental despots?” Ethnicities, vol. 5, no. 1, 2005,

pp. 30-50. 

Thomas, Leon. “Berman Trek | Renegade Cut.” YouTube, uploaded by Renegade Cut, 27 Jan.

2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeSz2gW8IsE&t=170s. 

Thomas, Leon. “Late Stage Disney | Renegade Cut.” YouTube, uploaded by Renegade Cut, 21

July 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0lSoHNmMTA. 

Thomas, Leon. “Star Trek – The ‘Leftist’ Future | Renegade Cut.” YouTube, uploaded by

Renegade Cut, 5 May 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69Tm5KxkM8A&t=848s.