When the original Star Trek series debuted in 1966, it was praised for its ethnically diverse cast featuring African-American actress Nichelle Nichols as the crew’s communication officer and Japanese-American actor George Takei as the Japanese-Filipino helmsman. Since then, Star Trek has embarked on five additional television series and twelve films. Nevertheless, throughout its history Star Trek has struggled with racial tensions, sometimes promoting an inclusive and progressive message, while at other times remaining exclusive and short-sighted by conforming to the fears and biases of networks executives and their audiences.
This presentation will explore the changing racial views of the Star Trek universe over time as writers and directors struggled to maintain a progressive vision in the face of pushback again controversial messages in order to avoid alienating viewers. In recent years, as Star Trek has evolved from its niche in science fiction to become a summer blockbuster, ethnically diverse roles have been scrubbed and replaced with white actors for general audience appeal. Examples include the three adaptions of the “Wrath of Khan” storyline, from the 1967 Star Trek series episode “Space Seed” to the 1982 film “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” to the recent 2013 “Star Trek Into Darkness.” These three adaptions show the whitewashed progression of the role of the superhuman antagonist Khan from Hispanic actor Ricardo Montalban to the blue-eyed Caucasian British star Benedict Cumberbatch. These developments, as well as a growth of the fetishization of racialized bodies, demonstrate a grim trend in the oversimplification of media and lack of faith in audience open mindedness. By exploring Star Trek’s minority history, contemporary audiences can better understand the ways that Star Trek was once a progressive force, and how science fiction as a whole still has the potential to push cultural boundaries far ahead of its time.
About the presenterElizabeth Moser
Elizabeth Moser is a PhD student at George Washington University. Her research interests include Twentieth-Century Literature, Asian-American Literature, Poetry and Trauma Studies. She has taught and assisted with courses on Japanese and American Haiku, Asian-American and Latino Literature and American Realism. Her current projects include research on the transmission of trauma from first to second generation Asian-Americans and the value of teaching haiku in urban education.