As with real life, there are no pat solutions but
many consequences.
The science fiction genre, as part of popular
culture, provides a seductive means of examining the intersections of the concerns of race,
gender and sexuality in exciting and daring
new ways such as, for instance, using Klingons
as metaphors for Muslims and Vulcans for
Jews.
The linking of past, present and future
through subjects such as slavery, racism, colonization, feminism, reproductive technologies,
homosexuality/homophobia, spirituality and
religious fundamentalism, just to name a few,
stimulates critical reexamination of today’s
very real problems.
One way to do this, for example, is to ask
probing questions so to get students thinking about ways in which interspecies conflicts
among humans, Vulcans, Romulans, Klingons, Andorians, Betazoids, Cardassians and
Bajorans, to name a few, are portrayed and
how they mirror or parallel disagreements between today’s nations, races, genders, religions
and classes.
The idea of creating futuristic spaces, places
and experiences that are modeled on past and
contemporary situations poses questions about
the possibility of achieving optimistic futures
and the inevitability of being left with pes-
simistic ones.
Science fiction is about everything
Counter to stereotype, science fiction is not
only about the future of technology and science, but encompasses what the writer and
educator Thomas Lombardo calls “the future
of everything” – the future of society, culture,
ethics, the environment, the human mind,
races, genders, sex and sexuality.
It is in respect to the complex narratives about
thoughts on the future of everything from a
variety of perspectives that the Star Trek universe presents a challenge and is overwhelming
even when restricted to the intersecting matters of race, gender and sexuality.
Of these three concerns, race is perhaps the
most difficult to figure out. There is a constant struggle over what race means, and, in
most instances, its definition and significance
remain unresolved.
There are a host of characters from the Star
Trek universe that speak to the logic and
illogic of race, signaling the importance and
timeliness of racial matters today.
Characters in the television series who are
readily identified by the color of their skin include Uhura, Worf, Geordie Laforge, Guinan,
Captain Benjamin Sisko and Tuvok. All of
them can teach us something about contrived
racial (and gender) categories that also go
beyond skin color.
However, in order to think more deeply about
race, we also have to look at what the series
says about the power of whiteness and its
tendency to reinforce racial as well as gender
stereotypes.
Captain Kirk of the original series, the Prime
Directive, and the United Federation of Planets all come to mind here. Characters such as
Mr Spock, B’Elanna Torres, Odo and even
Commander Data reference the complexity
of ethnicity and racial mixtures disguised as
hybrid alien species struggling for identity and
a sense of belonging in an extended humanoid
and technological universe.
Relevance to our lives today
These issues and the struggles they impose are
important because they continue to resonate
with us today and have direct bearing on the
quality of our lives.
The process of teaching and learning about
race, gender and sexuality through science
fiction stories and technology in television and
film can be challenging and even daunting.
But Star Trek may well be one of the more significant ways (even boldly so) through which
to not only teach and learn about the past, the
present and the future, but to willfully shape
the contours of the latter.