Take me to the bridge, Captain

Michael Harrington boldly goes into the 24th century with Star Trek

Star Trek in its current form stands for socialism, atheism and female chauvinism. It is not surprising that Star Trek Voyager is one of Ken Livingstone's favourite programmes, but one wonders how it ever came to be produced by a Hollywood studio. Is it possible that the producers and writers employed by Paramount do not realise what they are doing? H.G. Wells must be laughing in his grave.

Few of the real themes are evident at the Science Museum's Star Trek exhibition: all the emphasis is on gadgets, starships, uniforms, pseudo-science, and such conceits as the Klingon language. Yet science fiction is rarely about science: it is always about politics.

Feminism is the most obvious area in which Star Trek has evolved over the years. Back in Gene Roddenberry's original I960s series - which is being rerun for the umpteenth time on BBC2 - much was made of Nichelle Nicholas as Lt Uhura, a black female bridge officer on the Starship Enterprise. Yet she was not really an officer, only a radio operator who would say, virtually in every episode: `Hailing on all frequencies Captain, no response.' There would be long, lingering shots of her legs. All the female crew wore mini-skirts. From time to time a strong-minded woman would appear but only to be put in her place by Captain Kirk (William Shatner). Patriarchy ruled with a self-satisfied leer.

In Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-94) things were noticeably different, though it is hard to say how much of the change was due to Roddenberry. Women wore trousers and held positions of authority, such as chief medical officer (Gates McFadden), and chief of security (Denise Crosby, for one season). The excellent Marina Sirtis was Deana Troi, the ship's counsellor. Moreover the custom was introduced of addressing senior female officers as `sir', which seemed to work very well. Female admirals and engineers became a regular feature of the show.

In Voyager the process has been taken a stage further, into what amounts to female chauvinism. Every episode is built now around one or more of the three leading women. Kate Mulgrew plays Kathryn Janeway, the brilliant, domineering captain. Jeri Ryan plays Seven of Nine, the glamorous, arrogant Borg drone who is meant to be rediscovering her humanity or something. Roxan Dawson plays B'Elanna Torres, the ravishing, hot-tempered chief engineer. Besides these women - who often clash with each other - the male characters appear as amiable nonentities.

Of course Voyager does not approach the perverted eroticism of Xena, Warrior Princess, in which male characters usually turn up only to be knocked around like footballs, as a kind of light relief between the incredibly ferocious catfights. Xena is a rude, rough, randy fantasy with a powerful lesbian subtext, whereas Voyager is still connected to Gene Roddenberry's vision of Starfleet as the embodiment of everything that is true and blue and noble. Kate Mulgrew's Kathryn Janeway is a more attractive and convincing representative of that vision than Shatner's Captain Kirk ever was.

Yet on Janeway's Voyager no more than on Kirk's Enterprise is there a place for God, or any gods. Of course one does not expect much religious talk in action-adventure stories even when they have philosophical pretensions, which they often do in this genre. No, the point is made emphatically over and again at Star Trek wakes and funerals, weddings and births, that religion of any kind has no place in this 24th-century society.

On religion, current Star Trek is softer in tone than was the original series in the 1960s when we can presume that Gene Roddenberry's influence was strongest. In each of the three seasons between 1966 and 1969, one or two episodes were explicitly anti-religious in nature, presenting it always as either a fraud or a delusion.

In The Apple, for example, a happy and healthy primitive people worship a god who turns out to be a sort of computer left behind by some advanced alien race to provide for the people's needs. Captain Kirk and company destroy the computer so that the people have to `grow up' and stand on their own feet. There are several variations on this story, and the parallel with the Garden of Eden is hinted at with the subtlety of a pneumatic drill. Nowhere in 35 years of Star Trek, running to about 600 TV episodes and nine films, is any time or credence given to the idea of a mature, spiritual and philosophical religion. The vision of Star Trek is generally understood to be optimistic, yet the human condition in a godless universe is surely inherently tragic.

One word that is never mentioned in Star Trek is socialism. Nor are other political words for that matter, but that does not mean that the show is non-political. As a general rule one might suggest that nothing is so politically loaded as a popular, nonpolitical TV show and Star Trek is loaded with socialism. It first became evident in an episode of The Next Generation called The Neutral Zone, in which somehow a 20thcentury financier is awakened from cryogenic suspension. He naturally wants to know what has happened to his investments after about 300 years of capital growth. He is vastly disappointed when Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) explains, in a patronising way, that those days are over: there are no more investments, finance houses or bank accounts. The challenge now is not to accumulate riches but to achieve personal growth and the full development of one's talents. It is easy to remember, or perhaps imagine, the smirk on Patrick Stewart's face.

From time to time, in the recent episodes, there are scenes set on earth rather than in space, and it is made plain again and again that in this utopian 24th century there is no such thing as money or economic competition or poverty or class or pollution. Quite how society works is not made clear, nor should one expect it in the course of melodramatic adventures. But it is not a socialist paradise that we are being invited to admire. Capitalism enters the Star Trek world as the ideology of an alien race called the Ferengi. These gnome-like creatures are presented as limitlessly greedy, unscrupulous and ridiculous in comparison with the benevolent and magnanimous humans. In a similar way militarism is the ruling passion of a warrior race called the Klingons who stand in contrast to the peaceful humans who will fight only if they have to. Of course the nature of action drama is such that they have to fight frequently. It is interesting to note, by the way, that militarism is treated with more respect that capitalism in Star Trek. It is nobler to fight than to trade, it would seem.

A new Star Trek series is being planned at Paramount but the nature of it is a wellguarded secret. I guess that they will pull back just a little from the extreme feminism of Voyager and have more interstellar wars. It will continue, however, to be a bizarre product in the popular culture of a capitalist and Christian country like America. A year or so ago the New Statesman published an article about Star Trek that failed to notice any of these points. Obviously they don't watch it at the New Statesman any more than I must suppose they do in the boardroom of Paramount Studios. It may be, of course, that these institutions have been taken over by aliens with leftwing views who are softening us up. Trust no one.

Star Trek is at the Science Museum, Exhibition Road, London SW7, till 22 April 2001.

Copyright Spectator Oct 7, 2000
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