Peace Amongst the Stars

Science Fiction in popular culture has always imagined technological advances that have grown parallel to the progression of technology available. Its influence on the world we will believe we will live in tomorrow is shaping how we live today. As the technology and understanding of ourselves continue to progress, the human mindset has driven us to look forward to our possible future, to the stars. Many of these questionable futures portray humanity still as it is today, diverse in every aspect. From the humanoid worlds and races projected in Star Wars to the dystopian universes in the Alien series or the recent Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. This essay will explore the concepts of race and species often conflated explicitly in the Star Trek Universe and other fictional worlds portrayed on film and why such a harmonious utopia of humans is a possibility to strive for in our present day.  

Fictional universes involving the human race becoming a space dwelling species such as Star Trek have a wide-ranged audience due to their appearance through both television and big-budget movies, their influence on popular culture and the way we view ourselves as a race is what drives our culture forward as we create our own reality. Films such as Back to the Future Part II, are a great example of science fiction given an opportunity to become a reality. Nike’s release of the Air Mag sneaker on October 21st, 2015, introduced the same self-lacing shoes worn by the movie’s main character, Marty McFly. His first introduction to this new futuristic technology when he traveled into his future, the release date of the sneaker by Nike, also matches the time written into the movie’s plot. This tribute to the idea of something futuristic and entirely fictional introduced through the medium of art and film grew enough in popularity to become then a product bought and sold in reality. Subsequently, starting a market for self-lacing shoes, leading Adidas, and converse to follow suit as Nike began to create their Adapt division.

Specifically, in film, futuristic realities are often shown through stereotypical portrayals of men of European descent, much like most of western history, that warn of today’s habits and actions, as they are messages to an audience with an unknown future full of limitless possibilities. These forms of art or propaganda control the perception of ourselves, note our progression as a species through our history. Most of these science fiction stories are told from a white male perspective, that handle new and unknown cultures with brash ethnocentrism. The original show Star Trek was no exception to this ‘White American’ perspective, yet it still possessed the opportunity to expand upon these ideas of new possibilities for human life to learn and grow, but often failed to do so. Each episode usually debuted a new and fascinating culture of species that introduced some new technology to the ship’s crew; whether it be a new energy source, a powerful weapon, or a hyper-intelligent being, the show would then seem to forget all the advancements made by the next episode, though with the same technology and principled approach as before, failing to learn their own lessons. Harvey Cormier put it best in his comparison of morality and science in the essay Race Through the Alpha Quadrant: Species and Destiny on Star Trek, “In a world of social differences, discovery, and change, moral beliefs may have to be guessed at, tested and sometimes discarded, much like scientific beliefs. Maybe the good thing that morality can learn from science is an experimental attitude” (27). An open mind kept by those within the scientific community allows for new discoveries and the ability to relearn what was previously thought to be true. This attitude would be smartly adapted to our society’s perception of moral and ethical behaviors while drawing strict lines on those deemed offensives and evil.

First appearing in 1966, the show was not very popular within the masses. However, it featured a future in which humans and other humanoid species have united to create a peaceful and exploratory armada of starships named The Federation. The ship’s crew featured a diverse cast of seven main characters, each with a distinct background and ethnicity. The two pilots of the craft were Hikaru Sulu, meant to represent all of the Asian continents, and Pavel Chekov, a representative of Russia. The onboard linguist Uhura was played by Nichelle Nichols, one of the first lead roles for an African American on television. The head medical officer was Dr. Leonard McCoy, also known as “Bones,” who introduced the crew to a southern American perspective. The chief engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, was an on-the-nose depiction of Scottish heritage. The two main propellers of the show were first lieutenant Spock, a half-alien half-human whose cold analytical and logical personality popularized the character and added an outside or foreign perspective on the mostly human crew, lead by Captain James T. Kirk, the brash American captain that mans the helm of the starship with the primary mission of exploring new worlds and to “boldly go where no man has gone before”, and that it did. The show broke ground by showing the first interracial kiss aired on American television in the episode, “Plato’s Stepchildren” where Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura are forced to kiss through telekinesis by a higher-powered being. Famous Actress Whoopi Goldberg, who later played a role on the Star Trek: The Next Generation, recalled Uhura as a role model during her upbringing, ecstatic that the possibility of a black woman on television didn’t have to play a maid or low-class character, she credits Nichelle Nichols as the primary influence on her career. The fictional universe of Star Trek influenced many young Americans and was soon brought back due to the then viral release of Star Wars.

Star Trek’s ability to create a universe in which humans see no difference between one another in terms of skin color or heritage, has evened the experience for each individual to now act without the presence of their people’s past history to affect their predetermined judgment of the new and undiscovered life they find out in space. Similarly, Afrofuturists such as Janelle Monáe continues to strive to defy such eurocentric influence over her art and message, as discussed in John Calvert’s article Black Sky Thinking, 

“Monáe’s use of both cutting edge production machines and futuristic styles (i.e., the ‘nonhuman’) and her adherence to the like of James Brown and more ripened forms (i.e., the ‘human’) which are vital. This ‘inexplicable mashup’ - the call-and-response between past and future - is what distinguishes the Afrofuturist from your garden-variety ‘black musician into sci-fi’ and brings to the fore perceptions that African-Americans have always symbolically been human and nonhuman: ‘In the era of slavery, people of African descent were human enough to live and love and have culture, but were nonhuman to the extent that they were ‘machines’, labour for capitalism’. This duality imposed on them by slavery is what David believes Monáe and other true Afrofuturist artists are confronting. By manipulating these symbolic references of past and future, a kind of third entity emerges, which David describes as ‘a cyborg identity, in resistance to that involuntary binary’. Or, as Monáe has it on ‘Cold War’: ‘I’m another flavour/Something like a terminator’”.

Because of a past linked with slavery and oppression, the future for a young African American living today is to escape the present hardships and discrimination to a new and unestablished frontier in the stars where humans can combine the many intricate complexities of modern society to unite in a better future. The knowledge and understanding of race as a social construct and its power to withhold so many individuals from seeing eye to eye can not go unnoticed and unchecked. The recent movements of feminism, racial, and social equality in popular cultural events such as the Oscar award boycott claimed that not enough diversity had been cast in these movies. Not enough recognition is provided to those deserving, this is reflective of a history of dominant influence only belonging in a particular group’s hands, and the trend, and eventual revolt, for more creative minorities to step into the spotlight and spread their voice for those who never had one before.  

Fictional futures are clearly not just for entertainment; they influence our view of society and individuals, they reflect our own perceptions and can change how we think, bringing new and unimaginable technology to life, these worlds are more powerful than they seem and should be considered one of the human races most exceptional achievements of communication, art, and influence.  

Such a conflation is possible in our world today, as humans, our minds are our most powerful tool, we possess the ability to create our own reality, what we fear, love or hate will become real. Our perceptions of that as strange or unknown should never be met with hostile intent but to take a more scientific and diligent approach to change our moral compass as we go along. Change is an essential part of life, change in the relationships we have, change in the technology we use, and having the ability to change our moral conception without the prejudice of our own cultural norms and the acceptance of anything considered strange or unidentifiable.  Star Trek and many fictional universes are a big part of what our future will become, so the importance of portraying not only typical human behavior and morality we see today but also the possibility for new human expression and identity. Now is the time to shape the future of tomorrow and to unite the world with a common goal by understanding our commonalities and releasing our species’ past failures.

Bengtson, Russ. “How the Auto-Lacing Nike Mag Became a Reality”. October 5th, 2016.

Complex Magazine. https://www.complex.com/sneakers/2016/10/nike-mag-tiffany-beers-interview. Accessed November 12th, 2018.

Calvert, John. “Janelle Monáe: A New Pioneer Of Afrofuturism”. Black Sky Thinking. September 2nd, 2010.  The Quietus. http://thequietus.com/articles/04889-janelle-mon-e-the-archandroid-afrofuturism. Accessed November 12, 2018

Cormier, Harvey. “Race Through the Alpha Quadrant: Species and Destiny on Star Trek”. Academia.edu. Accessed November 12, 2018.