Friday, May 26, 2023

TrekSantis?

I've been doing a re-watch of Star Trek: Enterprise of late; in the mornings, I like to play background noise that tells me a story I basically already know and thus don't have to particularly watch. Since it'd been a while, I started using Enterprise some time back, and it's fine. It provides a sort of timer for my morning routine, and the background noise.

One of the things that keeps hitting me in the brain is its 9/11-infused xenophobia, and its supposedly-"throwback" sexism. (IYKYK: sexism like that never went away; it only seemed, to some, to be briefly out of fashion.) The much-discussed theme song is full of grievance and white man wannabe-oppression. "Oh, they're not going to hold me back this time, no they're not gonna change my mind." Given that a major theme from the start, in ENT, is how the Vulcans held humanity back from galactic exploration, and the way Vulcans are portrayed generally as cold jerks and emotional rapists/victims, it's pretty hard not to hear those lyrics and understand it as "The pointy-ears were mean to us and we're gonna 'rise above' them."

It all sounds pretty grievance-supremacist to me. "Mommy (and the culture as a whole) told me I was *special*, and I've got Christo-fascist faith of the heart. I'll show those aliens, who in every other series are seen as complex, and allies--they're really just meanies, keeping me from flying my daddy's warp drive and taking over the universe! Man, I wanna be oppressed so bad!"

...

So, this morning, seeing a photo of a sign for DeathSantis' freshly glitch-launched "campaign"...

... I mean, of course. It's practically a lyric out of that theme song. No one's going to bend or break me, darn Vulcans, coming over the border and--oh, wait...

3 comments:

Keith R.A. DeCandido said...

I'm just gonna put this here.....

https://www.tor.com/series/star-trek-enterprise-rewatch/

---KRAD

DLM said...

Well geezy peteski, I haven't written a word creatively or bloggitively in how long, and when I finally do I get a visit from Keith!? I need to do this more often. Hope all is well in your world. (Also, any chance of you coming over to Spoutible? I am all but done with Teh Twiddur, though I miss some old mutuals around there.)

DLM said...

Looks like we're at a similar spot along the way in our respective re-watches, though I have very much gone in fits and starts with mine. I just completed S3. Will be very interested to see what you have to say about "Damage" - an ep that causes me shrieking cases of consternation and recrimination every single time.