Star Trek, Star Trek fandom, and the limits of fandom as progressivism
On 6 September 1966,[1] the general television-watching public got its first look at a little show called Star Trek. It had already been previewed at the World Science Fiction Convention, where it was greeted with enthusiasm by an audience ready to embrace a science fiction television series which took itself—and the genre—seriously. Lost in Space was for kids; Doctor Who… was also for kids, and in any case, wouldn’t reach an American audience for another decade or so. Star Trek was sophisticated and intelligent, and so was its audience.
Just ask them. Frederick Pohl, editor of Galaxy Magazine, predicted a swift cancellation, citing low ratings and suggesting that “Star Trek made the mistake of appealing to a comparatively literate group.”[2]
He wasn’t entirely wrong. Creator Gene Roddenberry sought contributions from established science fiction authors. Hugo Award-winner Theodore Sturgeon wrote two scripts for the series;[3] Harlan Ellison was credited with one, although the final script had gone through rewrites and Ellison famously despised the episode as it aired.[4]
In short, Star Trek was science fiction television for the sorts of people who attend Worldcons—insufferable nerds with vast imaginations.[5]
It was also very much a product of the civil rights era. Roddenberry, an infamous credit hog,[6] claimed this was entirely because of his own firm belief in equality and social justice, though a letter from NBC Vice President Mort Werner dated 17 August 1966 emphasises that all NBC productions should employ what we would now call diverse casting.[7]
Nevertheless, the original Star Trek employed a level of diversity in its background casting that wouldn’t be seen again until Star Trek: Discovery (2017). Australian critic Nan Musgrove noted in her review that the series has “achieved integration in a big way. Star Trek blazes into space without a racial prejudice showing.”[8]
The relative diversity of the cast, the variety of roles for women—from mini-skirted scientist to mini-skirted planetary ruler—and the superficially progressive politics[9] enabled Star Trek fans to congratulate themselves. They weren’t just “comparatively literate”, as Pohl put it. They were fans of a fictional utopia, and they supported the popular liberal causes of the 1960s, and that meant they were good people.
Or, as Simon Pegg put it in 2022:
I find the Star Trek fans have always been very very inclusive. Star Trek is about diversity, it has been since 1966. It always was. There’s no sort of like “oh, you’re suddenly being woke now.” Star Trek was woke from the beginning.[10]
Pegg was specifically comparing Trekkies[11] with Star Wars fans, and by that metric, we certainly have a lot to be proud of. So far Trekkies haven’t run a single actor of colour off social media through racist harassment.[12]
But Star Trek’s reputation as a progressive franchise has enabled its fandom to congratulate itself on being more enlightened and welcoming than society in general, and this has led to a profound cultural problem within the fandom itself.[13]
Specifically, Star Trek fandom is a hive of unexamined and frequently overt bigotry.
For example.
On 28 September 2023, an episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks briefly featured a Starfleet officer wearing a hijab. She was a background character we saw in fleeting glimpses.
On 29 September, Star Trek fan Rashid (@rashiduzzaman82) tweeted:
Seeing a Starfleet Officer wearing a hijab in #StarTrekLowerDecks was just magical to see. I’m so happy. 💛 🖖🏾@StarTrek”[14]
The enlightened and progressive Star Trek fandom reacted with an enlightened and progressive orgy of islamophobia.
Rashid suffered weeks of abuse, including accusations that he engaged in intimate partner violence. People swept in to explain that the presence of a human who practiced their religion was retrograde and anti-science.[15] White saviours swept in to declare the hijab oppressive regardless of context or circumstance, or twisted themselves into knots trying to convince people it was “cultural” not “religious”.[16] It was all very predictable, and reflected a sadly limited worldview on the part of far too many Trekkies.
#NotAllTrekkies, of course. There was significant pushback against this abuse, largely from fans with a greater presence than, say, @antiwoketrekkie22222333393992929. @CaptainPikeachu tweeted:
‘This “hijab in Trek” incident has only further highlighted how a section of Trek audience is very western-view centric and cannot grasp others whose religions and cultures are intertwined. Also how many folks in this fandom are quick to play white savior to the “brainwashed’.[17]
The matter died down, as Twitter disputes inevitably do once the algorithm moves on and people find other things to be abusive about. But this incident was very telling: the merest nod in the direction of inclusiveness beyond that envisioned in the 1960s, and a significant proportion of Star Trek fans lose their minds.
This isn’t new. The people who complain about Star Trek: Discovery being “woke” now are the same types who were complaining about Star Trek: The Next Generation being “politically correct” on Usenet in the 1990s.
For example, way back in 1992, Dwight Joe responded to a post complaining that an episode ended with a telepathic metaphorical rapist facing justice with:
Please remember that you are talking about Star Trek-TNG, which is consistent with politically correct notions of right and wrong and happiness. Things work with the fine precision of logic equations regardless of whether this is indicative of real life or not. Star Trek-TOS was different.[18]
Joe received pushback, just as Michael NcNinch did in 1991 when he wrote:
The main reason that no homo's are shown is because there are none.
Proof:
In the TOS episode that takes place on the planet that is being used as a mental asylum, it is stated that almost all forms of mental illness can be cured.
So maybe in another couple of hundred years all of you queers can be cured of your mental afflictions.
But then where will we get interior designers and hair dressers?[19]
It is notable that rec.arts.startrek felt like a safe space for Joe and McNinch to share these opinions. Just as the comment section at TrekMovie in 2017 felt like a safe space for plenty of people to complain about the announcement that Anthony Rapp would play an openly gay character on Discovery.[20] There is less overt homophobia and more concern about stereotyping, but nevertheless there is an unpleasant whiff of “Well, that’s okay, but they better not have stories about queer experiences”.
These voices of bigotry are not the majority, but they are loud. And one cannot shake the fear that the franchise listens to them.
In June 2023, as the writers’ strike got underway, Star Trek: Discovery writer Carlos Cisco tweeted, “On [Discovery] everyone constantly fought to give Culber, Stamets and Adira more inherently queer stories but there was pushback from on high forcing us to pivot.”[21]
Cisco was referring to a wider industry trend, but Star Trek coasts along, claiming credit for representation that simply does not exist.[22] When fans point out the concerning trend, they are often met with arguments (“I’m an ally, but...”) or criticism.[23] And sometimes fandom’s silence on a topic is almost overwhelming; at the conclusion of season one of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, the intersectional feminist podcast Women at Warp was almost the only voice criticising the ableist subtext which underpinned that season.[24]
I love Star Trek. And I like a lot of things about Star Trek fandom. But this relentless regressivism, this willingness to overlook serious problems if a series provides enough fan service and isn’t too challenging, is deeply saddening. It makes this fandom less welcoming to the people who—if we really embraced the principles more or less upheld by the franchise—should be an integral part of the community.
But how do we find a way forward?
You might say, “Don’t read the comments.” And that’s fair—but fandom is the comments section.
We’re all here because we looked at a creative work and went, “I love that/I hate that/I have complex feelings I need to explore/I need to know what happens next and I want to discuss all the possibilities/I need to find out minute details about every single starship that appeared on screen/I will actually die if these fictional characters don’t kiss/a combination of some or all of these feelings.” Fandom is more than the act of consumption. Fandom is in the creation that follows, whether that’s through a fan fiction or art, or reviews, or essays, or the conversations between strangers that take place online.
In “Balance of Terror”, Kirk tells a prejudiced crewman to keep his bigotry in his quarters. It’s a snappy line that fits neatly into a single animated gif, so it’s frequently rolled out by fans as a “solution” to the problem of bigotry in fandom. But very few people identify as a bigot, especially in Star Trek fandom. Karen Q. Fangirl isn’t going, “I have a terrible problem with misogynoir, I really hate Black women,” she’s saying, “Look, I just think Michael Burnham and Raffi Musiker and Beckett Mariner don’t belong in Starfleet.” Just as her mother, thirty years ago, complained that Benjamin Sisko was there to serve political correctness, and anyway, isn’t he just too angry to be a good leader? And just as her grandmother wrote Kirk/Spock stories in which Uhura simply did not appear.
“Don’t read the comments/don’t engage with the bigots/keep your bigotry in your quarters” just cedes the room to the noisiest and worst people in fandom. As a solution to the problem, it’s as intellectually and morally lazy as the multiple episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds which posit that the torture of children of colour is a necessary sacrifice to maintain a thriving utopia.[25]
In fact, the Omelas metaphor holds up:[26] Star Trek fandom’s existence as a fun, escapist, progressive space depends less on the prejudiced keeping their bigotry in their quarters than on diverse and marginalised fans keeping quiet about microaggressions. Or things that bring them joy.
We all have unconscious biases that affect how we interpret media[27] and treat others. This is a universal fact of human existence. The specific problem with Star Trek fandom is the belief that, because we are Trekkies, those issues don’t apply to us. We have evolved beyond such petty realities because we watch Star Trek, and that makes us special. If a Trekkie engages in overt bigotry or abuse, well, they’re just not a real Star Trek fan. Despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary. (Fan and anti-racist activist Stitch in fact cites Star Trek fandom in their brief essay exploring the “REAL fans aren’t racist”/“I am shocked, SHOCKED to find racism in my fandom!” dichotomy.[28])
Anyone who observed the events of GamerGate, or the Sad Puppies fiasco, or the 2016 US presidential election and everything that followed knows there is no easy solution when people are trying to undermine a community. But denial is the worst possible response.
Star Trek launched as a science fiction series for the intellectually inclined, for those who value evidence and logic over instinct and emotion. But it’s worth noting that Spock’s purely logical response was often wrong—or, at least, inadequate. Perhaps Star Trek fandom needs to place less value on intellect and logic, and more on empathy and curiosity.
Star Trek has come a long way from its Worldcon fandom-courting roots. So has fandom—but not far enough. We can do better. But the first step is confronting the problem: that Star Trek fandom gives itself far too much credit for being “diverse” and “progressive” and “welcoming”. Sometimes that’s true. All too often it’s not.
And the victims are not allegories but real, living people who just want to hang out and enjoy their space opera—and to see themselves in it—with everyone else.
Notes
[1] It made its debut on this date on the Canadian CTV network, landing on US screens two days later on September 8. The UScentricity of Star Trek fandom is beyond the scope of this essay, but I am doing everything I can to undermine it.
[2] “More About Being Bad”, Galaxy Magazine, February 1967; Vol. 25, No. 3. Archived at https://archive.org/details/Galaxy_v25n03_1967-02/page/n1/mode/2up?view=theater (accessed 20 November 2023).
[3] He famously wrote “Amok Time”, inventing the Fuck or Die trope which fandom has been obsessed with since about fifteen seconds after the end credits began. He also wrote “Shore Leave”, in which Captain Kirk battles his Academy bully and the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.
[4] “The City on the Edge of Forever”, which I am sorry to report is every bit as good as the nerds promise, even though it asks us to believe that the greatest love of James Kirk’s life is a woman who didn’t believe in punching Nazis.
[5] Yes, I have been to a Worldcon. Yes, I am an insufferable nerd; the vastness of my imagination, however, is debatable. It’s rhetoric, okay?
[6] He wrote lyrics to the Star Trek theme song which, though they were never used, ensured he would get royalties for the composition. This anecdote is cited in many books and all over the internet, but I’ll direct you specifically to Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/unthemely-behavior/ (accessed 14 December 2023).
[7] “We urge producers to cast Negroes … as people who are an integral segment of the population, as well as in those roles where the fact of their minority status is of significance. An earnest attempt has been made to see that their presence contributes to an honest and natural reflection of places, situations and events, and we desire to intensify and extend this effort.” The letter is reproduced in full at https://www.facttrek.com/blog/nbcblackamerica (accessed 20 November 2023). Obviously it came several months after Star Trek had begun filming; however, it also came several years after Bill Cosby played one of the leads in I, Spy. Roddenberry’s claims of fighting the network to get his diverse cast are clearly exaggerated.
[8] “Australian Spy Drama and U.S. Science-Fiction”, Nan Musgrove, The Australian Women’s Weekly, 12 July 1967. Archived at https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/47226827?searchTerm=nan%20musgrove%20star%20trek (accessed 11 September 2023).
[9] It’s interesting how The Original Series veers wildly from opposing the Vietnam War to going, “Well, we’re not happy about using this primitive planet for our proxy war with the Klingons, but they leave us no choice!” Also: children—are they really the future, or are they a dangerous threat to the social order? Remember, most of the men writing this series were veterans of the Second World War. The series’ ambivalence towards the culture of the 1960s is absolutely fascinating.
[10] “Simon Pegg Praises Star Trek Fans As “Inclusive”; Says Franchise Has Always Been Progressive”, TrekMovie.com, 21 July 2022 (https://trekmovie.com/2022/07/21/simon-pegg-praises-star-trek-fans-as-inclusive-says-franchise-has-always-been-progressive/, accessed 27 November 2023).
[11] Someone is going to come and yell at me for not referring to us as “Trekkers”, which is said to be a more dignified and mature label. And to that I say, friend, we are here to talk about a franchise where Shakespearean actors in athleisurewear solve problems by giving speeches, dignity doesn’t come into it.
[12] See, for example, “The Resurrection of Kelly Marie Tran: On Surviving ‘Star Wars’ Bullying, the Pressures of Representation and ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ by Rebecca Sun, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 March 2021 (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/resurrection-of-kelly-marie-tran-on-surviving-star-wars-bullying-the-pressures-of-representation-and-raya-and-the-last-dragon-4142178/, accessed 10 January 2024); and “Racist ‘Star Wars’ fans aren’t new. Why doesn’t Disney do more to protect its actors?” by Eric Deggans, NPR, June 2 2022 (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/resurrection-of-kelly-marie-tran-on-surviving-star-wars-bullying-the-pressures-of-representation-and-raya-and-the-last-dragon-4142178/, accessed 10 January 2024).
[13] And, of course, the show. It is frankly a miracle that a franchise developed over the course of decades, encompassing hundreds of hours of media, is as coherent as it is. To quote the philosopher Kiedis, “Space may be the final frontier, but it’s made in a Hollywood basement.” (Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Californication”, written by Anthony Kiedis, Flea, John Frusciante & Chad Smith.) The contradictions and consistencies within Star Trek could be a whole essay on their own. We’re here to talk about the fandom.
[14] https://twitter.com/rashiduzzaman82/status/1707408195109417140 (accessed 27 November 2023).
[15] https://twitter.com/DerDeitermann/status/1707704445256052785, https://x.com/Smartymarty66/status/1707840941091074118?s=20 – take these tweets, accessed 27 November 2023, as representational. If you hate life, go search “Star Trek hijab” on Twitter (sorry, X).
[16] Misc examples: https://x.com/Objectivity1/status/1707800547942871392?s=20; https://x.com/blanket1734/status/1707789878904111230?s=20; https://x.com/Shelverman/status/1708196786748485788?s=20 (all accessed 14 December 2023).
[17] https://twitter.com/CaptainPikeachu/status/1708547477622624292 (accessed 1 December 2023). Additionally, Robina Khan (@unioniseOrian) tweeted, “There has been a lot said about the lady in the hijab in #LowerDecks but I’ve not seen any posts from anyone who actually wears one. (Understandably as they’d inevitably gave abuse.) So here’s my attempt to redress the balance” and posted a link to her essay in The Guardian about wearing the hijab at https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/01/i-proudly-wear-a-hijab-forget-the-stereotypes-its-a-sign-of-style-and-strength (accessed 1 December 2023). Khan’s prediction that a hijabi Trekkie would face abuse is sadly very telling.
[18] https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.startrek/c/LaWlurIRKRA/m/BHQEtY65hxAJ, 11 February 1992 (accessed 1 December 2023). Google’s Usenet archives are sadly patchy and difficult to search and navigate, but are well worth your time if you’re interested in fandom history.
[19] https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.startrek/c/wVXCcoyOvy0/m/yXK21OIj-f4J?pli=1, 10 August 1991 (accessed 1 December 2023).
[20] “Anthony Rapp Talks About Being Star Trek’s First Gay TV Character”, TrekMovie, 23 March 2017 (https://trekmovie.com/2017/03/23/anthony-rapp-honored-to-play-gay-character-in-star-trek-discovery/, accessed 1 December 2023). TrekMovie is proactive about banning trolls, but has a culture where commenters can get away with playing the devil’s advocate and “just asking questions”.
[21] Cisco’s tweet was dated 16 June 2023, but thanks to the current state of affairs on The Site Currently Known As X, I was unable to see any of his tweets older than August. My citation unfortunately has to be a screencap I reposted on Tumblr at https://liz-squids.tumblr.com/post/721325023823118337/its-truly-depressing-how-unsurprising-this-is (accessed 9 December 2023).
[22] For example, see “The ‘Star Trek’ Cast on the Radical LGBT+ Representation of ‘Strange New Worlds’”, Dawn Ennis, The Daily Beast (https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-cast-on-its-radical-lgbt-portrayal, accessed 9 December 2023). The “radical” and “unapologetic” depictions of queerness and gender amounted to a brief glimpse of two women raising a child together, and a transporter chief played by a non-binary actor, who appeared in a handful of scenes across the season, and whose pronouns were never used.
[23] See, for example, this Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/comments/16uuhol/heteronormativity_in_strange_new_worlds/ (accessed 11 December 2023, at which time the post had been heavily downvoted. Up and downvotes are a signal of approval or disapproval on Reddit; reading the comments, it is clear that the original poster’s very gentle criticisms were met with strong disapproval).
[24] Episode 196. “Exploring Strange New Worlds Season 1”, 25 July 2022 (https://www.womenatwarp.com/episode-196-exploring-strange-new-worlds-season-1/, accessed 11 December 2023). Another voice was my own podcast, Antimatter Pod (http://antimatterpod.com/); our audience and credibility are but a fraction of Women at Warp’s, and I deeply appreciate the effort they make to be truly intersectional.
[25] Those are “Lift Us Up Where Suffering Cannot Reach” and “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow”, if you were wondering. The latter is a fun time travel romp that simply fails to engage with its implications; the former is a blatant rip-off of Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”. That Star Trek has gone from seeking out new works by the great men of science fiction to plagiarising old works by great women is sad; that fandom largely received it as a profound piece of work is worse. If my editor still wants to speak to me when this essay is complete, I would relish a deep dive into the failings of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Editor: do it.
[26] Barely.
[27] I, for example, was one hundred percent taken in by Lorca in season one of Star Trek: Discovery, despite the veritable parade of red flags. Am I embarrassed? Yes. Did I have to stop and think about how I instinctively give trust and grace to terrible men when they’re played by Jason Isaacs? Yes. Is my absolute loathing for Anson Mount’s Pike potentially an overreaction to my initial mistake? You don’t know me!
[28] “Meme-ing For A Reason: Racism In Escapist Fandom? More Likely Than You Think” by Stitch, 3 May 2022 (https://stitchmediamix.com/2022/05/03/meme-racism-in-fandom-likely/, accessed 12 January 2024).
Liz Barr is a lifelong fan and an aspiring author of science fiction for young readers. She co-hosts Antimatter Pod, a Star Trek podcast about fashion, feminism, subtext and subspace. In 2019 she won the Ditmar Award for Best Fan Writer for her Star Trek blogging at squiddishly.net.