Star Trek and History

by Reagin, Nancy

  The reenvisioned Uhura portrayed by Saldana reflects a more well-rounded characterization, exhibiting attitude and spunk as well as intelligence and dedication. During Kirk’s underhanded attempt to override the doomed Kobayashi Maru simulation (a “no-win” scenario intended to teach cadets to manage fear in the face of defeat, which Kirk reprograms in order to win), Uhura rolls her eyes at Kirk’s brashness. Sarcasm creeps into her voice as she answers his request to be called “Captain.” Moreover, later in the film, when a distress signal from the planet Vulcan requires that all cadets be assigned immediately to starships for emergency service, Uhura disputes her initial assignment vigorously. Assertive and direct, she marches over to Spock, demanding an explanation, “Was I not one of your top students? And, did I not, on multiple occasions, demonstrate exceptional oral sensitivity? And, I quote, ‘an unparalleled ability to identify sonic anomalies in subspace transmission tests’?” In answer to Spock’s assertion that her starship assignment to the USS Farragut was “an attempt to avoid the appearance of favoritism,” Uhura declares, “No, I am assigned to the Enterprise.” Spock quickly acquiesces.

  The viewer later learns that Uhura was not only one of Spock’s top students but is also engaged in a romantic relationship with him. This unexpected revelation upended Star Trek fans’ expectations that Spock would be emotionally aloof and isolated from the other crew members while Kirk’s character would have love interests (and sexual conquests). More important, however, it offered the strongest evidence of just how much the Uhura character had developed. The depiction of Lt. Uhura in the 2009 film demonstrated that a powerful female character could be depicted with a love interest without reducing her to being “just” the love interest—something that Trek fans and feminist scholars had suggested, as recently as the late 1990s, might not be possible.

  In her feminist analysis of space and science fiction, NASA/TREK: Popular Science and Sex in America (1997), scholar Constance Penley analyzed the fan fiction practice of “slash fiction” as a way of creating a “safe space” for women’s interests in the Star Trek universe. In such erotic stories, the traditionally heterosexual male leads, in this case Kirk and Spock, are rewritten as homosexual lovers. Because the heterosexual relationships in the original series between, for instance, Captain Kirk and the love-interest-of-the-week relied on flat, underdeveloped, overly sexualized, and often objectified female characters, Penley argues, slash writers, who were overwhelmingly women, created new stories more pleasing to their own interests by drawing out the homoromantic relationship between the leads. Rather than creating original female characters, Penley argued, slash fiction writers eliminated male-female relationships to remove the heterosexual tension that otherwise dominated the series, leaving more room to explore the issues that slash writers found interesting.20

  And yet, with Lt. Uhura in 2009, Star Trek finally included a fully realized female character who could be in a romantic relationship without being overshadowed, defined, or otherwise reduced by it. In fact, Uhura acts as the emotional lead in the couple. When Spock retreats from the bridge to the turbolift after the planet Vulcan has been destroyed, killing almost all Vulcans (including Spock’s mother), Uhura follows him and, after the turbolift doors close, embraces him. As he stands impassively (he is a Vulcan, after all), she cradles his head in her hands and whispers over and over, “I’m sorry.” She tries to draw him out, asking, “What do you need from me?” When he answers, in typical Vulcan fashion, “I need everyone to continue performing admirably,” she tips her head and nods, understanding his limits. Uhura’s departing kiss reveals Spock’s willingness to be intimate.

  Rather than overwhelming the female character, the romantic relationship enhances the depiction of Lt. Uhura. It is only during an intimate moment between the couple, as Spock prepares to transport off the Enterprise for a risky rescue mission, that the audience hears Uhura’s first name, Nyota, spoken for the first time. During that scene, Lt. Uhura’s flat catchphrase from the 1960s, “Hailing frequencies open,” becomes a deeper promise to Spock, “I’ll be monitoring your frequency.” A passionate kiss ends their good-byes. As Uhura leaves the transport room, the other male characters exchange looks: Spock’s relationship with the tall, beautiful, and intelligent officer has raised his standing in their eyes.

  Throughout the rest of the film’s denouement, Uhura is present on the bridge, acting as the ship’s communications officer, having been elevated to that position at the beginning of the film because of her extraordinary language skills, including the ability to distinguish Romulan from Vulcan. In the 2009 film, not only has the character of Lt. Uhura been allowed to develop as a professional, making real contributions to the starship’s command team through hard-won expertise and language skills, but she is also presented as a three-dimensional female character, one permitted to exhibit the greater range befitting a woman with romantic interests, strong opinions, and emotional depth.

  Lt. Uhura represents an essential part of the mixed-sex, racially integrated, international space crew depicted in the Star Trek franchise, a depiction that was not only innovative at the time but that also helped to change history. When Whoopi Goldberg saw Nichelle Nichols on the first Star Trek series, she was delighted to see an African American face depicted in the future. When Gene Roddenberry began work on Next Generation, Goldberg requested a role on the show (and was cast as Guinan) in tribute to Nichols’s path-breaking role. Moreover, the astronaut corps recruited by NASA in the late 1970s owed at least part of its racial and gender diversity to Nichols and her fame as Lt. Uhura. The evolution of the Uhura character both reflected—and spurred—historical changes for women and people of color in postwar America.

  Notes

  1. See Daniel Leonard Bernardi, Star Trek and History: Raceing toward a White Future (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998); and De Witt Douglas Kilgore, Astrofuturism: Science, Race, and Visions of Utopia in Space (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003).

  2. Bernardi, Star Trek and History, 40–42, 80; interview with Nichelle Nichols by the author, National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC, May 24, 2011 (hereinafter “Nichols interview, May 24, 2011”).

  3. Nichols interview, May 24, 2011.

  4. Although race definitions vary around the world, in the United States, the distinction between “white” and “nonwhite” had real consequences for people’s lives. See Thomas F. Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea in America, Race and American Culture series, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); F. James Davis, Who Is Black? One Nation’s Definition, 10th anniversary ed. (State College: Penn State University Press, 2001). Women in Motion Public Relations, “Profile: Nichelle Nichols,” 1977, 2, Nichelle Nichols biographical file, 001594, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA Headquarters History Office, Washington, DC (hereinafter Nichols bio file, NASA HQ).

  5. Bernardi, Star Trek and History, 80.

  6. Alice Jackson, “Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura) Wants to Make Science of Star Trek Reality,” Sun-Herald, June 4, 1977, n.p., Nichols bio file, NASA HQ.

  7. This story is also in Nichelle Nichols, Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories (New York: Putnam, 1994), 164–165; and J. Alfred Phelps, They Had a Dream: The Story of African-American Astronauts (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1994), 62.

  8. Nichols interview, May 24, 2011.

  9. Ibid.

  10. Ibid.

  11. Joseph D. Atkinson Jr. and Jay M. Shafritz, The Real Stuff: A History of NASA’s Astronaut Recruitment Program (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1985), 143.

  12. NASA’s previous experience with Star Trek included naming the first space shuttle orbiter Enterprise in response to a fan write-in campaign in 1976. Women in Motion, Incorporated, NASA Contract NASW-3049, “Final Report by Women in Motion, Inc.,” August 10, 1977, NASA; Astronaut Recruitment (Nichelle Nichols) report file, 8935, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA Headquarters History Office, Washington, DC (hereinafter Nichols re
port, NASA HQ).

  13. Amy E. Foster, Integrating Women into the Astronaut Corps: Politics and Logistics at NASA, 1972–2004 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), 71; Carrie Rickey, “Star Recruiter,” Philadelphia Inquirer, December 12, 1986, Nichols bio file, NASA HQ.

  14. Rickey, “Star Recruiter”; Nichols bio file, NASA HQ; Nichols interview, May 24, 2011.

  15. Nichols interview, May 24, 2011.

  16. “New Post for Lieutenant Uhura,” Newsweek, March 7, 1977, Nichols report, NASA HQ; “Lt. Uhura of ‘Star Trek’ Recruits for Life in Space,” People, June 13, 1977, Nichols report, NASA HQ; and Judy Stein, “‘Star Trek’ Actress Is Successful as a Recruiter for Space Agency,” National Enquirer, October 18, 1977, Nichols bio file, NASA HQ; Rickey, “Star Recruiter,” and “Nichelle Nichols . . . Lt. Uhura in ‘Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan,’” Baltimore Afro-American, June 5, 1982, both in Nichols bio file, NASA HQ.

  17. Nichols interview, May 24, 2011.

  18. Associated Press, “Names,” April 8, 1993, Nichols bio file, NASA HQ.

  19. Janet Kagan, Uhura’s Song (New York: Pocket Books, 1985).

  20. Constance Penley, NASA/TREK: Popular Science and Sex in America (London: Verso, 1997), 101, 126–127. Arguably, Uhura’s relationship with Scotty, suggested in Star Trek V (1989) but never really developed in the films, reinforces this perspective, as this detail added little to the depiction of either character.

  Chapter 3

  The Compassionate Country Doctor and Cold-Blooded Biomedicine

  Bones, Spock, and Medicine beyond the Machine

  Brenda Gardenour

  McCoy: Compassion. That’s the one thing no machine ever had. Maybe it’s the one thing that keeps men ahead of them. Care to debate that, Spock?

  Spock: No, Doctor. I simply maintain that computers are more efficient than human beings, not better.

  McCoy: But tell me, which do you prefer to have around?

  Spock: I presume your question is meant to offer me a choice between machines and human beings, and I believe I have already answered that question.

  McCoy: I was just trying to make conversation, Spock.

  Spock: It would be most interesting to impress your memory engrams on a computer, Doctor. The resulting torrential flood of illogic would be most entertaining.

  —TOS, “The Ultimate Computer”

  The true heart of the USS Enterprise as it glides silently through space in the original Star Trek series is not the dilithium crystal chamber that powers her life support and enables her warp drive, but a triad of men: Captain James T. Kirk, chief medical officer Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy, and chief science officer and second in command on the bridge, Mr. Spock. Bones and Spock are not only two of Kirk’s most valuable officers but also two of his closest friends. Despite this connection, both men are diametrically opposed and often in conflict. On one side, we have Bones McCoy, the country doctor from the American Deep South whose irascible temper, sarcastic wit, passion, and compassion mark him as fully human, making him an honest adviser and a faithful friend. These same qualities, along with his extensive biomedical and surgical training, make him an excellent physician and medical researcher. On the other side, we have the half-Vulcan Spock, whose full name is unpronounceable by humans, for whom logic and rational thought beyond emotion are the only valid means of understanding the universe and those who inhabit it.1 As first officer, these qualities in conjunction with his formidable intelligence and scientific training allow Spock to make rational decisions even in the most difficult situations and to develop technological solutions to the Gordian knots that seem to beleaguer the crew of the Enterprise.

  Bones and Spock are often at loggerheads because of their fundamental differences and uniquely stubborn personalities. Bones typically taunts Spock about his cold, green Vulcan blood, his pointy ears, and his absence of emotions. After finding out that Spock was still alive in “A Private Little War,” for example, Bones says, “I don’t know why I was worried. You can’t kill a computer.” While Bones’s passionate accusations often revolve around Spock being a dead and empty machine, Spock’s retorts generally come in the form of calmly delivered and pointed comments about the irrationality of emotions and the pitiful state of being illogical and human. His quiet disdain for human emotion extends to his own partial humanity, which sometimes proves “to be an inconvenience” (TOS, “Operation—Annihilate!”).

  Occasionally, Spock harasses McCoy for the sheer human joy of upsetting him. For example, in the episode “Operation—Annihilate!” when Kirk asks Spock whether he had an emotional response to recovering from blindness, Spock says, “I had a very strong reaction. My first sight was the face of Doctor McCoy bending over me.” To this, Bones responds with, “Tis a pity your brief blindness did not increase your appreciation for beauty, Mister Spock.” In rare cases, usually when Captain Kirk is not present to act as a mediator, the tension between Bones and Spock becomes genuinely hostile. In “Court Martial,” McCoy, who has just walked in on Spock playing chess against the ship’s computer, accuses Spock of being the “most cold-blooded man I’ve ever known” for playing a game while Starfleet is preparing to “lop off the captain’s professional head.” His anger is only abated when he realizes that Spock is playing the game as a means of revealing the computer’s corrupt programming and therefore proving Kirk’s innocence.

  Beneath this hostility, both playful and serious, Bones and Spock share a friendship predicated on mutual respect and the realization that they need each other, that they are, in fact, two parts of a larger whole, much like the diastole and systole of a beating heart. The duality and unity of Bones and Spock are evident in the final scenes of “The Tholian Web.” With Captain Kirk trapped in interspace, Spock takes command of the ship, using logic as his guiding principle and the safe return of Kirk as his ultimate goal. While a form of space madness sabotages the crew and the Tholians attack the Enterprise, Bones repeatedly berates Spock for sealing Kirk’s death and risking the Enterprise. When Spock calmly reminds Bones of his duties in the laboratory, the doctor accuses him of being selfish, saying “No hurry, Mister Spock. The antidote probably doesn’t concern you. Vulcans are probably immune, so just take your time.” Bones then accuses Spock of wanting to be decorated as a captain and to be given command of the Enterprise, to which the calm Vulcan replies, “I am in command of the Enterprise.” The argument continues until the two play a taped message from Kirk, which is only to be viewed after Kirk’s death.

  Ever the mediator, Kirk reminds the men that they need each other, telling Spock, “Use every scrap of knowledge and logic you have to save the ship. But temper your judgment with intuitive insight . . . if you can’t find them in yourself, seek out McCoy.” Kirk then addresses McCoy: “Bones, you’ve heard what I’ve just told Spock. Help him if you can. But remember he is the captain. His decisions must be followed without question. You might find that he is capable of human insight and human error. They are most difficult to defend, but you will find that he is deserving of the same loyalty and confidence each of you have given me.” After listening to Kirk’s message, the two men soften their posture and turn toward each other, humbled by the realization of their connectedness both to Kirk and to each other. This is the turning point in the episode, after which an antidote is found for the space madness, the Tholian web is diverted, and the Kirk is returned safely to the Enterprise. When Kirk intimates that Bones and Spock might have listened to his message, the two men deny having done so, a silent pact between brothers to protect their shared friend and colleague.

  The Country Doctor and Biomedical Science at the Crossroads

  Bones and Spock are not only wonderful and ultimately human characters in the future world of Star Trek but also are personifications of two very different ways of seeing, knowing, and treating the human body. Both men wear the blue uniform designated for medical and science crewmembers, seeming to suggest a strong connection between these disciplines. For academic an
d popular audiences in mid-twentieth-century America, however, the relationship between medicine and science was as troubled and troubling as that between Bones and Spock. By 1966, the year in which Star Trek made its debut, the art of medicine had long coalesced in the character of the physician, an individual who filled many roles, including those of a father figure, a man of science, and a fearless, self-sacrificing hero.

  The image of the physician as loving patriarch is exemplified in the paintings of Norman Rockwell that permeated popular culture for over four decades. Rockwell’s earlier images, such as Doctor and the Doll (1929), Doc Melhorn and the Pearly Gates (1938), and A Family Doctor (1947), capture with quaint nostalgia the ideal country physician lovingly attending to children and playfully extending his services to their little friends, in one case using his stethoscope on a doll and in another taking a doll’s pulse, all within a home setting. The physician’s bedside manner is the theme of Rockwell’s Doctor and Boy Looking at Thermometer (1954), which depicts a doctor, still willing to make house calls, taking the time to show a young boy how to read a temperature. By 1958, however, the setting of Rockwell’s idealized physician had moved from the middle-class home and comfortable bedroom to the modern physician’s office, with its hospital-green walls and sterile-looking linoleum floor. In Before the Shot, a young boy holds his pants at half-mast and stares at the doctor’s credentials while the physician, turned away from his little patient, prepares an injection.

  This shift—from the image of the kindly father who offers love and advice from the family rocking chair to the professional man of science who inoculates against disease while wearing a white lab coat in a modern clinic—hints at midcentury changes in medical practice. At the center of these changes was the increasing role of scientific research and technology in medical education, diagnosis, and treatment. The tensions between medical art and biomedical science, between the loving touch of the physician and the cold steel of the computerized medical machine hinted at in the bucolic works of Rockwell, are writ large a decade later in the conflicted relationship between McCoy, the kindly physician, and Spock, the diagnostic machine.