Starry white trek: Science fiction and racial discourse

• Main Author: Krstić Predrag
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Serbian Sociological Association, Belgrade 2012-01-01
• Series: Sociološki Pregled
• Subjects: star trek; science fiction; 'whiteness'; 'race'; racism; speciesism; others
• Online Access: http://scindeks-clanci.ceon.rs/data/pdf/0085-6320/2012/0085-63201203401K.pdf

This article demonstrates that the science fiction’s visions of the future are not exempt from problems of rasism even when openly opposed it. Film and TV Star Trek production is commonly regarded as a significant example of courageous and effective intervention of mass culture on the widespread racial prejudices legitimized by the public policy. Subsequent interpretations, however, in its ‘emancipatory text’ finds smuggled recurrences of the same racial discourse against which it acted, whether it concerns other ‘races’ on Earth or space aliens. A fair interpretation would have to conclude that the white male norm requires effort of its ‘deconstruction’ that would be more extensive then involvement in the program the non-white characters - if we do not want to extend his exclusive and discriminatory rule, in mitigated or disguised form, to the galaxy.