Abstract
This chapter takes a step back to survey wider themes of othering in science fiction and how the alien-other is used to explore, critique, or stand in for race. Because the Other is often seen as a threat (in both our reality and in science fiction), I look at how immigration, genetic manipulation, and disability have been addressed in science fiction, with Star Trek’s various series featuring in the chapter.
Mutants. Since the discovery of their existence, they have been regarded with fear, suspicion, often hatred. Across the planet debate rages. Are mutants the next link in the evolutionary chain? Or simply a new species of humanity, fighting for their share of the world? Either way, it is an historical fact sharing the world has never been humanity’s defining attribute.
—opening narration of X2 (2003)
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Notes
- 1.
David Roh, one of the editors of the volume, defines techno-orientalism as “the phenomena of imagining Asia and Asians in hypo- or hypertechnological terms in cultural productions and political discourse” (2015, 2).
- 2.
It should be pointed out that Captain Benjamin Sisko is a classic example of the “non-threatening black” as his backstory says that he’s from New Orleans, is a church goer, and a homebody who likes to cook Cajun food.
- 3.
More often than not, blackness is simply erased in science fiction. For example, Battlestar Galactica kills off all its black characters by the end of the series—even the one black Cylon (model four/Simon) is not around for the finale. For a good racial critique of BSG , see Huh (2015).
- 4.
Ferengi also happens to be Persian for “foreigner.”
- 5.
Denise Hurd makes an excellent point that even the mixed-race characters are defined by their hybridity (1997, 30). Spock, a half-human half-Vulcan, is often portrayed as someone whose logical ideal (Vulcan) is disrupted by the emotional, irrational human side. B’Elanna Torres, the half-Klingon half-human of Voyager is like any other human woman—except she has a really bad temper and lashes out with violence—her inherent Klingon nature revealing itself.
- 6.
Sto-Vo-Kor is the Klingon heaven (like Valhalla).
- 7.
During the trial scene, Dr. Zaius tries to quiz Taylor on ape religion: “Tell us... Why are all apes created equal?” Taylor replies, “Some apes, it seems, are more equal than others.” Other writers have observed that the chimps—especially Dr. Zira and Cornelius—could be read to represent the intellectual Jewish liberals, and Dr. Zaius and the orangutans the Christian conservatives of the 1960s.
- 8.
The Blob (1958) could be interpreted as a metaphor for communism, the popular bogeyman of the 1950s in which it is set. As its sole purpose is to absorb and overwhelm everyone it encounters (growing bigger and redder), it highlighted fears about the “red menace.”
- 9.
Amy Taubin has read the Alien Queen as animalistic and sexualized, bearing “a suspicious resemblance to a scapegoat in the Reagan/Bush era—the black welfare mother, the parasite on the economy whose uncurbed reproductive drive reduced hard-working taxpayers to bankruptcy” (1993, 95–95).
- 10.
Jonathan and Martha Kent, Clark Kent/Superman’s adoptive parents, are Methodist and Clark is understood to have gone to church with his mother as a child.
- 11.
A very good critique on how Children of Men fails to transcend base stereotypes and symbolic representations of women has been written by Amanda Rodriguez (2013).
- 12.
More often, immigrants who came through Ellis Island had their name either accidentally anglicized or misspelled, although others took on more American names in their first five years of residency. It was not until the Naturalization Act of 1906 that name changes required documentation.
- 13.
There is a revisionist creation narrative at work here, in choosing Lilith—not Eve—as the progenitor of the new human race.
- 14.
- 15.
For more analysis on Butler’s trilogy, see Bonner (1990).
- 16.
- 17.
Malcolm X’s speech was given in June 1964, in which he discussed the creation of The Organization for Afro-American Unity (OAAU). The famous phrase “We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary,” is understood to not rule out violence as an effective tactic—although ideally it should be avoided.
- 18.
There is some debate whether the characters of Magneto and Professor X were modeled on those two historical figures, but the consensus is that civil rights discourse became influential to how the X-Men were written and interpreted, and thus these parallels are not forcibly imposed. See DiPaolo (2014, chapter 8) and Lyubansky (2008).
- 19.
S.H.I.E.L.D. stands for “Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division.”
- 20.
It is no accident that these experiments were discovered and reemployed by HYDRA, Marvel Comics’ thinly veiled parallel to the Nazis. One of the heads of HYDRA discovered an inhuman woman with self-healing talents, and he conducted numerous experiments and vivisections on her. HYDRA is a consistent enemy in the AoS television show, with its master race rhetoric tapping into anxieties of “difference” that resonate in contemporary society as well.
- 21.
On the show, the crystals were dumped into the ocean, affecting the fish in the immediate region who were then farmed for fish oil capsules, which were then consumed widely.
- 22.
- 23.
X3: The Last Stand had alternate endings in which Rogue did not choose to take the cure. However, as both her and Magneto’s abilities are returned for Days of Future Past, we can assume that the cure was temporary, or is something that would need to be constantly administered, like diabetes treatments, to be effective.
- 24.
The Eugenics Record Office suggested laws to keep “defectives” out of the country and to prohibit marriage of unfit people by keeping them in asylums during their reproductive years. Charles Davenport, a leading figure in the American eugenics project, said in a letter “Can we build a wall high enough around the country so as to keep out these cheaper races?” (American Experience 2018).
- 25.
The exorcism of a demon from a boy (e.g. Matthew 12:14–20) is interpreted as epilepsy, with symptoms described in Mark’s account of the story (9:14–29). The Bible is full of descriptions of the disabled and afflicted who were marginalized in that time, but whose personhood status is raised through miraculous healing. In the New Testament, Jesus is the healer who performs a number of miracles including giving sight to the blind (Mark 8:22–26; John 9:1–12), healing a woman who was disabled “by an evil spirit” making her bent over (Luke 13:10–13), various lepers (Mark 1:40–45; Luke 5:12–16), the paralyzed (Matthew 9:1–8; Mark 2:1–12; Luke 5:17–26), and even healing a woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years (Matthew 9:18–26; Mark 5:21–34; Luke 8:40–48).
- 26.
We can push this speculation further, asking why so many advances have been made in space flight and communication, but disability has seemingly been ignored. One would think if it was a priority, there would be much better ways for Pike to live successfully in his impaired state.
- 27.
It is worth noting that this storyline is revisited in the second season of Discovery (2019) during which Captain Pike has a vision of his future. He sees his accident, mutilation, and himself in the chair/apparatus after paralyzed, and is given a choice to reject that future. He chooses to accept that future impairment and pain down the line in order to save his crew in the present.
- 28.
Technically called VISOR, an acronym for Visual Impairment and Sight Organ Replacement.
- 29.
The Holodeck or Holosuite is a virtual reality sandbox program that uploads a wide variety of environments, stories, sports, adventures, and so forth, allowing one to be fully immersed in any world they desire. Addiction to the Holosuite programs is rarely mentioned in Star Trek—surprising, as its escapism is remarkably seductive and realistic—perhaps underscoring the overall utopian world of Gene Rodenberry’s vision. DS9 is the darkest of the Star Trek series, dealing with messier, non-utopian situations, which is perhaps why Nog’s PTSD is fairly well addressed here.
- 30.
The comedic sci-fi series The Orville (2018) does an inversion of this same story, with the character instead coming from a high gravity planet, which then gives her special strength and endurance on planets and ships with “Earth ratio gravity.” But as her body acclimates to the ship’s environment, her muscles atrophy and when she goes home, she is unable to stand or even move on her home planet. This forces her into a hover-chair and her family subsequently treats her like an invalid.
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Gittinger, J.L. (2019). The Alien-Other: Monsters, Mutants, and Othered Bodies. In: Personhood in Science Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30062-3_7
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