Mythos and logos: Star Trek as mythic narrative

Abstract

One of the apparent contradictions of Star Trek is that, while its audience insists on continually high levels of narrative consistency and scientific ‘realism’, it seems perfectly prepared to accept certain standardised dramatic conventions of action-adventure which violate such ‘realist’ principles. A good example of this is the way in which Star Trek characters may, in the course of a ‘life or death’ battle scene, pause to make ‘significant’, or even humorous philosophical observations to each other. In many traditional mythical tales there is similarly plenty of room for playful banter or philosophising, often featuring much use of irony and paradox, even if the heroes are in apparently mortal danger. The oral storytelling traditions depended on the audience’s pre-knowledge of the narrative conventions of the form which allowed storytellers to ‘play’ in a self-referential manner with various contemporary and universal themes. The way in which postmodern TV narratives ‘play’ with the history of their own texts duplicates this process in the modern era. Many ancient storytelling forms have reasserted themselves through the medium of TV which, as argued in the Introduction, now assumes the cultural status once held by the traditional storyteller or ‘bard’.

Myths are … revelations of the deepest hopes, desires and fears, potentialities and conflicts, of the human will … every myth is psychologically symbolic. Its narratives and images are to be read, therefore, not literally, but as metaphors …

(Joseph Campbell, 1985, p. 55)