Cold War Pop Culture and the Image of U.S. Foreign Policy: The Perspective of the OriginalStar TrekSeries

Abstract

By any measure, Star Trek has been a major American cultural phenomenon. A short-lived science ªction television show that ran on the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) in the 1960s, the series by 2005 had spawned nine motion pictures, four new television series, an animated television series, more than a hundred novels, and hundreds of ancillary items ranging from children's toys to websites. In the 1960s, when the series was still in production, the creative forces behind the show-the producers, directors, and writers-attempted to use it as a forum to comment on a number of political and social issues, including foreign policy and the Cold War. Their efforts raise an interesting question: What can this television program tell us about the self-image of Americans in the mid-to late 1960s?This article shows that the makers of the original Star Trek series wanted the United States to play a constructive role on the world scene and that they used the television show to critique U.S. foreign policy. They believed that the United States should promote democratic self-determination and refrain from using force in a way that would undermine the country's international image. They were uncomfortable with the salience of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security policy and with U.S. military intervention in other countries. Their views often ran counter to speciªc policies of the U.S. government. Hence, the television series was intended not only to shape the values of the American public but also to redirect U.S. policies abroad.Although many scholars recognize that Star Trek was a signiªcant force in popular culture, few studies of the television series have been historical in nature, and even fewer have been written on the basis of the show's production ªles. 1 The only three scholars who have studied the presentation of world af-1. Scholars have studied a number of issues that were explored in the original series and the sundry Journal of Cold War Studies fairs in the original series-Rick Worland, Mark P. Lagon, and H. Bruce Franklin-have come to conclusions that are difªcult to sustain when compared with sources documenting the production of the television series. Worland, for example, insists: "Its progressive humanism aside, Star Trek neatly duplicated the conªguration of international Cold War politics of the 1960s." He wonders whether part of the show's popularity was nothing more than a "simple reactionary nostalgia for the continuing desire to mold or force 75 Cold War Pop Culture and the Image of U.S. Foreign Policy ªlm and television sequels. Although it is risky to make a sweeping statement about a good deal of diverse scholarship, it is safe to say that most academics writing about this phenomenon have attempted to show that the original series was a manifestation of culturally regressive elements of contemporary society. One of the subjects that the architects of Star Trek confronted directly was race. As a result, this subject has proven to be a popular topic of academic inquiry. See Daniel Leonard ...

Fifty Years of Science Fiction Television

“…Further, there is considerable evidence that science fiction as a genre has influenced human social and technological development over the years. Sarantakes (2005) argues, for example, that Gene Roddenberry and the other creators of TOS wanted to use the show as a way to criticize U.S. foreign policy during the cold war, and therefore as a means to reshape the values of its American audience.…”