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Is Enterprise the most US-centric Trek series?

Ragitsu

Ragitsu

Commodore
Commodore
Good morning.

It could be because of this show's first air date (specifically, the fact that it debuted in close proximity to the September 11th 2001 attacks), but...I've always felt that Enterprise had the most stereotypically United States attitude of all the Star Trek entries (putting aside that TOS episode where Kirk pimps the US Constitution). People have likened Jonathan Archer to George W. Bush; I've not sat down to make any comparisons between the two men and so I can't fully comment on that particular appraisal. Anyhow...what's your take on this subject?
 
Yanno they set the premiere date way before 9/11. They didn't know in advance...seriously? :vulcan:
 
The script was written waaaaay before 9/11. They couldn't have gotten it done in two weeks. :cardie:
 
Series 2 and 3 were done post 11-Sep-2001 so must have had an influence on the storytelling of Enterprise (maybe why it failed as they didn't correct it until series 4 which was too late)
 
I don’t feel that ENT is anymore US-centric that the other series before it. But airing around the time of 9/11 and the surge of patriotism that came about from that event likely influenced the show to come off as more pro-America than usual to some viewers. Its more representative of early ‘00s American culture than America in general, as indicated by the decon chamber scenes and the crew running around half naked as times.

They didn’t lean too much into the cultural stereotypes themselves for the main characters (ex. Archer and Trip being into waterpolo instead of American football, even though football was still around in the 22nd century). But at the same time, they tried to make mid-22nd century Earth comes off as a pan-American culture, as its an American produced show.

Archer wasn’t trying to emulate the cowboy diplomacy of Bush in the real world. He was supposed to be emulating Kirk, and Kirk was John Wayne in space. Archer’s similarity with Bush begins and ends with being a pilot that became a President at some point in his life and having a famous dad. That’s it.
 
I think the combination of Archer and the 'aww shucks' southern good-old-boy schtick of Trip Tucker lent a strong American feel to the show, but that said, I don't think any Trek was more 'America-centric' in its feel than TOS.
 
If anything Season 1 often seems to come from a place of trying to understand the other, with overt terrorism parallels in a few episodes. I don't see any of Bush's famous jingoism in Archer.
 
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I won't speak for feel, but numerically I think TOS and Voyager had the most Americans among the main characters (3 each: Kirk, McCoy and Sulu/Janeway, Paris and Kim).

FederationHistorian said:
Archer wasn’t trying to emulate the cowboy diplomacy of Bush in the real world. He was supposed to be emulating Kirk, and Kirk was John Wayne in space.
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I thought Kirk was Horatio Hornblower in space...
 
When Kirk was fighting somebody, those roundhouse punches did recall the great fights in John Wayne movies. That grand traveling brawl between Sean Thornton and Will Danaher in "The Quiet Man" comes to mind. ;)
 
Nerys Myk said:
TNG was pretty American heavy. Riker, both Crushers, LaForge and Yar came off as pretty American.
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I feel as though Trip kinda overpowers all of them in terms of sheer United States flavor.

(Besides which, Will Riker is Canadian :cool:.)

Oddly enough, Geordi is supposedly from Mogadishu; however, yeah...he comes across as a FUTURE US citizen.

Nerys Myk said:
Even Worf spoke with an American accent, even though he was raised by Russians in Russia (partially)
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Russian culture plus (romanticized) Klingon culture is like peanut butter and jelly.

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One benefit TNG had in terms of diverse cultural representation was the large ship plus greater presence of humans in their corner of the galaxy. I can recall an Admiral of African descent (Shanthi) and at least one helmswoman with a noticeable Slavic accent.
 
Nerys Myk said:
TNG was pretty American heavy. Riker, both Crushers, LaForge and Yar came off as pretty American. Even Worf spoke with an American accent, even though he was raised by Russians in Russia (partially)
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Ragitsu said:
I feel as though Trip kinda overpowers all of them in terms of sheer United States flavor.

(Besides which, Will Riker is Canadian :cool:.)

Oddly enough, Geordi is supposedly from Mogadishu; however, yeah...he comes across as a FUTURE US citizen.
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YMMV but I guess the characters' nationalities based on their accents. I can't tell the difference between US and Canadian accents so Riker and most of the others from TNG sound US to me. The in-universe explanation is probably that Hoshi programmed the universal translator to have a US accent if your speech is translated from an Earth language into Standard. And we know that Picard is definitely French and probably learned Standard from a teacher from the UK as an English person's tea order would be something like "Please may I have a cup of Earl Grey with lemon" and not "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot".
 
To me as a European, all the shows felt fairly American. No wonder too, as it is an American TV-series.

And yes, in a way Enterprise felt more 'American-centric' to me than, say, TNG, but it kind of fitted with the idea that this was much earlier in (Starfleet) history, when cultural differences between different countries on earth were supposedly still much more noticeable than in the 24th century.
 
Summer Solstice said:
YMMV but I guess the characters' nationalities based on their accents. I can't tell the difference between US and Canadian accents so Riker and most of the others from TNG sound US to me. The in-universe explanation is probably that Hoshi programmed the universal translator to have a US accent if your speech is translated from an Earth language into Standard. And we know that Picard is definitely French and probably learned Standard from a teacher from the UK as an English person's tea order would be something like "Please may I have a cup of Earl Grey with lemon" and not "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot".
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In all fairness, Riker is actually Alaskan; that was a bit of TNG-fan humor. Does that help?
 
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