If Gene had created Star Trek solely to make money and to entertain, I don't think he would have made a science fiction show. He would have tried to make something that would maximize one of those two goals. Unless he just wasn't very good at the whole capitalism thing.
There were other sci-fi shows on TV at the time, so it was not an unprecedented move. This is a weak argument as stated.
The other science fiction that was on TV at the time was of a very different nature. They frequently pit "man vs. alien" or "man vs. robot". Fear of the unknown was the primary mechanism used to entertain. Star Trek was different in that exploration and analysis of the unknown was the mechanism.
This somewhat different emphasis (not all that different when we consider "The Man Trap"--the first broadcast episode) does not refute my original point--that the PRIMARY purpose was to entertain and make money. I did not say the SOLE purpose was to entertain and make money. But if it were not the PRIMARY purpose of the show in the 1960s, we would not be having this exchange--no network would have given it a shot.
NBC reportedly called the pilot "too cerebral", "too intellectual", and "too slow" with "not enough action"
(see Shatner, William (2008). Up Till Now: The Autobiography. New York: Thomas Dunne Books. pp. 119. ISBN 0-312-37265-5.)
I have no doubt William Shatner sincerely believes this. Nor do I doubt most people who are aware of this sincerely believe it. Sincere belief, however, does not constitute proof. The word "reportedly", to me, makes room for some doubt. Moreover, in my line of work, to make such a claim as unequivocally as it is made here and elsewhere requires actual evidence (a memo, minutes of a meeting, a note from one of the network executives to Roddenberry, something tangible). Many things acquire the "force of truth" with repeated tellings (for a good, and entertaining, visual example of this, watch
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance). I'm not saying it is categorically impossible for the network execs to have voiced this opinion. I even consider it likely (knowing what I know about what happens between "pitch" and "final product" in film and television). However, I've yet to see reference to actual evidence beyond hearsay.
But let's leave aside the absence of actual evidence and address the opinion. The comments about "too cerebral" are far more likely (in particular after having seen
The Cage) reflective of the network execs' poor opinion of the intelligence of the audience than a sign that the pilot was exceptionally intellectually challenging. Moreover, complaints were also lodged against the "eroticism" of the story (in 1964, such a view of elements of
The Cage is quite understandable). That objection is rarely mentioned anymore, but it serves to diffuse the idea that a "cerebral quality" was the only culprit from the network's perspective. That the network lacked confidence in the audience's collective intelligence is a reasonable inference. That the pilot was actually too complicated to understand is not so evident.
I never said that Star Trek needed to be "deep and complex". I said that Star Trek, at it's soul tried to make people think and engage our minds.
Although Gene Roddenberry publicly marketed it as a Western in outer space, a so-called "Wagon Train to the Stars", he privately told friends that he was actually modeling it on Swift's Gulliver's Travels, intending each episode to act on two levels, first as a suspenseful adventure story, but also as a morality parable.
(See David Alexander, "Star Trek Creator.The Authorized Biography of Gene Roddenberry" and interview with Roddenberry in "Something about the Author" by Gale Research Company and chapter 11 of "Trash Culture: Popular Culture and the Great Tradition" by Richard Keller Simon)
I'd say that's evidence that one of the core goals of Star Trek was to make people think. Why else tell a morality parable?
Here I will remain sceptical. As an historian, I have an abiding distrust of "authorized biographies", as well as the recollections of the principal subjects of such books and interviews. I am unfamiliar with Mr. Simon's work, so I'll reserve judgment.
Getting to your response to my example... You're trying to quantify things. How cerebral does the message have to be to make you think? And the concept that we should "all just get along" might seem like common sense to you and I... in the year 2009. But to a racially divided country in the 1960's?
It's not a matter of "quantity", with regards to an individual message (it is a matter of "quantity" when it comes to claiming that a show had, as its PRIMARY purpose, wanting "to make you think"--a separate issue I will address below). With regards to an individual message, its complexity and sophistication determine whether it makes people think. "We should all just get along" was NOT a radical concept in the 1960s. HOW we should go about doing it was the source of much debate. Certainly the muli-racial/ethnic/cultural composition of the main cast was a progressive message (something not at all uncommon in Hollywood in the latter half of the 1960s), but it did not require much contemplation. It affirmed a truism. And even then, women and people of colour were relegated to secondary and tertiary positions. The effort was laudable. But it was not revolutionary. (Pop culture portrayals of progressive ideas is in week twelve of my US in the 1960s class--if you want something that was more sophisticated and revolutionary about race relations in America, re-watch the original
Planet of the Apes and read Eric Greene's work on the subject).
I think African American's who lived and struggled through that era would argue that not only did having Uhura on the bridge make the racially unenlightened of the day think, but it also made African Americans think. It engaged their minds, showing them that they could be anything or do anything.
For the relative few who watched it, perhaps. It would be wise to remember that the show was not watched all that much (else it would not have struggled in the ratings and been cancelled so swiftly) and its initial influence on popular culture was rather more limited than is commonly believed.
Having Uhura kiss Captain Kirk could have gotten the show cancelled and could have (and probably did) offend the rather racially unenlightened white culture at the time. That's awfully contradictory to the goal of just trying to make a buck and entertain!
Controversy, even in the 1960s, was more often than not a selling point for TV programming, provided it was not too over the top. Beyond that, the network had right of veto BEFORE broadcasting, and the network certainly would not have broadcast it if it thought it was going to hurt the bottom line. As for the kiss itself, again, not a bad lesson ("racism is bad"). Just not a "deep and complex" one that requires a great deal of thought.
Just as before, you're quantifying things. All I'm saying is that it makes you think. And you're viewing the issue as someone who doesn't suffer from the mental deficiency that is racism. To someone who is racist, showing that interracial kiss might just make them think and challenge their preconceived notions about how Whites and African Americans can interact.
It is affirming another truism.
As I noted in my exchanges with
Overgeeked, I have not denied that Trek tried to present messages, nor that it attempted to "make you think". What I do object to, and what the evidence does not support, is the notion that Trek's PRIMARY purpose was "to make you think". If that were true, there are quite a number of episodes that would not have made "the cut". I also reject the notion that is either implied or directly stated, by many here and elsewhere, that Trek was nearly as sophisticated and intellectually challenging as it has come to be portrayed in hindsight. One of the common complaints of people who did not like the movie is that it is not "real Star Trek". Implicit or explicit in that complaint is the notion that "real Star Trek" was something more important than "mere entertainment". That notion rests on a "flawed nostalgia" that has, over the years, exaggerated both the sophistication of Trek and the importance of "lessons"--helped in no small part by a self-serving revisionism on the part of Roddenberry.
It's not that Trek had no messages or did not make one think at all. It's that Trek's messages, when present, were not all that revolutionary and it did not require much strenuous thinking to understand them. And Trek also presented stories that were primarily "fun" rather than "morality plays". So to dismiss the new film on the grounds that it cannot be "real Trek" for its apparent lack of a "message" is disingenuous. There are many legitimate flaws in the new movie upon which to hang one's dislike. We need not invent others.
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