Examples of Americentricism in Trek?

[Alidar Jarok]

I think part of the problem of suggesting that it was simply World War III destroying the old world order is that Earth didn't unify for almost 100 years afterwards. The implication from Demons/Terra Prime is that the war compelled people to work towards a united Earth, but it still took long enough of a time that they could have reestablished the old world order if they wanted to.

 

[Kirby]

Back to the OP's question, I can't remember the episode, but Kirk was talking to a guy who was supposed to be a cook and said something like: "It's called Thanksgiving, so if they have to eat meatloaf, I at least want it to look like turkey."
Lots of countries have a Thanksgiving holiday, but the United States' Thanksgiving is symbolized by a turkey.

 

[Islander]

Back to the OP's question, I can't remember the episode, but Kirk was talking to a guy who was supposed to be a cook and said something like: "It's called Thanksgiving, so if they have to eat meatloaf, I at least want it to look like turkey."
Lots of countries have a Thanksgiving holiday, but the United States' Thanksgiving is symbolized by a turkey.

The only other country having a thanksgiving day is Canada and we have turkey too. The celebration comes from Native American, it's not really celebrated anywhere else. So that does make it North-Americentricism.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The entire philosophy of Star Trek is American - specifically, liberal interventionism (Obama's favorite stance, too). All the piddly examples about details and place names are missing the larger point here.

 

[I am not Spock]

^ I don't know that the OP considered "Americentric" to be an accusation, exactly. I mean, it's not necessarily a bad thing, at least I didn't take it that way. It's not an accusation to say "This American thing is American," surely?

I'm the OP. I didn't intend to say that 'Americentric' was a bad thing, you're quite right. I've nothing against America. I was just watching Omega Glory the other night, and noticed the US Constitution bit at the end. I've always heard people complain that Trek is 'too American' (whatever that means), but I have never thought Trek wraps itself up in its American-ness as much as Dr Who does in its Britishness.

So if Trek's perceived American-ness is not the barrier to the international market that people claim it is, then what is the reason for Trek's lower international popularity?

 

[Shazam!]

Enterprise instead of Enterprize?

Enterprize woud be the Americanised version.

 

[Triskelion]

^ Eh what?

 

[Sci]

Enterprise instead of Enterprize?

Enterprize woud be the Americanised version.

^ Eh what?

It's a reference to the fact that many words spelled in British English as "-ise" are spelled in American English as "-ize."

The ironic part being that it's reversed in the case of Enterprise/Enterprize. "Enterprize" is how it was spelled in Britain centuries ago, and "Enterprise" was the Americanized version of the spelling.

 

[SG-17]

I believe that it was stated in ENT that the United States were one of the last to join United Earth in the early 2100s.
The fact that Archer and his family were from Upstate New York, as well as T'Pol's visit to Carbon Creek suggest that the East Coast is still intact.

 

[Sci]

I believe that it was stated in ENT that the United States were one of the last to join United Earth in the early 2100s.

I don't recall any such thing being established.

TNG's "Attached" did establish that there were several states that joined United Earth in 2150, apparently the last such states to join United Earth, and that Australia was amongst them. It gives no info on whether or not UE existed prior to the complete unification of the planet.

The novel Articles of the Federation by Keith R.A. DeCandido establishes that United Earth was established in 2130 with the signing of the Traité d'Unification in Paris. The novels Enterprise: The Good That Men Do and Enterprise: Kobayashi Maru establish that the Independent Republic of Australia was the last state to join United Earth in 2150, consistent with "Attached."

 

[Red Ranger]

Ship names. With a few exceptions, most are named after famous American ships or American locales: Enterprise, Lexington, Constitution-class. Of course, there were the notable exceptions like Potemkin and Excalibur. -- RR

 

[Cicero]

The US government has never been established to no longer exist; the writers have been deliberately vague about the whole thing. I see no reason to think that the US government cannot still exist as a subdivision of United Earth, myself.

The writers have only referrred to the U.S. government in the past tense in Trek, but never in the present tense.

But there again, it's never been relevant to the story in the present tense, either. After all, Massachusetts exists, but if you're examining an artifact from the 1740s Massachusetts Bay Colony, you might not bother mentioning it.



It's plausible -- and in fact, I would theorize that the federal government probably ceased or virtually ceased to exist from the outbreak of World War III in 2053 to at least First Contact -- but that doesn't mean that the it was never re-established or that the US doesn't exist as a division of United Earth.

In fact, we do have one piece of evidence that the US still exists in the Trekverse: In "Affliction" (ENT), an address in San Francisco is displayed on an Enterprise computer, and its last two lines read:

"San Francisco, CA
USA"

I'm fairly sure there's also a reference to the Vulcans having opened diplomatic relations with the United States, rather than a (nonexistent, at the time) united Earth. (Hoshi and T'Pol were arguing about noninterference at the time.)

 

[JohanKoch]

My one problem with Americentricism in Trek?

Almost everyone who is a member of an ethnic "minority" is American, with an American accent, cultural norms, etc. (even if they are technically from somewhere else).

There are lots of African-Americans...but no Africans.

There are lots of Asian-Americans...but no Asians.

Also, there are, at least in theory, some people from Europe. But they are all British. Even the French are British!

Okay, there might be a few exceptions to the above rules (Chekov, for example). But for a show that supposedly prides itself on a multicultural view of the future, the Federation seems to be 99% American.

Really, are there no actors in LA who can fake a French accent? Or South African? Or Korean?

 

[Myasishchev]

Uhura was supposed to be African; obviously, she was portrayed by an African-American. I don't know for sure, but I figure there probably were not that many African-African actors in the 1960s, at least in America (probably some in Britain and France, but that's neither here nor there).

There are a lot fewer Asians of all stripes than you'd expect (unless the Post-Atomic Horror was pretty harsh to the continent), and yeah, the only two East Asians were putatively Asian-American (scrutable?). I can't think of a single Chinese person, but I guess if World War III were to happen, it would indeed hit China pretty hard. India, too, maybe--the only Indian I can think of off the top of my head is Khan.

As for accents, I'd prefer they just used their normal voices, unless they're really good at mimicking an accent. I don't have any particular problem with the world language being English with a neutral TV American accent, and it's less jarring than seeing people do what amount to comedy accents, like poor actual Russian Anton Yelchin directed to do his ridiculous Chekov impression.

 

[Mjuice]

I was just watching "Storm Front" and a scene there really made me think of this thread. There's a situation where the Enterprise has lost a shuttlepod and Trip and Maywheather track it down to the alternate history Earth only to stumble into some German soldiers who enter to inspect it. Without any consideration or discussion they hide in the bushes and wait for the all the Germans to enter the pod before blowing it up to maximize casualties.

The first time I saw the episode I didn't think there was anything strange about it but now I thought "why would they do that." It's not their war after all, sure Trip's from Florida, but they are still representatives of 'united Earth' and furthermore from the future. I thought it was a bit too easy for them to slip into the american side of some alternate history war right after they've landed like it's the most natural thing in the world.

Let's say the situation was different and Vosk and his people were instead helping Americans win the Vietnam war. He doesn't really care about these wars after all, he just wants his time corridor built and helped the Germans most likely only because he happened to run into them before anybody else. Now in this situation let's say Trip tracked down the shuttle and it was boarded by some American soldiers, would he wait until it was full to kill as many as possible? I don't think so, even though it would amount to the exact same thing as what he did in "Storm Front"

 

[Sci]

I was just watching "Storm Front" and a scene there really made me think of this thread. There's a situation where the Enterprise has lost a shuttlepod and Trip and Maywheather track it down to the alternate history Earth only to stumble into some German soldiers who enter to inspect it. Without any consideration or discussion they hide in the bushes and wait for the all the Germans to enter the pod before blowing it up to maximize casualties.

The first time I saw the episode I didn't think there was anything strange about it but now I thought "why would they do that." It's not their war after all, sure Trip's from Florida, but they are still representatives of 'united Earth' and furthermore from the future. I thought it was a bit too easy for them to slip into the american side of some alternate history war right after they've landed like it's the most natural thing in the world.

Let's say the situation was different and Vosk and his people were instead helping Americans win the Vietnam war. He doesn't really care about these wars after all, he just wants his time corridor built and helped the Germans most likely only because he happened to run into them before anybody else. Now in this situation let's say Trip tracked down the shuttle and it was boarded by some American soldiers, would he wait until it was full to kill as many as possible? I don't think so, even though it would amount to the exact same thing as what he did in "Storm Front"

Well, sure. Except...

These weren't just Germans. They were Nazis. The epitome of tyrannical regimes. Frankly, I'm sure that even if it had been Hanz and Gerhard rather than Trip and Travis, they still would have done the same thing. Because, I mean... they're fricken' Nazis.

 

[The Badger]

Another Americocentric reference.

Root beer in DS9.
Seriously, what is root beer?

A little off topic, one of the most blatant examples of American centrism I can recall was from an episode of 'The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles'. Young young Indy was visiting India, and sees a group of lads about his own age playing a game with bat and ball.

They invite him to join. Of course he thinks they're playing baseball, when in fact they are playing cricket. Cue hilarious misunderstandings.

Now in a series that prided itself on having strong educational values, and on accurately portraying the various cultures encountered, the reasonable course of action would be to have Indy learn the basics of cricket, thus increasing his understanding of the world.

So what happens?

He teaches them to play baseball.

 

[Sci]

Another Americocentric reference.

Root beer in DS9.
Seriously, what is root beer?

Root beer.

I honestly didn't know that that was a particularly American thing. To be fair, apparently many countries have analogous drinks under different names.

 

[Cicero]

Another Americocentric reference.

Root beer in DS9.
Seriously, what is root beer?

A little off topic, one of the most blatant examples of American centrism I can recall was from an episode of 'The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles'. Young young Indy was visiting India, and sees a group of lads about his own age playing a game with bat and ball.

They invite him to join. Of course he thinks they're playing baseball, when in fact they are playing cricket. Cue hilarious misunderstandings.

Now in a series that prided itself on having strong educational values, and on accurately portraying the various cultures encountered, the reasonable course of action would be to have Indy learn the basics of cricket, thus increasing his understanding of the world.

So what happens?

He teaches them to play baseball.

I don't think culture is directly relevant to Indy's teaching a game when he could have learned one. Had he been an Indian hero of the same type, he would likely have taught American cricket, not learned baseball. (The exception, of course, is the case in which the hero learns the other culture's game and excells at it almost unreasonably.)

In a transformative arc, his learning their game out of interest and consideration would have been normal and expected - the point of the story is for the hero to learn, grow, and change. But in a relevatory arc, the story's purpose is to reveal and demonstrate the hero's excellence - how they and the virtues they represent are just what's needed to solve the story's problems. (Captain Kirk in the new Star Trek is this type of relevatory hero, as was Luke Skywalker in Star Wars.)

 

[Islander]

Really, are there no actors in LA who can fake a French accent? Or South African? Or Korean?

The ironic part in this is that several actors actually already had an accent but had to americanise it for their roles like Patrick Stewart, Alexander Siddig or Dominic Keating.