I haven't really noticed that many throughout the years. Some say that the franchise doesn't perform well overseas because it is too 'American'. The only example of this that comes immediately to mind is 'The Omega Glory' in TOS season two. In which Kirk unites the Yangs and the Kohms by reading from the US Constitution (complete with the Stars and Stripes flag). Other than that, are there any examples you can think of?
Examples of Americentricism in Trek?
- Thread starter I am not Spock
- Start date
Everytime they visit Earth in the past it's in the US.
The lack of Hispanics would make it less Americancentric wouldn't it?
The lack of Hispanics would make it less Americancentric wouldn't it?
That's their problem. I don't go complaining about Doctor Who because it's too British.
What!? A television series that was created for american television viewers is too american!? Who woulda thunk it?
"If you're an alien, why do you sound like you're from the North?"
"Lots of planets have a North!"
Exactly.
"Why do you all sound like you're from Southern California on this planet?"
"Lots of planets have Southern California! Haven't you ever watched TOS?"
"Why do you all sound like you're from Southern California on this planet?"
"Lots of planets have Southern California! Haven't you ever watched TOS?"
The OP isn't attacking the claim but asked for examples.
Enterprise instead of Enterprize?
'U.S.S.' anything sounds American.
This is true. You don't need to look much further than that.
I think the opening credits for Enterprise were the most blatant, which excepting the ISS managed to erase the contribution of any other space agency other than NASA to human space exploration.
That really irked me, even though I liked the show. I never paid much attention to the America-Centrism in Trek. The two Sci Fi shows Germany ever produced didn't feature any German characters in significant roles so I'm used to the future being mostly Anglo-Saxon/American. 
If I had to list examples, these would come to mind:
Together with what others have already mentioned, it's an impressive list, I'd say. Whether this is a bad thing or not is a different discussion entirely. But I don't think one can deny that Star Trek is pretty America-Centric.
If I had to list examples, these would come to mind:
- Most of the main characters are from the USA, especially the Captains (with Picard being the exception)
- Ships are predominantly named in an American tradition (Constitution, Enterprise, Yamamoto etc.)
- References to American/Anglo-Saxon (pop)culture are in the overwhelming majority (Baseball, Root Beer, Shakespeare, Gilbert & Sullivan, Lincoln etc.)
- Even background characters have American/Anglo-Saxon names for the most part
- There only seems to be a Federation President, not a Prime Minister, so a similiarity to the American President is heavily implied
- Starfleet ranks follow American Naval tradition
- Everything important was invented by Americans (warp drive, the transporter, duotronics)
Together with what others have already mentioned, it's an impressive list, I'd say. Whether this is a bad thing or not is a different discussion entirely. But I don't think one can deny that Star Trek is pretty America-Centric.
QFT. I used to be one of those people complaining about ST being too American, the people saying "well it's human culture" when they were really saying "it's American culture and we think it stands for all of humanity".
I still think this is the case, but I've stopped complaining, mainly because one fine day, someone pointed out to me that according to Doctor Who, in the future, everyone's British.
While Doctor Who is indeed very British, I don't think it says that in the future everyone is British. A lot of it happens in Britain or is linked to Britain but it's never implied that this is the whole of human culture. Granted, I've only seen a tiny portion of the classic series but they did travel a lot outside Britain in the first two seasons.
Count Zero said:
But American naval tradition follows British naval tradition. The rank structure for the U.S. Navy is (or at least appears to be - I am going by the names of the various ranks since I have little direct experience) nearly identical to that of the Royal Navy...and of course Starfleet ranks are a bit different from both.
But I agree that the show does tend to be Americentric. On the one hand, I think this is a shame - Earth is surely a lot more interesting than it appears to be on Trek
- but on the the other hand, maybe we got off lucky because when TPTB have tried to portray non-American or non-British Isles humans, they don't usually do a very good job.I mean, think of the many terrible fake accents we've heard on Trek! For that matter, they weren't even very good at American accents, or non-Oxfordian accents from Britain (with Chief O'Brien being a notable exception). DeForrest Kelley was from Georgia so he could surely do a good Southern U.S. accent, but when they had McCoy do his Southern gentleman accent, it was ridiculously fake sounding.
As for examples, I agree that almost all the main human characters are American. I always that that was weird, actually. I wonder...I wonder if this was done not just because the writers have an American bias but because they feared making a silly cultural error?
I always felt they changed this with DS9 though, because I felt that if you took the Dominion war to be an analogy of WW2, the Federation was France (invaded, parts conquered etc), the Klingons Britain (not directly in the firing line to start with but went along with what the Federation was doing to preserve the AQ (Europe) , and the Romulans the USA (isolationist, didn't get involved until the threat became more apparent.)
But I based this assumption on stances rather than culture...
Watch STVI -
Federation = USA
Klingons = USSR
No Question...
Similar threads
