Black Mirror's meditation on Star Trek: reinforcing Trekker stereotypes?
When Lucille Ball first signed off on a new show called Star Trek more than 50 years ago, she mistakenly thought it was a celebrity-focused travelling variety show. She stuck with it despite its very different premise and it has since become the pop sci-fi staple that cannot die.
Unfortunately, the stereotypes associated with Trekkies persist: gross, mouth-breathing, socially inept dorks who, while aficionados of Star Wars and Marvel and video games have achieved mainstream acceptability, remain in the proverbial parental basement, perennially acne-ridden and laden with involuntary celibacy.
Forgive me if I sound defensive, but Star Trek is something I’ve loved for years and while I recognise it’s “just a TV show”, it’s helped me get through a number of rough patches in my life. I don’t claim to be the biggest (or most knowledgable) expert in the world, but as a regular panel moderator at Trek conventions and host of Engage: The Official Star Trek Podcast, I’ve interacted with a great number of extremely passionate fans. So believe me when I say: #NotAllTrekkies.
The vast majority of well-integrated-into-society fans who, sure, may know a few phrases in Klingon, are usually self-aware (and self-confident) enough to shrug off the “Get a life” epithets that were first hurled our way by (twist!) William Shatner himself on Saturday Night Live in 1986. Moreover, the Star Trek parody film Galaxy Quest is adored by most Trekkers, as its ribbing is gentle, its admiration for our enthusiasm is sincere and, importantly, the story of “real” Star Trek-like actors beamed up into an actual interplanetary adventure is gripping and hilarious.
Most Trek parodies go over well, especially the references and in-jokes that Seth MacFarlane has incorporated into his work for years. MacFarlane’s bonafides were proven last year when he launched The Orville, a curious show that is, let’s face it, the most expensive fan film ever made.
The best way to describe The Orville is to picture Seth and his buddies watching an old The Next Generation episode while getting high on a couch, and not just shouting jokes but somehow entering the show, man! That sort of strangeness is what drives the plot of the just-released Black Mirror episode USS Callister. And trust Black Mirror to take a typical Star Trek homage and make it dark.
I should say that as an episode of television (or short feature, or whatever you want to call 74 minutes of well-produced, mid-budget entertainment distributed via Netflix), USS Callister is quite good. The performances are captivating, the premise is sharp, the twists are good and, as with most of Black Mirror, there is a disquieting effect that comes from gazing directly at such bleak, dark human impulses.
The problem is that it pins its hideousness on a defective, angry Trekkie. At first he seems sweet and shy, but beneath the facade he is worse than the monster from Room. Jesse Plemons is the co-owner at a software company that has designed a futuristic, immersive VR multiplayer game. He’s the egghead engineer, and his slick, bullying partner (Jimmi Simpson) is the face of the operation. His day at the office is a barrage of slights and disses, and we initially feel quite sorry for him. But the joke is on us. When he goes home each night he plugs into a personalised version of the game and (just like Lieutenant Reg Barclay in the The Next Generation episode Hollow Pursuits) his co-workers all adore him in a simulated environment. And that simulated environment is a just-this-side-of-legal-fair-use replica of Star Trek.
The twist is that “Space Fleet” is not a simulated environment. Plemons’ “Captain Daley” takes DNA from the co-workers who have wronged him (which, we’ll learn, can sometimes be women who just got noticeably creeped out by his staring) and he uploads a digital clone into the sealed game matrix. They are real and there (or at least feel that they are), and Daley, quite aware of his new forced playmates’ anger and fear, is brutal and cruel.
Props to writers Charlie Brooker and William Bridges for knowing their deep lore Trek – this goes beyond photon torpedoes and warp drive. When Daley brings the new girl (Cristin Milioti) to the ship, he punishes her by “removing her face” just like the powerful man-baby Charlie Evans did in Charlie X (season one, episode seven.) But the suggestion that inside every Trekkie lurks a closet sadist is just a little bit insulting.
The episode’s twist pulls the rug out from “sympathy for the dweeb,”, becoming instead a showcase of very toxic online male behaviour – what if the omnipotent imp Trelane from The Squire of Gothos (season 1, episode 17) were a gamer? While I personally don’t know one end of a joystick from the other (do they still use joysticks?) I recognise that multiplayer chatter can notoriously be cesspool. However, I also know that the vast majority of players are just normal people engaged in a harmless leisure activity and not harassers and trolls.
Further, Daley is shown as a complete sexual novice. When his co-workers “re-appear” in the simulation, their sex organs are smoothed over, as with an action figure. This is maybe just a joke about obsessive nerds and their dolls, but it’s also a further dig at perceived Trekkie social ineptitude. All this said, it’s still pretty amazing that this 50-year-old show (which has an amazing new iteration you should be watching) continues to get used as a trope. Black Mirror’s version of the costumes, sound effects and flickering panels are really top notch. And when I eventually get to live out my dreams of being Captain of a Federation starship, I can assure you I won’t be such an ass about it.
Source: www.theguardian.com