Gene Roddenberry’s Utopia: Star Trek and White Hegemony

Abstract

Gene Roddenberry`s Star Trek franchise is an icon of American culture. For more than fifty years, this mega-text has cultivated a religious and cult-like following. The appeal of Star Trek lies in the utopian aspects implicit in the franchise. It presents a future where problems such as illiteracy, famine, disease, and racism have been abolished and replaced with the desire to improve humanity while exploring the galaxy. The Star Trek franchise also features a multiracial crew that works together in harmony reflecting the cultural diversity of the planet and the Federation. Though praised for dealing with social and political problems of the day, the franchise has been criticized for projecting a white liberal humanist ideology into the future; a future where the dominant ideology of whites continue to exist at the expense of non-whites being assimilated and marginalized. This paper examines and critiques aspects of the Star Trek franchise that continues to portray Asians using contemporary stereotypes as well as depicting Asian men as desexualized, homosexual, or queer. Roddenberry`s utopian world is thus a future where the present white hegemony is projected into the future.