2007/01/16 by Allen Kwan · 13 citations
Arts and Humanities · Physics and Astronomy · #Utopian, Dystopian, and Speculative Fiction #Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life #Racism #Star trek #Humanity #Sociology #White privilege #Race (biology) #Allegory #White (mutation) #Normative #Humanism #White supremacy #Gender studies #Aesthetics #Law #Media studies #Art #Political science #Literature
paper · doi:10.1177/0270467606295971
published in Bulletin of Science Technology & Society 27(1), 59-70 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2007/01/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
As with many science fiction works, the Star Trek franchise uses allegory to address contemporary social issues. Taking a liberal humanistic stance, it addresses race and racism using aliens as allegorical stand-ins for humanity. However, the producers of the Star Trek franchise were inadvertently perpetuating the racism they were advocating against. Operating within the framework of normative Whiteness, the producers privilege the White American male as the average human being. The characters of other racial and cultural backgrounds try to assimilate into the normative Whiteness defined by the producers or they are simply in the background to support the White lead characters. By drawing on previous work on the original series and The Next Generation, this article examines episodes from Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise to determine how the Star Trek franchise reinscribes, or sometimes destabilizes, the mode of racial and cultural homogeneity assumed by the producers.