Graham argues that Roddenberry’s approach is unusual for television at that time since Star Trek depicts “a society truly characterized by racial and cultural diversity” (134). Pounds remarks, Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek (1966–1969) presents a “utopian vision:” the series depicts a future which “has found solutions to economic crisis, criminal behavior, mental illness, and physical disease” (Pounds 171).ĢThe novelty of Roddenberry’s Star Trek lies in its propagation of progressive “principles of tolerance and respect for all life-forms, however unfamiliar” (Graham 134). The so-called ‘space age’ of the 1960s und early 1970s marks a crucial moment in the history of popular television since one of the most successful science fiction series of all time was aired during this period–first in the United States, and later throughout the world. Although these SF-narratives in literature, film, and television are mostly “about close encounters with aliens,” they turn out to be, in fact, “thinly veiled political metaphors of the pressing geopolitical concerns of the cold war era” (Nama 96). In the second half of the twentieth century this “ utopian imagination” (Jameson 289) shifts more and more into space exploration. Generally, SF deals with technological inventions and their possible impact on society. Science fiction (SF) is a relatively young genre that emerged, as Fredric Jameson states, “during the second half of the nineteenth century” (Jameson 284). The Star Trek Franchise and its Multi-Ethnic Universe: “Race” and Science FictionġAlongside class, gender and age, race and/or ethnicity is one of the fundamental parameters for any critical cultural analysis–and at the same time it is an elementary category in modern science fiction, especially when its stories “take place in imaginary settings that… posit possible future worlds” (Carrington 8).
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