Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

Though I was in such a hurry with the previous posting that I ended up basically copying a bunch of the key quotes from my notes -- without much commentary from me -- into the LJ entry, here's the point that I was trying to make and didn't get around to:

What all those quotes were supposed to demonstrate is that yes, the authors' argument does seem to make a lot of sense in the way that they apply it to the original "Star Trek" series and portions of ST:TNG and "Voyager" (for instance, I never did see any "earthly" reason, apart from the obligatory marital/sexual renunciation pattern, or "Bonanza Syndrome," why Janeway couldn't formalize and consummate her relationship with Chakotay, instead of turning to Holodeck lovers or passing aliens for a bit of romantic intrigue). . . BUT they fail to convince me, ultimately. And even they acknowledged that there's something far more democratic and interesting going on in the fannish creative efforts that "poach" on the texts of the corporately owned T.V. series and movies:


p. 264 [authors' reflections on “textual poaching” as developed by Michel DeCerteau and applied by Henry Jenkins]: “There is a democratic potential in this process [of fanzine/fan-fic writing and other examples of fannish "participatory culture"] that seems much more promising than corporate control of mythic imagination. What remains unrecognized, however, is that the content of both the Star Trek series and its fan religion remain significantly indebted to the American monomyth—-with all of its narcissistic, violent, and undemocratic tendencies. This particular religion poaches from an already polluted stream that participatory activities have thus far done little to dispel. As in the case of all other religions, whether pop or traditional, there is an urgent need for critical examinations of Star Trek’s implications and its long-term effects on believers and their societies. But this can hardly occur when so many people continue to view fandom as nothing but an experience of consumption.”


I applaud their insistence that fandom needs to be taken seriously as a creative endeavor AND as a form of folk religion, as well as their insistence that ANY religion should be subject to critical examinations of its implications and long-term effects on believers and their societies.

But I think there's a good reason why, though their photo illustrations include a picture of the Deep Space Nine Companion (which I only recently took off my own shelf and read through), they really make no attempt to apply their theory to DS9 , which (after its first season) deliberately pushed the envelope of what kinds of stories and decisions and moral ambiguities and serious treeatments of religion and social criticism of the supposedly paradisical 24th century could be permitted in a series bearing the "Star Trek" label. They also make no reference whatsoever to the pop and fannish phenomena known as "Xena: Warrior Princess" (whose final episode would have aired in the Spring of the year they finished writing), "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (whose fifth season would also have already aired before they made their final revisions), or "Angel" (whose second season would have aired before they went to print, and which shares only one word in its title in common with the "Touched by an Angel" series whose narcissistic, anti-democratic non-theology they so decry). Apparently, they had neither the time, the space, nor the desire to explore in depth the many ways that these phenomena might provide a positive alternative to the usual form of the "American monomyth".

And I could hardly fail to note that much of their research into Star Trek fandom (aside from frequent mentions of Jenkins' Textual Poachers and a quote from one essay in Deep Space and Sacred Ground) seemed to date back to the 1970's, relying most heavily on the book Star Trek Lives! for many examples. I found out in an "Afterword" hidden behind the 20 pages of end-notes in the back that this 2002 book DID contain large portions of a previous book one or both of them had published in the 1970's. They had apparently updated quite a lot, but not nearly enough when it comes to the fannish universe, in my view.

To answer a question posed by willowgreen in response to my previous posting (asking what, if any, stories these authors WOULD approve of, and would anyone else likely find those stories the least bit interesting?), the authors of The Myth of the American Superhero do highlight several recent movies and a bunch of novels that -- in their view -- DO provide a well-balanced view of reality (that sometimes bad things happen to good people, and all you can do is decide how you're going to go on living in spite of that terrible thing that's undeservedly befallen you or your loved one, etc.) and DO support a participatory (as opposed to "spectator") view of democracy. Movies like "Straight Story" (the old man who drives his lawnmower halfway across the country in order to reconcile with his brother before it's too late), and "Dead Man Walking" (as well as the book by that title), and stories like the original Little House novels by Laura Ingalls Wilder, in which (unlike in the TV series) the Ingalls family did suffer failure and continual hardship, and lived in community with others rather than constantly saving the fallible and error-prone members of their community through their "domestic redeemer" powers.

In other words, they drew positive attention to stories in which people don't have all the answers or the super power to restore us to some mythical never-was Eden, but are honestly trying to make things better, anyhow.

Under that rubric, I would argue that BtVS and AtS and DS9, at the very least, qualify as 'The Good Stuff' -- no big win, and at the last it's not about 'saving the world' but rather changing the world, even if only by fighting a hopeless battle to show the Powers and Principalities of this age that human beings (super-powered and undead, or not) will not go gently into that good-night. Stories in which killing the person you love most in order to serve the greater good (as Kirk did with Edith Keeler, or Buffy had to do with Angel, and as Buffy refused to do with Dawn, Odo refused to do with Kira in "Children of Time," and Worf refused to do with Jadzia when she was dying in the jungle and duty demanded that he leave her) isn't as simple an ethical choice as some might think, and either way you choose you have to live longterm with the negative consequences. Stories in which sometimes a little divine intervention is needed and even deserved, when the heroes have done all they can and are at the end of their strength and endurance (Sisko convincing the Prophets to stop the Dominion fleet in the Wormhole, or the snowfall in "Amends", or Angel being able to enter Kate's apartment without an invitation in "Epiphany", etc.).

Anyway, you all get the idea, I hope.