Spockbama and George T. Bush
by zunguzungu
Here’s the thing: the new Star Trek is about the reconciliation between Obama and Bush, the same reconciliation which we are, ironically, seeing unfold right now with regard to Obama’s week of moral collapse on the issue of torture. After all, while Spock is clearly Obama, this version of Kirk is just as clearly George W: he’s got daddy issues, he breaks all the rules because of an unwavering faith in his own righteousness, his staffing philosophy is to surround himself with personal friends (rather than examining competence), and, as a young man, he’s a total fuck-up until someone hands him the world on a platter. But it’s not even that he inherits third base and thinks he hit a triple; he defines what a triple is based on his destiny to end up there, such that it becomes fully natural to staff his command crew with people he just sort of came across and to have complete and absolute faith in his own baseless intuitions (“A magnetic storm? Why it’s clearly a Romulon attacking from the future!”).
What is most pernicious, though, is that the movie makes all his intuitions right. The magnetic storm is a Romulon from the future. He is destined to be captain, destined for something great. There is a ticking time bomb scenario where extracting intelligence from a downed enemy combatant saves the fucking day. And his command staff from the future all turn out to be savantish prodigies, with Scotty being the best example: he enters the plot because he has to have invented the equation to transport people at warp speed, except that actually, it has to be handed to him on a silver platter by Spock from the future.
But, then, why shouldn’t Spockbama and James T. Bush reconcile? They have a common enemy: an angry dark-skinned laborer whose ignorance has led him to believe he’s got some grievance against the civilized races of the galaxy and who is now using their own technology against them. And while it is George W. Kirk’s birthright to actually lead the war against these terrorists, Spockbama brings with him a “cultural” knowledge that allows him, at a crucial moment, to extract intelligence from the bad guys allowing them to rescue the hostage without using harsh interrogation methods (since, as the movie reminds us, only dark skinned terrorists use torture!). And more generally, isn’t Spockbama’s narrative arc that of learning his place? Of choosing (three times!) to righteously fight for his white mother against the ethnically marked people on his father’s side? And of transforming that mixed race heritage into a thing that cannot be lived, only preserved and instrumentalized in service of civilization?
Bollocks! But I’m troubled by something just a little different than Adam was, though I fully agree with what he said too. Instead, what bothers me is that the Spock who valued both friendship and cold rationality and who, in his vexed and creative mixedness, transcended the petty limitations of either, is long gone, and the fact that he has been replaced by a façade of Vulcanity covering over an essentially carbon copied version of Kirk’s blustering desire to fight everybody — the appearance of difference obscuring essential continuity in policies — pisses me off a little. Not as much as Obama deciding that it’s all good when it comes to torture, though; that shit pisses me off a lot.
zunguzungu 
Haven’t seen the movie but for the sake of brilliance of this post, I hope it is exactly as you say.
Interesting cinema de clef reading, but I think you might have warped yourself into a water processing vat.
Kirk isn’t Bush for many reasons: his daddy issues aren’t Oedipal, he’s a “genius class repeat offender,” his “intuition” of the lightning storm was based on his close reading and analysis of Pike’s dissertation (and he knew nothing of the future at that point). The list goes on. In fact, the only George W. that Kirk could be compared to would be one who’s father was killed by an evil tyrant — let’s call him Saddam –, and who then subsequently joined the National Guard, actually completed his training in record time with record performance, and then finally rose to the rank of commander-in-chief because of the cosmic alignment of dumb luck and his own sheer talent.
Neither am I sure of your analysis of Spock’s hybridity, though I’ll agree that he’s closer to Obama than Kirk is to Bush. His “white” Earth mother is the one who’s “ethnically marked,” as is he, and it’s not clear how this “marked” identity is “instrumentalized.” In fact, what you call a “façade of Vulcanity” has been one of the franchise’s most sincere attempts at bodying forth “mixed” identity and the all-too-common tragedy of being forced to choose affimitavely between one or the other(s). This in my mind is the more overt and significant attempt at reconciliation in the film. Moreover, I don’t know what would be “petty” about any of the “limitations” inherent to either of his identities, but the young Spock clearly takes as a role-model the more affable and ethnically reconciled elder Spock, and it’s in the elder Spock that the film seems to locate its source of value.
All that being said, I don’t want to make any claim for the film’s sophistication on any of these issues. I totally agree, for instance, that even though the Romulans are hardly an “uncivilized” race, the film’s portrayal of this particular Romulan certainly makes use of a lot of convenient tropes. And though I likewise agree with some of the other things you’ve pointed out (torture photos? no prosecutions? WTF?) — I just don’t think the clef fits.
Then again I’m going to see the film this evening for the third time — this time on IMAX! — so maybe seeing it in 180′ panorama will change my mind on this stuff.
Broad strokes, friend, broad strokes. And sometimes the cigar is a penis, even if it’s a cigar and not a penis. In fact, I think you will find that it is your own self who has accidentally warp-transported yourself into some form of ship-board marina.
To your objections. His daddy issues aren’t oedipal? Hard to say what they are, but the narrative of “getting the guy that my father failed to finish off” certainly fits (remember, George W surrounded himself with neo-cons who desperately wanted to undo Bush sr’s mistake of not toppling Saddam, pointedly *not* people like Scowcroft). The lightning storm revelation; again, we are supposed to note JTB’s brilliance without actually *seeing* it; much more central to his character is the sense that rules are made to be broken in service of a higher morality of I know what’s best. And while he may have completed his service in record time, and he may have all these (again, off screen) smarts, he gets to be second in command by virtue of being selected by a guy who likes his “jump before thinking” way of doing things. The brilliance stuff happens off screen, and is clearly (I think) subordinate in importance.
As for Spock’s moms, she’s ethnically marked on Vulcan, of course, but in the movie, the world of Vulcan is like non-stop male bullies and then her: to our eyes, she’s the normal one, while the Vulcans are thoroughly unsympathetic. The only reasons Spock saves them, as he puts it, is to keep the Vulcan planet’s cultural tradition alive; they are, as people, marked within the show’s narrative by reference to the particularity of their culture (while Spock can approach universality by transcending it, which really means becoming more like his human mother; i.e. universalism via the right kind of particularism). And what I dislike about all of this is precisely the way it stomps all over, as you say, the franchise’s noble efforts to make of Spock a figure for a person not defined by his origin. The franchise has sometimes done this quite well, and sometimes not; in this case, the fact that Spock is constantly backing down in the face of Kirk, going back on his principles (for revenge, etc), and is told by his own self that he has do what “feels” right feels like a betrayal of the original character, who always worked to do both. This Spock just does the one; rules and logic get in the way when there’s righteous anger to be enjoyed; for me, what was great about the old character was that he took from both without being taken by either, whereas this Spock sees his Vulcan culture as a thing to be “preserved,” boxed off, and eventually put aside, while it’s the human culture that “feels right” to him. Could be too strong a claim; not sure. But I do feel there’s a kind of unconcscious normalization narrative driving an awful lot of the movie’s choices, which is why the treatment of Vulcan feels so wrong to me, why I call shenanegans when the destruction of Vulcan seems necessary just so that Spock’s choice of homeworlds ceases to be a choice (whereas the classic Spock could always be both, this movie has stage managed that choice out of existence).
also, re: instrumentalization, it was my sense that Spock’s Vulcanness is valued at only the points in the movie when it can be used: when he can do a Vulcan neck pinch, and when he can “because of cultural similarities” be well suited to blending into the Romulan ship. In other words, ethnicity translates as “useful asset for intelligence work over there in terrorist land.” When he’s being logical, on the other hand, he’s mainly just a pain in the ass.
Have fun with the IMAX; it’s definitely the medium for it.
“Broad strokes” and “penises?” Hmph. Close, but no “cigar.”
I’m coming around to your Kirk reading, but would really need to see something closer to “jumping after praying,” or “allowing subordinate/overlord to make decisions.” Even these might be stroking too broadly. In my mind, the Bush administration isn’t known for the impulsiveness of its decisions (that’d be pre-born again GWB), but for its meticulousness. In fact, much of what makes it so horrifying to me is that each new revelation about it discloses a new deliberation, involving more and more people at higher and higher levels.
I see what you mean about the “instrumentalizing” of Spock’s “Vulcanity,” but I’d only accept a limited version of your argument. Isn’t it significant that the very content of his character and affect is Vulcan? He’s only human when pressed. I tell you, nobody’s valuing his Vulcanity when he’s unable to respond to a smokin’ hot Uhura pawing at him. And his best lines are his most logical and Vulcan (“Your record remains untarnished,” “Interesting metaphor that,” etc). In fact, I’d say the allure of his character is that his human quality allows him to be more Vulcan than Vulcan. “Emotions run deep” in his race. And so I find it no surprise that at the end he is the keeper of the Vulcan essence — not in the archival sense, but in the Fifth Element (“Leeloo is the fifth element!”) sense.
Anyway, cuteness aside, regarding the real issue here, the normalization narrative, I have no doubt. But I think the norm being “ized” — whatever it may be — is less cynical than you’re suggesting, and more a critique of the Earth/America-centric Star Trek universe itself than this reboot, which seems to me to be shifting focus to very 21st century versions of hybridity, loss and ethical ambiguity, and away from the trademark technologized boy’s adventure narrative mixed with watered-down JFK utopian liberalism. Something’s to be said about the camerawork and the attempts at a kind of naturalism, as well as the overall the un-space opera’ing of the ultimate space opera.
But, again, I make no claim for the film’s sophistication. Now, if you want to discuss its implications on the Lost storyline… well then, let’s light some cigars. =)
I’m just wondering who Dr. McCoy is supposed to be? 🙂
On the most basic level, because the primary narrative conflict of the movie is Spock vs. Kirk, there is no important space left for McCoy, and while he still opposes Spock’s rationality, this makes him Kirk’s double, and sort of redundant.
But there might be more to it than that. Someone clever pointed out to me that the way the old ST bridge trio worked was as a “team of rivals”: Spock would argue for cold utilitarian logic and McCoy would stand up for feelings, or something, and Kirk would make a decision by selecting from the options they outlined for him (sort of like Dr. House doing differential, actually). And it’s worth noting that Obama made a big deal of telling people that he was reading “Team of Rivals,” to emphasize that this would be his style of governing.
The new ST movie, I would suggest, also has no real narrative use for McCoy because Kirk no longer operates this way; like GWB, he is a decider who already knows what the right thing to do which makes the problem, instead simply the problem of getting his way; as far as I can tell, the movie has no scenes comparable to a differential diagnosis discussion in House (or a cabinet meeting, or a “you, you, and you, in my ready room” meeting in the next generation); instead, there is non-stop confrontation and every decision gets made (again, very bushlike) by presuming conflict and then setting out to crush opposition. Maybe that’s a function of the movie’s anti-cerebral approach, and maybe it’s also necessary because Kirk isn’t actually the captain very often, but these aren’t explanations that cancel out mine; on the contrary, I think the way the movie frames these questions about what leadership is reflect exactly the Bush perspective: permanent revolution turned to conservative goals (governance as a hatred of government) and a deep suspicion of anything resembling self reflection.
There is also this
http://www.slate.com/id/2218596/
Why is everyone selling Obama’s emotive side short? Obama’s capacity for emotion comes across not just in his empathy, as the Slate article says, but also pretty much any time you see him with his wife, his daughters, or anyone else close to him. People, relax. Obama is not a Vulcan. The man is chill like that b/c he is from Hawaii! (Which brings up another point: Vulcan… volcano… Hawaii… uh oh.)
ZZ, I think you just have problems with the new Kirk because from certain angles he has a really fat neck. You should be ashamed.
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Great post ZZ, especially this part:
What is most pernicious, though, is that the movie makes all his intuitions right. The magnetic storm is a Romulon from the future. He is destined to be captain, destined for something great. There is a ticking time bomb scenario where extracting intelligence from a downed enemy combatant saves the fucking day.
And this:
The lightning storm revelation; again, we are supposed to note JTB’s brilliance without actually *seeing* it; much more central to his character is the sense that rules are made to be broken in service of a higher morality of I know what’s best.
And this:
The brilliance stuff happens off screen, and is clearly (I think) subordinate in importance.
To which I would add that really the whole substance of the film’s mythic engagement takes place off-screen. Not just ability (Kirk’s, Spock’s) but motivation–the centerpiece, really, of any large-scale mythic story–is sketched out in SNL-worthy archetypes. In this movie, healthy motivation comes from dead dads. Trauma and perverse motivation comes from dead moms. The movie pretends to address the big questions, but ultimately, for Abrams, this is all in the service of bringing the sons together.
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