I finally went and saw the new Star Trek movie, and enjoyed it…  and that’s the problem. Great visuals, cool gadgets, beautiful faces, a driving plot that kept my eyes riveted to the screen… but Gene Roddenberry’s gift for holding out a hopeful vision of the future? Gone, baby. And two of the most important topics taken up in the Star Trek canon,  racism and genocide, get short-shrift in this cupcake of a movie (**beware for spoilers**)

The original series broke ground on the topic of race, which I was blissfully unaware of as I sat next to my big brother watching the series in the 1970s. Gene Roddenberry’s “western in space” balanced the familiar and the unfamiliar in just the right mix for this little girl.

The familiar:  ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys,’ guns, a ship run like a naval vessel (except with photon torpedos!), the red-shirt crewman to let us know danger was lurking (by dying in the first two minutes after you see them).

The unfamiliar: a multiracial bridge crew that included a Russian (we were fervent anti-communists in my family, so this was a big deal) and a guy with pointy ears from some other race. A different race, not as in, from Asia or Africa, but a completely different race! This Spock guy could knock you unconscious by pinching you, he had a mind like a computer… and he could read your mind if he touched you!

Star Trek made certain that Spock was fascinating, which brought us kids back to what is true but was obscured by racism in our everyday lives: that people different from us can be interesting to get to know.

In Spock, Star Trek gave us lessons about racism without talking about racism.  The multiracial bridge crew taught us that in the future, racism as we know it now will be a relic: there was a black woman on TV who was not a maid.  Star Trek offered us more than the familiar when it came to race.

When Roddenberry ‘rebooted’ the series in 1987, it was with the “Next Generation” (STNG to us Trekkies), and it too, found a way to balance the familiar and unfamiliar. A Klingon was now on the bridge crew, to re-invoke the theme that enemies eventually become allies. Given how race had changed, STNG now had multiple Black recurring characters.

STNG was explicit in its view that we would learn to get along, or perish. It offered mild rebukes to the original series, with more profound roles for women (up to a point), and a captain who preferred to talk before firing the photon torpedos. STNG mirrored the timing of my own life, as I left home in 1987 and left behind some of the conservative ideas I had about war, peace, and cooperation. I was an adult just in time to appreciate that I was watching a moral tale with cool special effects.

STNG needed scarier villains, and tougher topics to take on, and wound up with the genocidal Borg, who brought us fear, homicidal nano-probes and mass destruction for many seasons. Then came the episode, “I, Borg” in which the Enterprise has an opportunity to destroy the entire Borg race, and are forced to acknowledge that they would, in turn, be committing genocide. You can try watching just that episode, and maybe you’ll get it, but some of it would be lost on you if you haven’t seen all the evil that the Borg do. They’re the enemy! Then comes a moment when we get to know a single Borg, and our certainty about what is the right thing to do dissolves.

The Star Trek franchise, at moments like that, is science fiction at its best: offering just enough of the familiar for us feel like we know what we would do. Then the perspective shifts just enough to force us to question what we think and believe and eliminates the easy answers we thought we had.

But the 2009 film has rebooted by jettisoning Star Trek’s chance to take on anything tough. It takes all the hard-earned prestige of the series and spends it all on pretty effects and cool outfits (excuse me, extraordinary effects and outstanding outfits). Forget tough looks at race or genocide.  Okay, sure at first Spock and Kirk don’t get along, and by the end of the film, they do. But it’s a personality conflict, and not even a particularly deep one. If this were an episode of “Moonlighting” I would expect more tension then the whole, “you cheated on my test” conflict they begin with.

There is the same multiracial bridge crew that was radical in the 60s, but now is a cultural status quo. There is no conversation about race that is even vaguely unfamiliar.

Genocide comes up, but hardly as a moral issue. 6 billion Vulcans are killed by a Romulan villain, but there is only screentime for Spock’s immediate family. Genocide is a prop in this movie, and the Vulcan people have become the infamous “red-shirt” characters from the original series, who die to let us know that someone who really counts is at-risk (in this case, Earth).

And what should happen after this genocide? “Let’s go get that m—-f—r” guides the day.  As the viewer, we get to wallow in our righteous anger at the villains, and that’s  about it.

This movie is like a light and fluffy cupcake topped with two inches of buttercream frosting. I savored details like the new bridge design, the nuanced acting, and those cool parachutes. I am sure I will see it again, and enjoy it.

But some part of me feels like I’ve let Gene Roddenberry down, for loving this movie’s bling instead of being loyal to the heart of what he did for so long: teach me to question myself if I want to become something new and better.

As one person who has been changed by Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future, I can’t help but feel like it’s a sad day when I enjoy a Star Trek movie where the future is pretty much like the present, but with better effects.

I just learned from the American-Iranian Friendship Council that the  Oregon Senate passed a resolution calling for the state to divest from businesses with ties to Iran. This is a poorly-conceived bill,  based on “enemy-of-the-month” thinking that has placed Iran in the crosshairs for the last couple years (again).

The resolution attempts to create false links between Iran and our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but will possibly wind up depriving people of food (for example, Oregon farmers sell wheat to Iran) and curtail legitimate businesses when we’re all already facing hard economic times.

Senate Bill 633 passed the Senate 27-3, but I’m proud that my Senator,  State Senator Margaret Carter, did the right thing and voted against it along with Senators Burdick and Metsger. (To see the vote results, you can run a search for SB 633 on the Oregon Legislature’s bill search page).

We have to make sure that this horrible bill doesn’t pass the Oregon House.  Rather than continuing to demonize the Iranian people, we should be looking for ways to decrease tensions in the region.  I’ve already emailed my rep, the great Representative Chip Shields, earlier today.

This could totally sneak in under the radar and will cause hardship for many ordinary people in Oregon and Iran. Take five and send a message to your Representative today before this bill is sitting on the Governor’s desk.  (Not sure who to email?  Let the Oregon Legislative website help you find your Rep)

I managed to make it to May Day Immigration events in both Salem and Portland yesterday! With 3,000 in Salem and a couple thousand in Portland, both were great events. KATU had a great story on the Salem march. Here’s my photos from each that I posted on Flickr:

May Day 2009 in Salem

May Day 2009 in Portland