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ABSTRACT
As one of the most enduring television franchises of the late 20th century, Star Trek has had an unparalleled influence on the popular culture representation of humanity's future as ultimately utopian. In this paper, however, I argue that even as the on-screen text of Star Trek was condemning the narrow parochial interests of nationalism, greed, xenophobia and fear, the narrative subtext throughout the fifty years of the franchise supported the idea of the expansion of western hegemonic power. The paper utilizes examples from all five series and the thirteen films to illustrate the ways in which western liberal ideas such as individualism, self-determination and economic integration are woven throughout the on-screen narrative. This sub-text of the superiority of western liberalism both mirrors the geopolitical realities of American power in the late 20th century and recapitulates the manifest destiny narrative of 19th century US western expansion.
Key Words: hegemony, liberalism, Star Trek, manifest destiny
INTRODUCTION
Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
- Captain James T. Kirk
(Star Trek: The Original Series Prologue)
You understand what the Federation is, don't you? It's important. It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...
- Captain Christopher Pike
(Star Trek 2009)
Bookending the Star Trek canon, from the 1966 original TV series to the 2009 reboot movie series, these two quotes encapsulate the narrative subtext of this popular culture phenomenon. From explicit expansionism to implicit moral superiority, Gene Roddenberry's fictional universe provides a half century of subtle, and not-so-subtle, support for the idea of American hegemony. Famous for its utopian, upbeat vision of the future, the Star Trek universe of the 1960s depicted a futuristic Pax Americana, where the USS Enterprise is sent out to spread enlightenment in the dangerous conflict zones at the edges of the known universe, while the core of the Federation remains safe-safe not only from the threat of acknowledged enemies, such as the Klingons and Romulans, but also from the unknown, the strange, and the exotic, whose introductions to the Federation will be mediated through distance and the actions of these "expeditionary" forces who...