The Loneliest Liberal: Pop culture marks generations

Star Trekkers,
for example

By James Knudsen

When you get to a certain age, you’re not eager to provide a number. You hedge, fudge, lie, add a suffix — usually “-ish.” I like to provide a range. Telling someone who was President provides a range. If you were born during Franklin Roosevelt’s time in office, you can be in your mid-seventies to mid-eighties. I’m a Lyndon Johnson baby, which provides a smaller window. Any way you slice it, I’m in my fifties. The only upside is that it is rare to find a junior college student who knows that we had a President named Johnson and even rarer that they know when he was in office.
    Pop culture is one of the markers of generations. I am of the rock ’n roll generation, my students are of the hip-hop generation, and my parents, big band. And science fiction has its generations, not to mention its tribes. I try to avoid factional strife, but I must confess to a decided generational preference regarding one sci-fi franchise, Star Trek. I like the original version.
    The franchise television series began in 1966, a bit early for my partially sentient, year-old brain. By grade school, the series was in heavy rotation as an afternoon re-run. To modern eyes its take on issues can seem heavy-handed. When they took on the issue of discrimination, in the episode “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,” the two antagonists face off in mirror-image, black-and-white make-up. Subtle it isn’t. And this is a one-hour drama from the age of Hollywood’s manufactured realism, so if the show’s lead character, Capt. James T. Kirk, played by William Shatner, ever needs to take his shirt off, approximately 1.5 times per episode, he has full body makeup. Even I can look like golden god in full body makeup, but it’s of little consequence because I’m no Kirk. Kirk is the first Starship Captain.¹ He is the blueprint for all subsequent Federation commanders. The captain wants to be out front, wants to be in that captain’s chair. That’s not for everyone.
    Some people are Spocks. Working behind the scenes, off to the side, just out of frame or just barely in frame, but always there. Last month I gave the world a look at my grandmother, Florence Telford Knudsen. If you google Florence Knudsen, the search returns plenty of results, but none of them are her. Spocks don’t get their name on the building. They aren’t inducted into the hall of fame. They don’t get to give the acceptance speech they’ve been working on for decades. They don’t need to.² Here’s hoping our next president is a Spock.

---

1. I know, I know, Trekkers, technically Capt. Christopher Pike, played by Jeffery Hunter, was the first. Holster your phasers, and stand down.

2. Here’s a section of dialogue from the episode “City of the Edge of Forever”:

Edith Keeler: [to Kirk] I still have a few questions I’d to ask about you two. Oh, and don’t give me that “Questions about little old us?” look. You know as well as I do how out of place you two are around here.

Spock: Interesting. Where would you estimate we belong, Miss Keeler?

Edith Keeler: [to Spock] You? At his side, as if you’ve always been there and always will.

Edith Keeler: [to Kirk] And you... you belong... in another place. I don’t know where or how... I’ll figure it out eventually.

Spock: [to Kirk] I’ll finish with the furnace.

Edith Keeler: [to Kirk] “Captain.” Even when he doesn’t say it, he does.

Copyright © 2019 by James Knudsen