Monday, May 27, 2013

Star Trek - The Deadly Years - Ageism or Not?



The Deadly Years – Mission Log: A Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast
Episode 041

Ken Ray and John Champion regularly sit down to explore and analyze Star Trek.  Their goal is to go through the entire Star Trek franchise.  This is an endeavor which I whole-heartedly approve and have often thought of doing myself (like I have to time or energy!). 
Here’s just a little background for you about my Trek experience before I get to the meat of this blog entry.  Star Trek TOS was a mainstay in my parents’ household much to the chagrin of my mother.  My father was one of the first Trekkies in an age when nerdism and sci-fi carried strong social stigmas so I consider him one of the ‘closeted’ Trekkies.  Recently I started to probe his mind about this because as I went on later in life, I became a huge fan of Star Trek Next Generation and realized my dream this year to meet Sir Patrick Stewart.  My father and I both became fans of the Star Trek franchise at the same times in our lives and both lived closeted nerd lives.  I have more recently broken out of the closet but my father doesn’t associate with the genre.  However when he talks about it, he just raves on and on about Roddenberry’s genius with social and political themes.  He still passionately loves the idealism of the series and the commentaries made by the writers on events of the time. 
      So when Ken Ray and John Champion took on the episode of TOS called The Deadly Years, I was shocked to find that they could not see the message in it.  Over and over, they refer to Star Trek as being a product of the times but it was also a commentary on the times and they seemed to have missed the commentary in this episode.  I’m not a nit-picker for details usually but it seemed clear to me that this episode had a distinct message relating to what not only what happening that year but had been happening for the preceding 20 years of United States history prior to the original air date of the episode in late 1967.  The Mission Log creators applied a scathing letter of condemnation saying that the writer’s themselves were ageist when really they may have been making more of a statement against ageism.
But let’s back up to 1967, ageism was starting to come on the horizon as a defined idea instead of just another facet of American life lurking in every voting decision.  The concept of ageism was actually labeled by Robert Neal Butler in 1968 but there must have been social commentary on it prior to his work.  Ageism is a tricky concept.  It can involve prejudice for or against a person of any age level.  The Star Trek writers however were not taking on all of ageism.  They were just addressing one facet of it that was probably the most discussed at the time, that American voters had been electing people to positions of leadership for years.  So the message for this Star Trek episode needs to be simple and a product of the times.  Age is not a determiner of good leadership. 

     Let’s flashback to 1950’s America.  Soldiers have come home for the war (of which Roddenberry is one), wiser and ready to settle into middle age with a family and a suburban home and little disruptions in between, hence the desperate need countrywide to establish even a sliver of normality (alas but what is normal really?).  There is a sense of adultcentrism where these people feel that they have earned their rights to the leadership of the America through their sacrifices in the Great Depression and a world war.  Their childhood and youth was stolen by chaotic times but that doesn’t mean they were longing to get back what they missed.  They were simply entitled to smooth sailing and a prosperous society from here on out.  They weren’t necessarily wrong but were they qualified?
As this group aged, elected, and became elected to office, Americans stumbled about an unprecedented era of prosperity that even reached to the growing middle class.  They needed leadership to hold on to this newfound wealth.  But what had carried these adults through these hard times were the aged hands of leaders such as Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.  These were the people whose leadership they longed to emulate. Churchill was a prime example of a leader whose guiding influence carried Britain through the war, shaking off the Nazi incursion and seeking to find a path of democracy and human rights in the modern century.  He was 66 in the prime years of his office.  With an example like Churchill, the assumption from this generation was that age really fueled his wisdom.  He’d been active in politics but it wasn’t until his later years that he became a party leader and more importantly the Prime Minister of Britain in a time of crisis.  The Silent Generation would sit back and wait for age to come to them, making them wise and capable of steering America through the newfound waters of being a world power.  And they would elect by age instead of by qualification because the formula to quality in their estimation was age.  The average age in Congress during the 1950’s – 55 and that trend has not changed.
While not a new trend in American politics, the average age of presidents in the 50’s was 60 years old which was older than the decade preceding it and the next decade.  At age 60, Harry Truman becomes the unlikely and unpopular president in 1945 after the unexpected death of Roosevelt during a crucial time in the negotiations to end the war.  While not elected in, he is re-elected at age 64.  Truman resolves the war in Asia dramatically and destructively by dropping two atomic bombs – a move that is still debated by budding academics today.  He put the world on a track for the modern age of destruction by revealing the new weaponry to Joseph Stalin.  Russia may have been America’s ally prior to the end of World War II but by the time negotiation are over and two atomic weapons have been unleashed, they are now enemies.  Some attribute this to long standing disputes over democracy and a deep distrust between both countries.  But this can also go back to the even more personal animosity between Stalin and Truman. 
In 1952, Eisenhower is elected to the office of President, the oldest person to have been elected into the office in almost a hundred years.  His war experience made him extremely popular with voters and his firm anti-communist stance would expand the power of the office of the presidency.  He was the perfect age at 62 to bring America fully into her newfound world power.  Instead he continues to immerse the country deeper into a nuclear stand-off with Russia, through his policy of deterrence.  It is in his presidency that the path is laid for the Vietnam War which will be roaring in full chaos at the time of the airing of The Deadly Years.  The Domino theory is the groundwork for actions that the CIA takes in preventing incursion of communism in Southeast Asia and South America at the direction of Eisenhower.  He even lays out the original plan for deposing Fidel Castro of Cuba.  All of these actions embroil the United States in controversial and costly programs around the world.  From Korean to Guatemala, history sees U.S. action that results in humiliation and loss over and over.  By the end of the sixties, the United States had been through a decade of taking a beating out in the world, something for which they felt extremely unprepared.  From the view of the Silent Generation, as they transition into the 60’s, their leaders are stubborn, resistant, weapons hungry, and bent on a path that might lead to America’s destruction.
At the turn of the century, Americans are questioning what it takes to make a true leader and one conclusion that they are coming to is that old age doesn’t equate to wisdom.

      During the sixties, America begins to see the reverence for those of a ‘proper age’ to erode.  Roddenberry certainly recognizes this preponderance that American society has for labeling leadership to be qualified or unqualified based on age, gender, or race in the longer running arcs of his character’s lives.  The average age of presidents drops with the election of John F. Kennedy, elected at age 43.  The average age of those presidents elected in the 60’s drops by 5 years to about 55.  Though the trend to elect older people who are at the end of the most productive years of humans (statistically proven).  But the statistics in American politics counter scientific results with the most voters are between 50 and 65 with 62 being the peak of voting power but not the peak of rational brain power.  These voters elect younger presidents, seeking the elusive leadership that they feel they need as America’s power grows.  But the death of both Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders, the emergence of the Vietnam War quagmire, and the unrest with the status quo among the races, it is becoming obvious that youth and energy may not be the answer to the country’s problems.

Just the fact that the primary message in this episode about what good leadership entails is evidenced by the plot that Roddenberry and the writers (David Harmon) create.  Instead of running around the colony looking for a cure or facing some alien presence that is causing the aging process, the crew members return back to the ship, lose all the last members of the colony to the disease, and are now battling the impact of the aging process among their own.  Had it been an alien, the idea that this is a problem created by Americans and their choices for leadership would have felt removed.  The writers are consciously making a stand about age as a poor marker of leadership.  The military trial and subsequent removal of Captain Kirk for age related maladies such as memory problems, giving poor orders, and in general becoming belligerent shows that Kirk as an elderly leader is lacking extremely.  While Commodore Stocker is right to take Kirk out via military protocol because of the horrifying decline of leadership, he is not the right leader either.  This is a stab not at the age problem in politics but the other issue of voting in a leader based on military experience or rank.  And it is a nod to the problems of the time with the Vietnam War.  Kirk calls him a ‘paper pusher’ which gives the viewer a distinct bad taste in their mouth and echoes much of the sentiments that American soldiers had about the leadership of the military and the mismanagement of the war by leaders who have no experience with a ‘land war in Asia’.  Stocker proves his incompetence when he endangers the crew further to complete his ends, echoing the tendency of America’s presidents to plow forward with their plans (domino theory) despite evidence that it may not be working.  A terrible nighttime news reality that Roddenberry and 1960’s America were experiencing through the terrible military leadership during the Vietnam War. 


Youth is a catalyst for change.

Roddenbery has always been a proponent for youth.  He features young people many of his episodes.  However, he does make it clear that they may not be meant for leadership either.  He is very clear that through their youth, they make mistakes as well, ones distinctly stemming from their age and emotional immaturity.  But he points out quite a bit that adults overlook the young.  They fail to listen to them and those who are young have to resort to desperate measures to get heard or the Enterprise has to nearly be destroyed before those in power recognize the ideas of the younger members of the crew.  In The Deadly Years, there is no “young voice” that counterbalances the senility of Captain Kirk.  There is not a young crew member who steps up with the solution in the form of some monologue about leadership.  But ultimately youth does save the Enterprise.  When the Ensign Chekov of the landing party to Gamma Hydra IV first comes across an elderly dead man, he panics and runs away.  His fear of aging and adrenaline save him from the virus.  When this is finally discovered, after trial and error (many scans) and some crewmember deaths, Spock (through logic and his Vulcan DNA which has slightly impeded his aging process) goes about making a serum to cure the crew.  Chekov is a somewhat unwilling participant in the process, griping about the continuous tests that he has to undergo.  However, Chekov will save the Enterprise with his youthful…..adreneline.  Yes, it’s really the logical leadership of the aging Spock (who really only looks 50 as opposed to Kirk’s 70) who ultimately creates the treatment that saves crew but it’s the catalyst of youth or more importantly adrenaline that causes the salvation of the crew from the horrible debilitating effects of age. 
During the late 1960’s and in particular in the year of this episode (and the year before), America sees unprecedented youth involvement in politics but not as political equals.  Instead, they are the youth insurgency through the protest movements on college campuses, vocalizing dissatisfaction with the status quo (primarily based on age or military leadership – both picked on in this episode). 
Chekov seems whiny as he’s picked at and prodded by the Doctor.  Who wouldn’t be?  That “protest” seems childish in the ears of the aged crew.  They would dismiss him except that they need him.  He should be grateful to help fix the problem but he’s not.  He should just shut up and hand over his blood to stave off the fate of the crew, but he doesn’t. And that is ultimately how the Vietnam protesters appear to the American public on the news.  So while youth is good and saves the day – it is fickle and uninformed.  It has flaws as well.

But does Roddenberry ultimately answer the question of the ideal age for leadership?  Over and over again, Star Trek makes a point to address the issue of Kirk’s age.  He is a direct comparison to John F. Kennedy.  This has been shown in other episodes as well.  Had the United States seen Kennedy as an older person, they may have not thought favorably of him.  But also, Kennedy makes decisions in his presidency that are not based on experience or age.  He was seen as a youthful president but not so young that he was foolish.  And certainly, he seems to have been Roddenberry’s ideal.  Kirk shares many of the idealist viewpoints of Kennedy but through the television universe is able to accomplish what Kennedy did not in his lifetime.  So is the perfect age for a president 34 as Kirk is when he’s in command of the Enterprise or 43 as Kennedy is when he’s in command of a country?  Unfortunately, here’s where the viewer gets no clear answer or proof in the episode and Roddenberry seems to have forgotten that Kennedy put the U.S. into Vietnam (or at least overlooked that).  But overall, The Deadly Years gives a complete censure that age is not a good way for America to decide who their leaders should be. 

 Thanks so much to the Mission Log Podcast crew for providing me with thinking material.  While I might have disagreed with John Champion and Ken Ray's analysis of this episode, I have a high regard for most of their thoughts about the social and political implications of Star Trek.  I appreciate their ability to take on the task of bringing it to the podcast masses.  Mission Log has quickly risen to the ranks of "most listened" in my podcast library.  With much respect, I bring them my own analysis of The Deadly Years and hope they find it remotely interesting!   I'm sure that this won't be the last time we disagree but that's ok.  I probably will just email them next time instead of writing a whole blog entry!  (or not)


Resources;
http://www.missionlogpodcast.com/archive - Every Trekkie (or not) should go check out this podcast.  Good listening!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deadly_Years - The plot of the show, if you don’t remember!

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