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)
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