Science fiction is important. Our fiction says a lot about our society, and our science fiction says a lot about what we want (or don't want) for our future. Star Trek Into Darkness is a terrific example of how our society shapes our fiction, and the other way around. You need look no farther than the dedication in the credits to see how wrapped up in social commentary our fiction is.
Star Trek Into Darkness was a moderate box office success. The film had mixed reception from both critics and fans, who largely hailed it as a good popcorn flick but lacking in the lore and depth that made the original Star Trek great. One major criticism of the movie is that it buys too much into Hollywood "guy culture" mythology, for a lack of strong female characters.
Discussion about race, on the other hand, has been scant, but not entirely favorable. I want to focus on one casting choice in particular, however, and how a little bit of revisionist history makes the whole Star Trek franchise more nuanced.
And seriously, stop reading here if you do not want the movie spoiled.
Here is the massive spoiler: John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) is Khan. Into Darkness, the second film in the rebooted Star Trek series, is a remake (of sorts) of The Wrath of Khan, the second film in the original Star Trek series.
Khan Noonien Singh, in the Star Trek lore, is a genetically engineered superman who, according to the novel The Eugenics Wars*, was created in the Thar Desert in India. He is presumed to be ethnically Sikh, and is shown wearing a dastar in a portrait. The superhumans, or "Augments," have extraordinary physical and mental prowess, but this comes at a price. The Augments have a superhuman ambition, manifested as aggression and arrogance on par with the greatest of conquerors. Khan was no exception -- he rose to power and, for a time, ruled over much of Asia and the Middle East.
Then a series of conflicts known as the Eugenics Wars broke out. The Eugenics Wars involved a series of conflicts between Augments, vying for global political power. It's the first of several catastrophic global events that essentially reshapes modern civilization. Common interpretation, as described by Memory Alpha, is that the Eugenics Wars concentrated in Northern Africa and that North America enjoyed a time of relative stability while brutal conflict tore apart China.
The casting of Cumberbatch as the Sikh tyrant Khan has been criticized as whitewashing and racebending, robbing the movie of ethnic richness to make the movie experience "safer" for audiences. Racebending.com described it like this:
"[A] South Asian man is portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch up on that screen. In the original Trek, Khan, with his brown skin, was an Übermensch, intellectually and physically perfect, possessed of such charisma and drive that despite his efforts to gain control of the Enterprise, Captain Kirk (and many of the other officers) felt admiration for him. And that’s why the role has been taken away from actors of colour and given to a white man."Whitewashing happens in Hollywood. It robs moviegoers of important depth and it cheapens the experience for everyone. Directors and producers may feel that white characters are the "safe" choice, but richness of cast is terribly important.
But here's the thing: That's not what this is. Not this time. This is clever and subtle post-colonialism.
Khan was originally played by Ricardo Montalbán, a Mexican actor. Racebending.com defends this choice, saying, "considering all of the barriers to representation that Roddenberry faced from the television networks, having a brown-skinned man play a brown character was a hard-won victory." I can only say: are you kidding me? Montalbán doesn't look Indian, not even remotely, and his accent is obvious. What's less obvious is how anyone could think it was remotely appropriate to cast him as a Sikh. But if replacing Montalbán with Cumberbatch is "whitewashing," then the standard is really, really low -- apparently any dark-skinned actor will do. Anyone critical of Cumberbatch as Khan should be just as outraged that "any non-Anglican" was good enough the first time around.
But there is a bigger problem. A gentle scratching at the surface of Khan and the Eugenics Wars betrays a troubling racism and Amerocentrism. Khan, like the rest of the Augments who are characterized by superhuman aggression and an insatiable lust for conquering, is created in India. They almost without exception terrible despots. They conquer Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, virtually annihilating those civilizations. And through all this, Western culture survives, and opposes them. (The only significant Augment in the United States is a separatist leader, according to The Eugenics War.) The two agents who infiltrate the Augment project, and convince Khan Noonien Singh to leave Earth, are Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln. The Augments aren't perfect; they're strong, and they're smart, but they are savage and antithetical to peace, and they have to be defeated or expelled before the utopian Federation can emerge. The hot-blooded, unwaveringly aggressive South Asian despots dominate and destroy Eastern culture and are run out by two white Americans, and the surviving Western culture gives rise to the peaceful, hyper-advanced Federation. In short, the history of the Star Trek universe is a pro-colonial, imperialistic debacle.
Into Darkness, in order to use Khan, had to deal with this. Although time travel rebooted the franchise, it didn't go far back enough to revisit the Eugenics Wars. The original Khan should have been played by a South Asian actor, but casting a South Asian as Khan in Into Darkness wouldn't alleviate the blatant racialism that infected the whole story.
But casting an obviously British actor as Khan allows us to reimagine the entire context. British colonial influence in India lasted for hundreds of years, and many South Asians have British ancestry. Cumberbatch's Khan allows us to suppose that the Augment project is a relic of British influence, and that it was the British, not India, who created the insatiable warmongers. If Khan is a British creation, then it was Western imperialism, not Eastern ambition, that started the Eugenics Wars, that toppled Eastern civilization. Khan, the Eugenics Wars, the Atomic Horror -- they all become comments on colonialism. The West didn't save the world from Khan; the West created Khan and unleashed him on the world.
I suspect, in fact, that this was J.J. Abrams' intention. The "John Harrison" Khan-as-agent story is an obvious comment on American and British activity in the Middle East, and is probably meant to directly evoke Osama bin Laden. In fact, the dedication to "post-9/11 veterans" highlights this connection. Abrams is telling a story about colonialism, about how imperialism creates global problems not just for the conqueror but for centuries. Abrams was able to take a racially charged storyline and make it into a strength by turning the racial commentary on its head.
That is not to say that Into Darkness was a triumph for racial representation. The absence of high-ranking officers of color in Starfleet is noticeable and jarring. But casting Cumberbatch wasn't a mistake; it was clever, and it should be recognized for the strong comment that it is.
We have a duty to pay attention to our fiction, especially speculative fiction. When we study our fiction, we can learn a lot from what it says about us. And we should also critique it, and hold it to a high standard -- if we shine a light on our fiction, we can better understand our fantasies, what we value or fear. This shouldn't be underestimated, as our values and fears shape our laws, our relationships, and our culture. And so we should call out Hollywood when race, gender, or another issue is handled poorly. But that's not what happened here, and we should recognize what Abrams is showing us. Exploring the relationship between imperialism and cultural destruction might help us avoid it in the future.
* The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh is a licensed Star Trek novel and so technically not part of the official canon. However, it is one of the most significant sources on the Eugenics Wars and sheds important light on franchise history.
No comments:
Post a Comment