Erin Horáková:There is no other way to put this: essentially everything about Popular Consciousness Kirk is bullshit. Kirk, as received through mass culture memory and reflected in its productive imaginary (and subsequent franchise output, including the reboot movies), has little or no basis in Shatner's performance and the television show as aired. Macho, brash Kirk is a mass hallucination.
I'm going to walk through this because it's important for ST:TOS's reception, but more importantly because I believe people often rewatch the text or even watch it afresh and cannot see what they are watching through the haze of bullshit that is the received idea of what they're seeing. You "know" Star Trek before you ever see Star Trek: a 'naive' encounter with such a culturally cathected text is almost impossible, and even if you manage it you probably also have strong ideas about that period of history, era of SF, style of television, etc to contend with.
Wow. Telling us what we think then debunking the contrivance – which fallacy is that now?
Just like the chap from Spaced in the awful reboot films, the character Kirk is a vehicle for a male wish fulfillment fantasy. The female characters are simplistic, in that they either need saving in order to bolster the male ego, or they save the Kirk/Scotty because he's a lovely lovely man, or both.
At least in the originals you can see the rest of the cast attempting to break out of the mould. In the new ones, it's as though the male-dominance mould is seen as something charming and comforting, a thing to turn to in time of equality.
>Wow. Telling us what we think then debunking the contrivance – which fallacy is that now?
And not bothering to read the piece you're commenting on... has anyone bothrered to come up with a name for that?
Thanks for this. It is a rare occasion when changing opinions has been so easy.