So would an ermine violin, Doctor, but I see no advantage in having one

[sovay]

1. In The Making of Star Trek (1968), which I am currently re-reading for the first time since high school, Gene Roddenberry says a singularly boneheaded thing about Spock:

Which is one of the reasons why Spock is an interesting character: the turmoil and conflict within. As half-human and half-Vulcan, he is continually at war within himself. For some reason this makes him particularly delightful to our female viewers, and of all ages. I guess they know that somewhere inside him there is a strong, emotional Earth man trying to come out. And they would love to help.

I don't argue with the character's status as a sex symbol. Leonard Nimoy is a very good-looking person, a sharp intellect and a deadpan raised eyebrow are always in demand, and besides the fanfic speaks for itself. But the reasons I imprinted on Spock as a young viewer (and reader; because of the way television worked versus books in my childhood, I read most of the scripts as short stories before I saw the original episodes) had nothing to do with his humanity, romantically stifled or not. It was his alienness that spoke to me. Or his half-alienness, which Roddenberry is correct gave him an intriguing, liminal quality.* It was very valuable to me, as a child, to have a sympathetic main character who was defined by his difference from the mainstream of human interaction, not existing in isolation, but not assimilated, either, nonplussed by so many of the common behaviors around him: just because he shares the genetics doesn't mean the mindset makes sense. In hindsight, I think it was equally valuable that he is not punished for this attitude by the narrative he's in. Especially in light of later Star Trek, I find it striking and welcome that Spock's emotional arc, such as he has one, does not revolve around him becoming more human or more conventionally expressive; he doesn't deny his mother's heritage or his emotions when they come into play, but his comfortable balance will always be on the Vulcan side, however offputting that may be for the non-Vulcans around him. Zachary Quinto's alt-Spock doesn't work for me precisely because of the greater emphasis on his emotions. It's not a stupid characterization—and possibly it's more in line with Roddenberry's reading—but it seems to erase much of what made the original character distinctive in the first place.

Anyway, leaving aside the assumption that female viewers automatically invest in the romance angle of a character before anything else, I disagree with Roddenberry that Spock's appeal lies in the idea that secretly he's as passionate as any human; that the Vulcan coolness is somehow just a front. (If nothing else, canonically, Vulcans are passionate, too.) If you want a strong, emotional, Earth-type partner, it's not like the Enterprise is exactly lacking in options. The First Officer is different and that's the point. I cannot imagine that I was the only person of whatever gender to feel this way about Spock.

* Growing up, my brother and I were "both-ways children"—a term my mother invented to answer the people who wanted to know what my brother and I were, with a Jewish mother and an atheist-from-a-mixed-Christian-family father. Spock being half-Vulcan, but also Vulcan by choice, was important. I was married by a rabbi and my brother baptized his daughter.

2. How to Live on Other Planets: A Handbook for Aspiring Aliens, in which my poem "Di Vayse Pave" (די ווײַסע פּאַווע, "The White Peacock") is reprinted, is now available for preorder in all digital formats, three of which landed in my inbox night before last. It's an amazing collection of fiction and poetry from writers like Ken Liu, Bogi Takács, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Rose Lemberg, Zen Cho, Daniel José Older, Bryan Thao Worra, Indrapramit Das, Alex Dally MacFarlane, and many, many more. As editor Joanne Merriam notes: "Despite the natural comparison of alien to alien, I'm not aware of any other speculative fiction anthology which has gathered together stories focusing exclusively on the immigrant experience." Print copies are forthcoming as well. I think most people I know are going to want one.

3. This is a gif of Leslie Howard eating a banana. Someone has won the internet.

I must take this lemon meringue pie out of the oven.

Comments

[thistleingrey]

I never understood Roddenberry's sense that Spock must be at war with himself or that part of his heritage was trying to assert itself over other parts. (I was eleven or twelve when I read that book.) It made me think about gaze long years before having to read relevant bits of theory, however, and though I didn't + don't think of myself as either exotic or physically attractive, the idea that something between or specifically other as Spock is helped me deal with the awkwardness of learning that some people considered me exotic automatically or found my face unusually interesting. (It's not like there were many mixed-ethnicity sidekick characters in books at that time, even.)

I think it was equally valuable that he is not punished for this attitude by the narrative he's in.

Yes yes yes. I sure was.

[sovay]

I never understood Roddenberry's sense that Spock must be at war with himself or that part of his heritage was trying to assert itself over other parts.

I'm guessing it's because Roddenberry was never between anything but jobs in his life. Leonard Nimoy being the Yiddish-speaking child of Russian Jewish immigrants makes a lot of Spock's development make sense to me in ways that Roddenberry talking about the character doesn't.

(I was eleven or twelve when I read that book.)

I read it very young, conceivably before I'd seen any Star Trek—I really didn't watch much television as a child—and then again later in adolescence, with the result that I remembered the book as being interesting and retained almost no memory of the content except for the story about painting the Orion girl greener every day because she kept showing up non-green in the test footage and it finally turned out a technician in the film lab was hand-correcting the color because he thought it was a mistake. (I still think that's brilliant.) I'm finding it a fascinating mix of production stories and practical (for the time) TV advice, backstory and worldbuilding that may or may not have made it into the finished series, and wait, what?

It made me think about gaze long years before having to read relevant bits of theory

That makes a lot of sense. It is kind of amazingly Othering, even from an apparently sympathetic position.

With the timing of coincidence, iTunes (because I'm listening to the soundtrack of Urgh! A Music War) just presented me with Joan Jett singing "Bad Reputation": "Never been afraid of any deviation / And I really don't care if you think I'm strange, I ain't going to change." Which I think is a healthy attitude.

Yes yes yes. I sure was.

I'm realizing that some of my strong early childhood imprints—not all, but I think a statistically significant number—were, in hindsight, a kind of reassurance; I don't know if they told me that things were going to get better, but they told me that things were possible. Now I'm dealing with the feeling that this makes all of my favorite characters really obvious and embarrassing, but I'm pretty sure that's Tiny Wittgenstein.

[thistleingrey]

Yes--the possibility aspect mattered a great deal to me, too. Even for things that sucked, I appreciated having a sense that some others had survived them (scars or not).

Now I'm dealing with the feeling that this makes all of my favorite characters really obvious and embarrassing, but I'm pretty sure that's Tiny Wittgenstein.

I think it is TW.