The Sociology of Star Trek
John Tenuto introduces himself as a Sociology professor at the College of Lake County. He teaches Introduction to Sociology, Deviance and Social Problems, but his favorite classes have to do with the study of popular culture, especially Star Trek.
“In a way, that’s the message Star Trek sends. It’s much easier when we know who the enemy is; they wear a uniform, they have this boundary and they have this government that we can deal with.”
In the spring of 2009, John Tenuto taught a class called the Sociology of Star Trek. “In the class a wonderful group of students and I discussed Star Trek fans. We looked at the sub-culture of Star Trek fans and looked at the social messages that were in various Star Trek episodes and movies.”
The students and Professor Tenuto have a discussion citing a specific episode of Star Trek.
“Since that episode of Deep Space 9 dealt with homelessness and poverty, especially, I thought it would be interesting to see how sociologists define poverty. I was happy that they referenced this issue. Poverty has a function. That’s why it’s still around.”
Professor Tenuto ties in the study of sociology by explaining how society deals with social problems. “If we did this (walled off poverty and the rest of society doesn’t see it) then it becomes easy to stop caring, because you don’t see the problem anymore.”
One of the students participates in the discussion by saying, “The problem with that episode, what they were trying to say, if you create this prison and take people off of the streets and force them to live in those conditions, any person in that situation would want to rebel and would want to fight.”
Professor Tenuto then references a discussion that a municipal government was having that closely mirrored the issue that had been portrayed in this particular episode of Star Trek. “Los Angeles was flirting with this idea, creating these sanctuary districts. One of the other guys ran into the office and said to me ‘Have you seen this? Can you believe that this happened?’ Star Trek was on the cusp of this issue, but that’s what good science fiction does.”
John Tenuto summarizes the class by saying, “In a way, what we did was look at the REAL side of society by taking a look at the REEL side, the reel science fiction side of the issues.”
To learn more, visit the Sociology Web page.
