Metaphor Country

The Church of Star Trek

Embedded in Hank Stuever's Star Trek piece in yesterday's Washington Post was this gem:

All the church words and metaphors people come up with to describe blockbusters and devoted fandom apply: Is it faithful? Will I feel betrayed? Is it canon? Will I still believe? Summertime filmmaking is church now. Pity the producers, directors, screenwriters and actors who take on a science-fiction or fantasy project and must first make an appearance at Comic-Con or some such convention-center cathedral gathering, so as to genuflect before fans of the older version, the classic comic or the original TV show. There's a permission paradigm now: You must show fans your plans -- costume sketches; a glimpse of a vehicle or set design. You must demonstrate reverence. The just-cast star must sit on a panel and make up stories about his childhood love for [insert character here].

For months, Abrams and his team of "Star Trek" writers and actors smartly paid lip service to "Trek" fans, to set them at ease and co-opt their support. The three trailers released before "Star Trek" seemed designed to reassure. Only the third and most recent trailer seemed in any way deviant, as a voice-over tells the new, hottie Kirk (Chris Pine) that he must fulfill his destiny and follow his father's footsteps, which, as anyone knows, is "Star Wars" talk -- a little like being handed a Communion wafer in a synagogue.

Emphasis mine. 

I don't know about you, but I have no shortage of clients who want to turn themselves or their products into the focal points of religious cults.  They'll never say it in so many words, but that's where all the brand loyalty stuff points - toward the soap that gives meaning. 

Maybe there are lessons for them in the Church of Star Trek.

LATER: This Washington Post blog brushes past - but doesn't come to terms with - a question that's been on my mind for years, namely, how does the Star Trek universe manage to have an economy, what with replicators and all?  I mean, put your cash in the replicator and it's Weimar all over again, right?

 

Changing Times, Et Cetera

One of the nice things about having been away from the blog for a while is that you find you're less caught up in the day-to-day or hour-to-hour shifts of opinion, which might mean that you're better able to see the big, long trendlines developing.

Case in point -- the long slide of the Bush administration.  From a remove it looks like this: post-9/11, a bunch of us are willing to support them because a) we're staggered and b) whatever else we think about them, they seem competent.  That sense of their competence erodes slowly in Iraq -- then gets wiped out altogether during Katrina week.  The result?  A new story -- we shift from "competent" to "flailing."  And events that we would have considered separately before -- like Cunningham -- now become part of the picture because they fit the picture.  And on the other hand, all the backdrops and all the uniformed audiences in the world can't help set things right because the fundamental story has changed.  A year or a year and half ago, those staged events would have looked like more evidence of mastery and control.  Now they look like part of the desperation.

Times are, to coin a phrase, changing.  The whole cluster of sensibilities -- executive leadership, command and control, the market system -- that used to be a support and a comfort, now seems disconnected from a negative, uncertain lived life.  Yesterday in Slate, Edward Jay Epstein wrote about Hollywood's tendency to vilify business.  Why do they do that?  For want of more challenging targets?  Maybe -- let's not underestimate Hollywood's gift for superficial emotionalism and simplification.  But there's also this -- an increasing sense that all those business values that we staked so much on haven't actually done us a lot of good.  If there's a rise in communitarianism, post-Katrina -- and there will be -- then entrepreneurial individualism is going to suffer.  It's a long time since I've agreed with Krugman, but in this case I do.  A worrisome sign.

On Sunday afternoon I went to see Syriana.  There's plenty wrong with it.  I'm not a fan of strong conspiracy theories, the kind that require lots of collusion in smoke-filled rooms.  No one can believe in active conspiracies who's tried to arrange a conference call that stretches across more than one time zone -- people just aren't that competent ("what do you mean, 2 o'clock Central?")  I lean toward weak conspiracies -- conspiracies of neglect, conspiracies of compromise, conspiracies that happen on their own when people can't stand up to the corrosive effects of money on the table.  Those reservations aside -- I was struck by the size of the crowd and the amount of energy in the theater.  This is not exactly mainstream entertainment, but it packed the house.  Granted that 10023 isn't the heartland -- and it'll be interesting to see how the film does when it opens there on Friday -- but there really seemed to be something in the air that hadn't been present before, even here on the lower Upper West Side.  Anti-Bush, of course, but also anti-business, anti-corporate, and strongly in favor of getting to the bottom of what's wrong -- and something seems decidedly wrong -- with our quality of life.

A year ago my friend Joe Apocalypse kept telling me that "the center is going to move left."  I didn't believe him at the time -- but now, he's got me wondering.  Joe, bless his dark heart, has been right before.

So step lively, and watch the changing times.