Star Trek's Ineffectual Portrayal of Racism

Star Trek: Shining a Light On Public Issues

Media can and has been used in many different ways to educate people in regards to social issues and public opinions; now whether or not the media is able to effectively portray these issues and educate the public correctly is an entirely different story. If I were to analyze the Star Trek episode that was shown in class, I would deduce that it did not effectively discuss the issues in regards to racism/xenophobia.

In my opinion, the topic itself was hidden under strained acting and awkward special effects to be taken seriously. While a TV viewer can see that there is a problem between the Horta and the humans, they wouldn’t actively jump to the conclusion that there’s racism/xenophobia going on.

The cast is placed in the distant future off the planet earth. The audience goes and watches said show to be entertained; Although some part of the audience do always watch the show to be educated. It would be hard for a person to make a direct correlation between the events of the show to racism and xenophobia. Logically thinking, if a human is presented with a creature that could potentially kill it, the most rational response would be to try to kill the creature instead The idea itself plays with the fact that the smartest way to deal with a potentially hazardous situation would be to either run or fight the creature. When watching the episode I felt that the show was prolonging the suspense against the creature, and the miners should have just hunted down the creature before it killed anymore

By making their unbiased message clear then it would be harder to be able to twist words and get the wrong message out. The setting of the episode would have fit the message that is going to be conveyed. If the message is going to be on how xenophobia is not only harmful to the person being prejudiced against, but the entire marginalized group, then a normal everyday setting would be adequate, since people we interact with on a daily basis could be xenophobic. Expanding on this thought, if the show portrayed someone getting harassed or bullied just because he or she looks different, at the end of the day communication would help the bully realize that they were afraid for no reason whatsoever. This would allow anyone who is watching the episode to put one and two together. Not disregarding the fact that they might be prejudiced in their own way and they might want to take steps to change that. Since most people tend to imitate what they see on the television to some degree. This could also be applied to topics such as racism and sexism, but of course, each of the episodes would need to be tailored for each specific social issue that is going to be discussed. Since not every episode should be the exact same thing just with different characters because the world doesn’t necessarily work that