STARLOG #10: “They’re Not ALL “Historical Documents!” Surely, You Don’t Think Gilligan’s Island Is A…” ~Gwen Demarco, “Galaxy Quest.”
Why is it important to see yourself on television? Why is television an important subject for scholarly study and how does what we watch shape the world we live in?
As a TV producer I can tell you that television truly is what it was called in the 1999 (and Star Trek spoof) “Galaxy Quest.” A group of aliens called the Thermians have been viewing seasons of the now-defunct space travel TV series via satellite transmission and takes them to be actual human history, calling them “the historical documents.”
The Historical Documents.
With the very first transmission in September of 1928, television has been creating the historical documents of our existence for almost one hundred years.
News programs broadcast the events of the day, but shows from soap operas to comedies and critically acclaimed dramas gradually began to to evolve from stories about picture-perfect all-white, all-straight families to an actual reflection of the population.
Aliens viewing such documents as “Make Room For Daddy” or “Leave It To Beaver” during the first Golden Age Of Television roughly from the late 1940s through the late 1950s would assume that all earthlings were one color with one shape of eyes and everyone had either madcap, hilarious adventures or day-after-day filled with moral endings.
The original Star Trek series was so daring in its casting, something I need not note again here and bore you, Dear Reader, but it left a big footprint on network television and it would be years before the “normal world” would be represented again in such a positive fashion.
In 1971 “All In The Family” brought us a weekly doses of — perhaps not us — but someone we all knew. Fathers, uncles, grandfathers, every family seemed to have an Archie Bunker. His black neighbors had a mixed daughter in law — portrayed in a stable and loving marriage, his daughter had a friend who was a Conscientious Object who’d avoided the Vietnam War and even had a guest star who was once forbidden to stay in the same Vegas Hotel as the rest of the cast of a nightclub show — Sammy Davis Jr.
People like people we knew.
“Cagney and Lacey” were two bust-ass female detectives who took no shit from the men who dominated the profession and their beat. “Hill Street Blues” put women lawyers in power positions, female cops in pants and African American detectives on the street and in the opening credits. And very slowly, things began to change in real life after folks saw similar stories in reel life.
People like us.
Television began to mirror the times. Shows like “Will And Grace” in 1998 brought the subject of homosexuality out of the shadows and into the living room. Thousands of young people found the courage to come out to their families after that show made it no big deal. Or at least showed us why it shouldn’t be. Many critics feel this show changed the face of public opinion.
The beginning of the 2000s finally made the huge push for diversity in front of the camera. Asian families commiserated with multi-generational characters in “Fresh Off The Boat.” Black characters became heroes AND villains.
Just like the rest of us.
Throughout the decades, the legacy of Star Trek continued its forward-thinking societal model and remained committed to show “people like us” to us.
The importance of seeing one’s personal existence mirrored in these “historical documents” cannot be adequately gauged. Humans need a sense of self, but also the comfort of the shared experience. When any young kid stares at a screen, recognizes a positive character and then joyfully yelps out, “Hey! That’s like me!” then we’ve done our job.
