Attention Must be Paid
Today William Shatner is 75.
When Sarcasm Girl was very small, she used to watch Star Trek:TNG with us on Saturday nights; it was known as "Captain," as in "Mama, I want to watch Captain, and space, fina fwonteer!" (This has to be said in a sprightly small-child voice to be really effective.) When we first introduced her to the original Star Trek she was adamant, that wasn't Captain. "I want really really captain!" I mentioned to her that as far as I was concerned, Shatner is "really really Captain." Now she is old and jaded, and able to appreciate the overthetop pleasures of Shatner and Ricardo Montalban overacting at each other; still, when I showed her the photo of Young Shatner that was on IMDB this morning her mouth dropped open in stunned amazement.
When Sarcasm Girl was very small, she used to watch Star Trek:TNG with us on Saturday nights; it was known as "Captain," as in "Mama, I want to watch Captain, and space, fina fwonteer!" (This has to be said in a sprightly small-child voice to be really effective.) When we first introduced her to the original Star Trek she was adamant, that wasn't Captain. "I want really really captain!" I mentioned to her that as far as I was concerned, Shatner is "really really Captain." Now she is old and jaded, and able to appreciate the overthetop pleasures of Shatner and Ricardo Montalban overacting at each other; still, when I showed her the photo of Young Shatner that was on IMDB this morning her mouth dropped open in stunned amazement.
posted by Madeleine Robins at 8:25 PM
2 Comments:
If SG is going to watch Classic Trek (as we sarcastically call it) at all, she should be able by now to appreciate its politics, which is Benign (Or So We Like to Think) Imperialism.
If she can watch an episode and notice what it is really saying -- foreigners are funny; they can't run their own affairs; we will do so for them, with a few thrown punches; it's also useful to have a smart guy on hand, although it's the punches that count -- she will be more politically aware than most Americans.
We don't watch much Original ST around here these days. On the other hand, a few years ago when an episode was playing, Sarcasm Girl spoke back to the screen (as she so often does): "You know, the Prime Directive might work if you ever actually followed it!" She's fairly sharp, in her fifteenish way.
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