The Devil Has Pointy Ears

In today's short post I'd like to share something I found quite funny and is relevant in today's social climate. Spock nearly got scratched as the character we all know, because some people thought no one would be able to relate to an alien character.

_{Image by OpenClipart-Vectors - source:}

It has to be said that Star Trek didn't just tell stories of future times, the show itself was a very progressive one for it's time. The cast was very diverse, long before identity politics and forced diversity became the fashion of the day, and Gene Roddenberry had very specific ideas of what Star Trek should represent, what vision of the future of mankind was to be painted in the stories of the crew aboard the U.S.S.Enterprise on their interstellar travels.

So when Lennard Nemoy saw the first promotional pictures of the pilot that was to be produced, he saw that the pointy tips on his ears were removed; the producers were actually afraid that the viewers wouldn't be able to relate with a half alien, and they even feared the pointy ears would hurt viewer ratings by being associated with the devil, especially in the southern states of America. That the people in the "bible belt" would be offended and that this would diminish chances of finding sponsors in those states.

In the fragment of an interview with Nemoy I'll link below, he describes how steadfast Roddenberry held on to his ideas and explained how Spock would be a constant reminder for the viewers, that interplanetary travel was normal now. That this is the future, and that the crew isn't an American crew. That U.S.S. Enterprise isn't the United States Ship Enterprise, but the United Space Ship Enterprise, part of a much larger federation. And that Spock would act as a constant reminder of the diversity of the crew. And this was in 1965, 1966...

Even back then politics and entertainment were intertwined, be it much more subtle, or at least so it seems. If you look closely though, it's not politics, never has been; it's economics. Diversity wasn't the framework back then, it was religion. Nemoy says that there's always been a formulaic way of thinking of what's acceptable on television, and he indicates who sets the boundaries of this framework, by explaining that it was the sales department that was worried the Spock character would hurt sales-figures by being offensive to a certain part of the population. Political correctness, sixties style...

_{Leonard Nimoy discusses the Star Trek pilot}

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