Prankster Samizdata reader James Bennett wrote in with a suggestion that was alarming and amuzing in equal measure:
Excellent post on Sammy’s Data (as I think of it) about the Star Trek Federation. I think Rodenberry and the original Star Trek writers didn’t think very much about the future they were creating; they just took some cliches from pop science fiction that ultimately go back to H.G. Wells and Things to come. I have always thought of, as a prank, submitting a script for a show involving the Ferengi (which is, by the way, an Arabic term for “Westerner”) which would be a straight steal from some Nazi anti-semitic story from the 30s, maybe “The Jew Suss”, substituting one stereotyped money-loving minority with a oversized facial attribute for another. Then if it got produced, reveal the source. The Ferengi meet almost every element of the Nazi stereotype about Jews, they even lust after our women.
Now that is funny. Pulling that off would be a superb cultural ‘hack’ of the highest order.
Just the other day I saw a Next Generation episode and already in my mind I am seeing cringing, hand wringing Ferengi runts (Nazi ‘Jew’ image) contrasted with tall lithe Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby: Nazi Aryan ‘superwoman’ image) along with broad shouldered small brained Will Riker (Johnathen Frakes: Nazi Aryan ‘superman’ image) declaiming about the Federation’s cultural superiority (kulturkampf) to the capitalist Ferengi (Jew).
Appalling. Damn you, Bennett, I will never be able to see that show again without feeling rather uncomfortable.
