oh, those dirty mind-melders.

[hafital]

I watched an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise last night called "Stigma", which, posits, in a rather grand feat of ret-conning, that during the time Enterprise takes place, there was a big stigma against a small subset of Vulcans who are mind-melders.

Apparently, not only are mind-melders a small subset of Vulcan society, they're unsavory characters! Mind-melding is likened to something perverse, that only sordid types engage in mind-melding activities. The connotation is totally sexual. Those that mind meld are sexual deviants. Not only that, but possibly, if you mind-meld you will contract a fatal disease - a disease that because those that contract it are marginalized so severely, there is no effort to develop a treatment or cure.

Okay, so, a not so subtle attempt at paralleling HIV/AIDS and homosexuality (or any marginalized group of individuals), and I realized when I read up on the episode that that was exactly the purpose of the episode -- that TPTB were asked to do an episode bringing awareness to HIV/AIDS.

At first I was somewhat annoyed, struggling to, yet again, deal with Enterprise's depiction of Vulcans as total boobs. I mean, wha? HOW? Even accepting that in this time period Vulcans were more conservative then in the later centuries, I still could not quite wrap my head around this. Mind-melds happen as a matter of course in the later series! Hardly a Vulcan goes by without them mind-melding with you.

But then I realized that this basically means that Spock is, canonically, GAY (and, er, every other Vulcan, too), and then the whole concept started working for me. :D

I mean, it's a lot to swallow, having to rethink Vulcans, but I'm beginning to warm up to this. Vulcans, in the time of Surak, were perhaps more wild and untamed but didn't have the social restraints of "present-day" Vulcans (which we can say is like our own history in say Greece or Rome) and mind-melded without problems and with a "cure" for this mental disease, but as centuries went by mind-melding, an intimate act where perhaps emotion was shared, was frowned upon and then eventually considered very wrong and deviant.

Then, with the awareness that mixing with Humans, who are untamed and emotional and yet more, er, flexible then Vulcans, the Vulcans learn to look to their past to correct the prejudices they've develops in the present.

It seems this fatal disease that Vulcan's contract when mind-melding is a result of untrained minds attempting to mind-meld, and can be cured by a trained Vulcan telepath (or Mind-melder), and becomes obsolete in the future where no own would attempt to mind-meld without being trained to do so, the equivalent of mental safe sex. Bwahhawha. Brain condom. HEEEE.

So, I'm beginning to dig the Enterprise Vulcans, even if they're still big dodo heads. My biggest problem though is that when attempting to depict a Vulcan, it's like, instead of showing us a race of people who are cool-headed and logical, we get a race of people who are just stubborn and unbending where logic is really just an excuse to frown disapprovingly at people. I've seen it occasionally in the later series, too, but not nearly as much as on Enterprise. Generally, this is why I don't so much like Vulcans as a race, but rather love individual Vulcans like Spock and T'Pol (and Tuvok to an extent), mostly because the actors (and writers, too, I suppose) found a why of showing this interesting opposite to Humans without it resorting to Vulcans=wrong/Humans=right.

Also, GIP! I love this icon.


ETA: OMG, I open iTunes and Closer is the first song that plays. How appropriate!

Comments

[killabeez.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's pretty fascinating! Now I want to see this episode. *g*

[hafital.livejournal.com]

*g*

There's more then one ep that has to do with Vulcans and mind-melds. I have yet to see the one with T'Pau, who is apparently a Vulcan (perhaps *the* Vulcan) who is a powerful enough telepath and adept at mind-melding who knows how to "cure" those with this disease.

Lordy, it's all so silly, but honestly, I really am warming up to the whole concept. LOL.

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

I just realized that BOTH of my Trek icons have mindmelds in them.

I saw that Enterprise ep, and I didn't like it then, and don't like it now, but mostly I find that the entire series was a giant wankjob from beginning to end and...well. Yeah.

I am reasonably certain that if Vulcans were so all-fired unbending and hidebound, they wouldn't've been part of the founding of the Federation to start with. Heck, they probably would've left Earth after meeting ol' Zeph Cochrane and said "Right, not going back THERE again!" I think their inflexibility comes in the form "proper public behavior" rather than general cultural hideboundness.

OK I need to stop before I start ranting. :p

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

Also -- how is it that Spock, the template for all Vulcans since, was by far the funniest Vulcan ever? "They were brutal, savage, unprincipled, uncivilized, treacherous -- in every way, splendid examples of Homo sapiens, the very flower of humanity."

I guess maybe everyone thought he was funny because he was half-human, but look at that exchange with Sarek at the end of "Journey to Babel" -- you can't tell me he didn't inherit his dad's sense of humor, now can you?

(Really I am just showing off my other mindmeld icon.)

[hafital.livejournal.com]

(Really I am just showing off my other mindmeld icon.)

HEE.

And, omg, I don't know why exactly, but I often think this. Because, really? Although I enjoyed Tuvok and I rather like T'Pol, no other Vulcan actually feels Vulcan to me, the way that in my head a Vulcan should be, then Spock and Sarek.

[hafital.livejournal.com]

Yes, well, tis so. I sort of go LALALA I DON'T SEE YOU to all that, because, well, tptb tried to do something tricky regarding Enterprise in general and Vulcans specifically and failed, but failed more or less with some interesting ideas and such. So, whatever, but yeah. I agree. *g*

[axiom_of_stripe]

Mind-melding is likened to something perverse, that only sordid types engage in mind-melding activities. The connotation is totally sexual.

dude. kirk/spock for the win! *mad giggles*

[lapillus]

Hee!

[popfantastic.livejournal.com]

But then I realized that this basically means that Spock is, canonically, GAY (and, er, every other Vulcan, too), and then the whole concept started working for me.

It started to work for me on this basis too, but I feel like I would have LOVED it all if this had been the only aspect of the Vulcan retcon (and I think it would have worked perfectly well for the point TPTB were making -- a society that appears to have gotten all its shit together but still has this one massive area of hypocrisy that we find out about would be just as effective as the Enterprise vision of Vulcans as across-the-board hypocrites, and less annoying/retconny).

[hafital.livejournal.com]

It started to work for me on this basis too, but I feel like I would have LOVED it all if this had been the only aspect of the Vulcan retcon

Oh, I completely agree. It almost makes me weep for the lost opportunity, what they could have done exploring the Vulcans. Particularly with showing how humans changed Vulcan society and vis versa, without it being so, as you say, across-the-board hypocritical. Not they they wouldn't have had growing pains, but really, it's so difficult to accept.

hrmph.

[geekturnedvamp.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, I believe that it was things like the sketchiness of the retconned Vulcans (along with zombies and mindmeld STDs) that were part of the pure cracktasticness which sold me on Enterprise in the first place. Well, okay, that plus Trip. And Porthos.