Captains & Leaders

Is there something to the idea that the leaders in Star Trek, the men and women sitting in the Captain's or Commander's chairs, are either designed to or by default, represent our leaders in society beyond the series?

James T. Kirk was born in the Johnson Administration of the mid-1960's but his swaggering, all-American masculine brio and liberal values track with the idealised image of the late John F. Kennedy. Jean-Luc Picard represents a stability within the late 1980's and early 1990's as perhaps befitting the so-called 'End of History'. Benjamin Sisko prefigures the arrival of Barack Obama over a decade later as the first black President of the United States, but who exactly influenced whom? The list goes on and there are some fascinating comparisons to be made across each series in the franchise between leaders fictional and real.

Your host Tony Black & guest Mac Boyle ask whether, through Star Trek, we are able to map politically the eras and characters of the Western world's often divisive and complex points of leadership?

Host / Editor:

Tony Black

Guest

Mac Boyle

Twitter:
@ajblackwriter
@partyapocalypse

Twitter: @wemadetreks
Facebook group: The Nexus: We Made Treks Listeners' Community
https://www.facebook.com/groups/wemadetreks
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/wemadetreks
Instagram: @wemadetreks
Website: www.wemadetreks.com

Twitter: @wemadethispod
Website: www.wemadethispod.com

Theme (c) Michael Gehrmann.