What is it about?
The longevity of the Star Trek franchise has led it to be called a modern myth by scholars and the popular press. Indeed, since the 1980s, the Star Trek franchise has not only appropriated older myths, but has also increasingly presented the Star Trek story-world as a form of popular culture mythology. This is both a self-conscious storytelling device and a marketing exercise in branding. An extended and updated version of this work can be found in chapter 2 of the following book: Baker, Djoymi (2023) To Boldly Go: Marketing the Myth of Star Trek, London: Bloomsbury (paperback edition with new "Afterword."
Featured Image
Photo by Stefan Cosma on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Myths operate at the intersection of tradition and innovation, and in the 20th and 21st century, it's important to note the way that multiple mythic means can be activated in deliberate, conscious ways.
Perspectives
This article was the start of a longer research project that culminated in the book, To Boldly Go: Marketing the Myth of Star Trek. It brings together screen studies and classical studies, and Star Trek definitely likes to mess around with the older mythological traditions in ways that are engaging and - in some cases - also amusing.
Dr Djoymi Baker
RMIT University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: “Every Old Trick is New Again”: Myth in Quotations and the Star Trek Franchise, Popular Culture Review, February 2001, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/j.2831-865x.2001.tb00533.x.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
