Boys in Space: "Star Trek," Latency, and the Neverending Story

Abstract

centerpiece while providing the basis for a theoretical template. In his exploration of ST fandom, Henry Jenkins unapologetically invokes his institutional authority to lend legitimacy to his status and confronts popular stereotypes of Trekkies as nerdy guys with glasses and rubber Vulcan ears, 'I Grok Spock' T-shirts stretched over their bulging stomachs.2 Jenkins thus recuperates fandom, transmuting it to the more academic rubric of textual poachers, a critical paradigm resting upon a Marxist critique in which fans, institutionally marginalized and socially decentered, become participants in a rich, nomadic, subversive subculture defying the limitations of the manifest narratives and the capitalist regimes which control them. Although the breadth of Jenkins's work is impressive and resists homogenization of the diverse facets of fan culture, he may be exaggerating the fans' independence. Whether one is a poacher or not, surely it escapes no one's notice that these fans, reinvoking authoritarian institutional hierarchies in their own organizations,3 are being actively courted by an entertainment industry mindful of the consumer dollars in their bulging pockets. Speaking at the formal reception of a retrospective exhibition on the original series at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., on February 26, 1992, a Paramount representative, flanked on either side by the original series actors, congratulated the enthusiastic reception attendees (most of whom were parents with their latency-aged children in tow) for their unfailing vision and faithful participation in the ST phenomenon, appealing to them to pass on this legacy to their children. Three days later, Robert Justman, ST's original associate producer and supervising producer for The Next Generation's (TNG) first season, spoke at a special, day-long seminar on

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