K/S, then and now: nature or nurture?

[crypto]

I'd been idly speculating about how long I could keep my journal a Star Trek XI-free zone, sort of like when you see how long you can hold your breath. And then I saw laurashapiro 's post linking to an SF Chronicle piece celebrating not the slashiness but rather the bromance of Kirk and Spock, and it got me thinking.

Here's my question:

Did the new movie's Kirk and Spock simply inherit the original series' slashiness as part of Star Trek's DNA, so that they don't even need to generate their own subtext or UST and can just live off of the legacy of the original characters' aura, like the slash pairing version of a trust fund kid?

Or did Chris Pine's Kirk and Zachary Quinto's Spock go out and earn their slashiness the old-fashioned way, refusing to ride on the slashy coattails of Shatner & Nimoy?

Maybe a little of each? Or do you see the slashiness of Pine!Kirk and Quinto!Spock as different than that of Shatner!Kirk and Nimoy!Spock -- a K/S 2.0, maybe?

I'm asking because I can't tell -- I don't actually remember whether there was any dialogue, any moments, any lingering glances or "weird about each other"-ness between Kirk and Spock that an ST:TOS-naive baby slasher or proto-slasher would pick up on if they were discovering slash for the first time.

Though hey, who knows what goes on with kids these days! Maybe slashiness itself is just different now than it was 40 years ago?

Comments

[par_avion]

I thought there was more chemistry between Kirk/McCoy (and even Kirk/Sulu) than Kirk/Spock in STXI. Kirk and Spock spend a lot of the movie apart from each other.

Although Spock Prime is *totally* being a Yenta: clearly he ships Spock/Kirk. I expect there will be more in the sequels?

[crypto]

Imagine the uproar in fandom if Kirk/McCoy turns out to be JJ Abrams' endgame!

I guess it's impossible to compare a single movie to dozens of episodes plus however many movies. And I haven't actually watched the original series since I saw it in reruns growing up, so I don't have a good baseline for K/S slashiness.

[laurashapiro]

IAWTC.

Although I think the movie ended in a place where the chemistry was starting to be there, because the last few scenes showed body language and speech patterns that were so obviously nicked from TOS.

But for the majority of the movie, I didn't see K/S at all -- and I have to assume the relationship between Spock and Uhura, which has evidently been going on for some time and is seems meant to outlast the film, is part of that.

[princessofgeeks]

i would love to know the answer to these questions and will be watching the thread. i don't have the k/s cred to answer them myself.

i see the slash in trek new and old as subtext -- as a possible cloud of interpretation that is not really the main focus of the show. but that may be my approach to trek, which is not primarily as a slasher the way I am about TS or SG-1. there are so many legitimate approaches to canon.

i am soooo in "default to slash goggles mode", but I didn't see the K/S UST in the new movie. I saw it as POTENTIAL, that it could so develop the more they got to know each other.

but i agree with henry jenkins' post that this movie probably made a misstep when it neatly packaged spock's character straight up for us and destroyed all his mystery. but maybe we were ready for that; maybe after 40 years of spock we've plumbed his mystery, so having that all "cut to the chase" for us in the reboot was a foregone conclusion.

my main issue with the new movie is that pine's kirk verges on OMG TEEN SPEAK; he's not shatner's kirk and that is a GOOD THING, but he's so young, and young not in 1964 young but young in 2009 young (transmogrified to the 23rd century, of course.... the movie does NOT have a future vibe. it has a TODAY vibe. which is kind of a shame, but unavoidable, i think.)

pine almost made me wince once or twice but he backed off from the edge with the Young Guy vibe.

But his essential purity, his driven-ness, his arrogance, was all there. his fearlessness was what abrams focused on, which I think is so canon.

but i didn't immediately leap to slashing them.

i am fine with spock/uhura and want to know more about the possible canonical underpinnings of that choice.

but the spock/kirk in the reboot is going to have to be earned, for me.

but again: I'm not a true fan of this fandom. I've been on the edges of it all my life, but this movie made me not want to slash or write fanfic for it, but to explore the TOS fanfic back list. which is gimongous. I want to write classic trek today, myself. THAT Kirk/Spock, today.

thanks for the post.

[crypto]

Like you, I'm not a true Trek fan -- I saw a ton of episodes of the original in reruns growing up, but only one of the early movies -- so I don't have a good point of reference for the pairing or a strong sense of the original depiction of the characters except as icons.

I did end up completely sold on Pine as Kirk by the end; I thought Quinto was good as Spock, but I'm less convinced that he owned the role in the way that Pine did. Then again, I'm not sure that would have been possible for any actor, with Nimoy in the movie.

It'll be interesting to see where they go from here with the characters and their relationship dynamic -- I can see Jenkins' point, which means that the new version of Spock can't have the same character arc or inner conflicts as the original. But what will he have instead, and will it be as compelling? Do they plan on further developing the Spock/Uhura relationship -- fleshing out the backstory and/or going forward? I guess only time -- and the fic! -- will tell. *g*

[princessofgeeks]

I disagree with you -- I thought Quinto nailed it. I did not see any disconnect between his spock and SPOCK. Which is so amazing. so very very amazing.

Pine was not Shatner, but there were tons of shoutouts to Shatner.

It was a patchwork of difference with the characterizations of the team -- held together by the production design. an amazing achievement.

but i'm still all OMG NO about them choosing to destroy Vulcan. That was, pardon the expression, overkill IMHO.

love your posts.

[crypto]

Fannish opinion seems to be on your side -- everybody that I've read loved Quinto, and was mostly relieved that Pine didn't mimic Shatner's acting style. ;)

One thing that bugged me about destroying Vulcan was what it means for the whole Hollywood law of escalating sequels. You've not only destroyed a planet, you've destroyed Spock's planet -- so what's the next movie's big threat going to be? A solar system, a galaxy, the entire time-space continuum?

*cheers to you*

[musesfool]

Well, aside from Spock Prime's matchmaking, Spock and Kirk have the typical rom com "they can't stand each other! they're totally going to learn to appreciate each other and end up together!" thing going on.

[giandujakiss]

That's pretty much how it was described in the NYT review:

n the tradition of many great romances, the two men take almost an instant dislike to each other, an antagonism that literalizes the Western divide between the mind (Spock) and body (Kirk) that gives the story emotional and dramatic force as well as some generous laughs.

[crypto]

How did I instantly know that it was Manohla Dargis who wrote that review and not A.O. Scott?

[musesfool]

Exactly. I don't even ship them (in either incarnation), but it's definitely a launching point if people want to.

[crypto]

Very true; I guess their "meet cute" would then be the whole Kobayashi Maru test and disciplinary hearing.

Though now I'm thinking that they also maybe could be read as having a bit of a sibling rivalry vibe -- not exactly Sam and Dean, but not entirely rom com either. Maybe?

[musesfool]

They didn't really strike me as siblingy, though I suppose it could be read that way, if you look at Pike as the 'dad' in the equation. It really did strike me as rom-commy though. There's the Kirk/McCoy BFF-ness, which should also launch some shipping, and of course, the lovely canon het of Spock/Uhura (and the inevitable Spock/Uhura/Kirk).

[crypto]

I'd personally love to get a bittersweet Spock/Uhura/Kirk love triangle that plays out over years without ever quite resolving into a threesome.

[princessofgeeks]

ooo grabbyhandsmine

[karmageddon]

Love your posts; fascinating question.


I don't know the first thing about TOS, except what's just defused into in US culture--I came into STXI with high slashy expectations for Kirk/Spock and was very disappointed. Kirk/McCoy and Kirk/Sulu had more going on. Pine!Kirk had a lot of chemistry with everyone, but like the above poster said, they were apart for a lot of it! And the whole Uhura thing. If I ran the world, Chekov would have been a woman and they would have had a 'two smart women on the top of their games' femslashy vibe going on, but alas.

I can't think of a way slashiness would be different in the past.

[crypto]

Thanks!

It's funny how the idea of Kirk and Spock's bond was so central to the plot of the film, but it was mostly a case of telling and not showing via Spock Prime.

I was saying in the comments to the LJ cross-post that I'd always gotten the impression that the Captain/First Officer dynamic really defined the classic Kirk-Spock relationship, both in canon and as K/S. But in STXI, they hadn't settled into those roles yet. It'll be interesting to see whether the next movie jumps forward a couple of years, or picks up where this one leaves off and continues the "early adventures" mode. Either way, they'd better bring in more female roles, now that they've reintroduced the original crew.

I have this vague idea that contemporary slash is less subtext-dependent than original flavor -- that it's comfortable embracing all kinds of slash pairing regardless of canon basis. At least, that was my theory: that for modern tastes, STXI don't need to be slashy in the classic sense in order to be slashable, if that makes any sense.

[princessofgeeks]

this re the less subtexty. because of the change in the mainstream culture irt homosexuality.

a lot of stuff that stayed hidden in the writer, the text and the culture is now truly discussable. it's on the table.