ABSTRACT
Star Trek is one of the foundational texts of science fiction television and therefore allusions to the show are innumerable in many of the SF and popular culture texts that followed. Despite the often-ambiguous play with both masculinities and femininities, Trek’s Captain Kirk (William Shatner) is remembered within the pop cultural canon as a character that ratifies the worst of masculinities. This chapter argues that said ratification is due to recognition of false histories through parodical reproductions of Trek and Kirk. Kirk’s characterization therefore cannot be viewed beyond a strict cultural veil that does not permit masculinity to perform as anything other than toxic. This chapter proposes that depictions of masculinity in SF parody depict wider issues in how we collectively think of and remember foundational SF works and, by association, the genre as a whole.
