This is an essay I wrote just because:
"That green-blooded son of a bitch! It's his revenge for all the arguments he lost!"
--Dr. McCoy, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Star Trek fans don't just watch a lot of Star Trek. We read a lot of it, too: novelizations of episodes and movies, original novels, comic books--these continue the fictive adventures. But we also read a lot about the production end: books and magazines and web pages detailing the stuff that went into making it, in-depth accounts of the backstage aspect: the building of sets, of miniature space ships, the way story ideas evolved and changed from draft to draft to filmed adventure. (The canard that Trekkies are somehow under the delusion that the show is real is thus not only wrong but profoundly wrong; no one knows better than a fan just how un-real it all is. We revel in it.) Many of these accounts include descriptions of the characters and their relationships. Time and again, Dr. McCoy is described as a humanist, crudely defined for the purposes of this essay as one who sees great value and nobility in humanity, who expresses that belief in altruism and faith in the so-called human spirit. His relationship with Spock is described as one of deep friendship and admiration masked by an expressed antipathy that is more affectionate game that actual malice. However, as presented on screen, little affection is apparent.
The quotation that opens this essay is but one in a long line where McCoy zeroes in Spock's physical characteristics--the color of his blood, the shape of his ears--and uses them as slurs: "pointy eared hobgoblin," "green-blooded, inhuman...", "that green ice-water in your veins," even the position of Spock's heart (roughly where a human's liver would be) has come in for his disapproval.** In the context of the show, these slurs are played for laughs, though, if the physical characteristics of human populations that differ from the Western Euro-centric majority--"hook-nosed hobgoblin," "slant-eyed, subhuman...", "that nappy wool on your head"--are substituted for Spock's extraterrestrial ones, they no longer seem quite so funny.
McCoy is indeed a humanist--never does he betray so much as a scintilla of bigotry toward Uhura or Sulu. He displays all of the traits described as humanist above, with an egalitarian embrace of the multi-hued, multi-cultural human family. On 20th and 21st century earth, sans space aliens, this is a fine thing indeed. However, on a 23rd century starship, faced with a being who is measurably superior in terms of mental acuity, physical strength and stamina, self-discipline and psychological equanimity (mutated water virus, happy flower spores and good old-fashioned sex notwithstanding), McCoy's humanism is threatened and expresses itself in less-than-altruistic and egalitarian terms. Though he uses Spock's physical attributes as vessls of attack, it is always clear that it is Spock's cold and at times seemingly cruel emotionless personality, a creation of Vulcan culture rather than biology, that he finds objectionable. That Spock himself displays a more subtle but just as pronounced form of cultural and racial chauvinism does not help matters--though, in Spock's case, he carries the belittled Other within himself; he is, after all, half human.
(Kirk's attitude toward all of this bears examination in passing. On two separate occasions, he has employed similar epithets toward Spock but, on both occasions, he used them strategically. In the episode "What Are Little Girl's Made Of?," he programs his android duplicate to say "Mind your own business, Mr. Spock! I'm sick of your half-breed interference" and thus tip off Spock that something is amiss on the planet below. In "This Side of Paradise," in order to break Spock from the influence of the aforementioned happy flower spores--which are destroyed by strong, negative emotions--Kirk baits him with a string of insults [again, Kirk uses "half-breed," something McCoy never does, indicating that he knows Spock so well that he realizes a reminder of his human heritage will hurt and alarm more than reminders of how he differs from humans] that, by comparison, make McCoy's barbs look like Nerf brickbats. Neither time, however, does Kirk mean what he says. In the episode "Balance of Terror," when the discovery that the ancient earth adversaries, the Romulans, are outwardly identical to Vulcans causes a junior bridge officer to openly question Spock's loyalty, Kirk pointedly tells him to "Leave any bigotry in your quarters, there's no room for it on the bridge." However, there is a difference between insulting the shape of a man's ears and insinuating that a superior officer is a traitor. Even so, Kirk allows McCoy's slurs to go un-challenged and un-punished; McCoy gets a pass.)
I suspect, though, that there is something far deeper at work in McCoy than just a mis-applied humanism that has curdled into weak xenophobia. Kirk, Spock and McCoy are the central triumvirate of Star Trek. The friendship betwen the first two is intense and, ironically enough considering one of the participants, passionate--so intense and passionate that it easily lends itself to a homoerotic reading, sometimes joking, sometimes not--Kirk is Spock's best friend, Spock is Kirk's. Kirk is also McCoy's best friend and Kirk, for his part, deeply loves McCoy but not as deeply as he does Spock. This cannot be lost on McCoy. What's more, McCoy is also probably aware that it is Spock's logical and dispassionate outlook that Kirk finds so complementary to his own very human and intuitive one. McCoy, by contrast, though a trusted confidant and advisor, only serves to reinforce that humanity and intuition. McCoy's apparent bigotry is thus more an expression of personal jealousy than of a deep-seated distaste for Vulcans or the Vulcan way of life.
*There may be another, more pedestrian, reason McCoy continually insults Spock's alien nature: the slurs are an effective way to call attention to one of the show's signature special effects--the ears--and provide for quick and dirty exposition. Short of having Spock cut himself shaving each week, McCoy's harping on Spock's blood reminds the audience of another way Spock is different.
"That green-blooded son of a bitch! It's his revenge for all the arguments he lost!"
--Dr. McCoy, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Star Trek fans don't just watch a lot of Star Trek. We read a lot of it, too: novelizations of episodes and movies, original novels, comic books--these continue the fictive adventures. But we also read a lot about the production end: books and magazines and web pages detailing the stuff that went into making it, in-depth accounts of the backstage aspect: the building of sets, of miniature space ships, the way story ideas evolved and changed from draft to draft to filmed adventure. (The canard that Trekkies are somehow under the delusion that the show is real is thus not only wrong but profoundly wrong; no one knows better than a fan just how un-real it all is. We revel in it.) Many of these accounts include descriptions of the characters and their relationships. Time and again, Dr. McCoy is described as a humanist, crudely defined for the purposes of this essay as one who sees great value and nobility in humanity, who expresses that belief in altruism and faith in the so-called human spirit. His relationship with Spock is described as one of deep friendship and admiration masked by an expressed antipathy that is more affectionate game that actual malice. However, as presented on screen, little affection is apparent.
The quotation that opens this essay is but one in a long line where McCoy zeroes in Spock's physical characteristics--the color of his blood, the shape of his ears--and uses them as slurs: "pointy eared hobgoblin," "green-blooded, inhuman...", "that green ice-water in your veins," even the position of Spock's heart (roughly where a human's liver would be) has come in for his disapproval.** In the context of the show, these slurs are played for laughs, though, if the physical characteristics of human populations that differ from the Western Euro-centric majority--"hook-nosed hobgoblin," "slant-eyed, subhuman...", "that nappy wool on your head"--are substituted for Spock's extraterrestrial ones, they no longer seem quite so funny.
McCoy is indeed a humanist--never does he betray so much as a scintilla of bigotry toward Uhura or Sulu. He displays all of the traits described as humanist above, with an egalitarian embrace of the multi-hued, multi-cultural human family. On 20th and 21st century earth, sans space aliens, this is a fine thing indeed. However, on a 23rd century starship, faced with a being who is measurably superior in terms of mental acuity, physical strength and stamina, self-discipline and psychological equanimity (mutated water virus, happy flower spores and good old-fashioned sex notwithstanding), McCoy's humanism is threatened and expresses itself in less-than-altruistic and egalitarian terms. Though he uses Spock's physical attributes as vessls of attack, it is always clear that it is Spock's cold and at times seemingly cruel emotionless personality, a creation of Vulcan culture rather than biology, that he finds objectionable. That Spock himself displays a more subtle but just as pronounced form of cultural and racial chauvinism does not help matters--though, in Spock's case, he carries the belittled Other within himself; he is, after all, half human.
(Kirk's attitude toward all of this bears examination in passing. On two separate occasions, he has employed similar epithets toward Spock but, on both occasions, he used them strategically. In the episode "What Are Little Girl's Made Of?," he programs his android duplicate to say "Mind your own business, Mr. Spock! I'm sick of your half-breed interference" and thus tip off Spock that something is amiss on the planet below. In "This Side of Paradise," in order to break Spock from the influence of the aforementioned happy flower spores--which are destroyed by strong, negative emotions--Kirk baits him with a string of insults [again, Kirk uses "half-breed," something McCoy never does, indicating that he knows Spock so well that he realizes a reminder of his human heritage will hurt and alarm more than reminders of how he differs from humans] that, by comparison, make McCoy's barbs look like Nerf brickbats. Neither time, however, does Kirk mean what he says. In the episode "Balance of Terror," when the discovery that the ancient earth adversaries, the Romulans, are outwardly identical to Vulcans causes a junior bridge officer to openly question Spock's loyalty, Kirk pointedly tells him to "Leave any bigotry in your quarters, there's no room for it on the bridge." However, there is a difference between insulting the shape of a man's ears and insinuating that a superior officer is a traitor. Even so, Kirk allows McCoy's slurs to go un-challenged and un-punished; McCoy gets a pass.)
I suspect, though, that there is something far deeper at work in McCoy than just a mis-applied humanism that has curdled into weak xenophobia. Kirk, Spock and McCoy are the central triumvirate of Star Trek. The friendship betwen the first two is intense and, ironically enough considering one of the participants, passionate--so intense and passionate that it easily lends itself to a homoerotic reading, sometimes joking, sometimes not--Kirk is Spock's best friend, Spock is Kirk's. Kirk is also McCoy's best friend and Kirk, for his part, deeply loves McCoy but not as deeply as he does Spock. This cannot be lost on McCoy. What's more, McCoy is also probably aware that it is Spock's logical and dispassionate outlook that Kirk finds so complementary to his own very human and intuitive one. McCoy, by contrast, though a trusted confidant and advisor, only serves to reinforce that humanity and intuition. McCoy's apparent bigotry is thus more an expression of personal jealousy than of a deep-seated distaste for Vulcans or the Vulcan way of life.
*There may be another, more pedestrian, reason McCoy continually insults Spock's alien nature: the slurs are an effective way to call attention to one of the show's signature special effects--the ears--and provide for quick and dirty exposition. Short of having Spock cut himself shaving each week, McCoy's harping on Spock's blood reminds the audience of another way Spock is different.