Spock, the Outsider Struggling to Understand Humanity

"Leonard Nimoy inspired many boys and girls, men and women, to embrace cultural diversity."
Robert Greene



"Spock’s importance to the Trek mythos is unmistakable. His character was the first of several characters in Star Trek used to explore the human condition. Data in The Next Generation, Odo in Deep Space Nine, Seven of Nine and The Doctor in Voyager, T’Pol in Enterprise: all these characters are just different incarnations of Spock, the outsider struggling to understand humanity. He was the consummate outsider to the rest of the Enterprise crew. In a sense, we could all relate to Spock. When have you felt misunderstood, alone, or isolated? Or have you ever experienced being stuck between two worlds, two cultures, two distinct ways of thinking? In that case you were, for a moment, Spock."
Robert Greene

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 photograph of Leonard Nimoy (Westwood, California, 1966) via

Leonard Nimoy Boldly Went Where No Photographer Had Gone Before

" I didn’t realise it until after he died – for whatever reason, I’d just never done the mental arithmetic – but Leonard Nimoy is responsible for the single most transformative moment of my life. In a very tangible way, Leonard Nimoy saved me."
Lindy West



(...) it’s one particular area of Nimoy’s art and activism that, for me, transcended appreciation and actually changed my life, and I’m surprised by how few people in my circle know about it. In 2007, Nimoy published a collection of photographs he titled The Full Body Project. The photos are in black and white, and they feature a group of women laughing, smiling, embracing, gazing fearlessly into the camera. In one, they sway indolently like the Three Graces; in another they recreate Herb Ritts’s iconic pile of supermodels. The women are naked, and the women are fat.



When Nimoy’s photos took their first brief viral trip around the internet, I clicked, I skimmed, I shrugged, I clicked away.

I clicked back.

I couldn’t stop looking. It was the first time in my life – I realise in retrospect – that I’d seen bodies like mine honoured instead of lampooned, presented with dignity instead of scorn, displayed as objects of beauty instead of as punchlines. It feels bizarre to put myself back in that headspace now (and even more bizarre to register just how recent it was), but looking at Nimoy’s photographs was my very first exposure to the concept that my body was just as deserving of autonomy and respect as any thin body. Not only that, but my bigness is powerful.



Up until that point, I conceived of myself as an unfinished thing – a life suspended until I could fix what was wrong with me. It’s how fat people are conditioned to feel: you’re not a person, you’re a before picture. You have no present and no future; you’re trapped for ever in a shameful past. As a woman, the shame is compounded, because women have an aesthetic duty, too.

(...) for me, Nimoy’s Full Body Project was the first piece of media that told me I had any intrinsic value. Denying people access to value is an incredibly insidious form of emotional violence, one that our culture wields aggressively and liberally to keep marginalised groups small and quiet. Everything in my life – my career, my relationships, my health, my bank account, my sleep schedule, my wardrobe – has got better since I began fighting that paradigm. I live long, and I prosper. Thank you, Leonard.

Lindy West, excerpts via/full article: LINK

The average American woman, according to articles I've read, weighs 25 per cent more than the models who are showing the clothes they are being sold. So, most women will not be able to look like those models. But they're being presented with clothes, cosmetics, surgery, diet pills, diet programs, therapy, with the idea that they can aspire to look like those people. It's a big, big industry. Billions of dollars. And the cruelest part of it is that these women are being told, 'You don't look right.'
Leonard Nimoy

Leonard Nimoy spent eight years working on his "Fully Body Project" which he published in 2007. He photographed members of the plus-sized burlesque group "The Fat-Bottom Revue" in the nude. Nimoy wanted to portray proud women who were dancing and laughing, he wanted to show that beauty could be found in different body types since he was disturbed by the fact that overweight women had "this terrible feeling about themselves" (via). As some observed, Leonard Nimoy boldly went where no (or hardly any) photographer had gone before (via).

In these pictures these women are proudly wearing their own skin. They respect themselves and I hope that my images convey that to others.
Leonard Nimoy

In an interview, Nimoy talked about how the project started and how he felt about it:

Actually, it began with an individual lady who came to me after a presentation I was doing. It was a seminar of some previous work. And she said to me you're working with a particular body-type model, which was true at the time. She said, I'm not of that type; I'm of a different body type. Will you be interested in working with me? And she was a very, very large lady. And this was in Northern California - I have a home up there - and we invited her to our studio in the home and photographed her there.
And that was the first time I had photographed a person of that size and shape, that kind of body type, and it was scary. I was uncomfortable, nervous - my wife was there to help. I was not sure exactly how to go about it or whether I would do her justice. I didn't know quite how to treat this figure.
And I think that's a reflection of something that's prevalent in our culture. I think, in general, we are sort of conditioned to see a different body type as acceptable and maybe look away when the other body type arrives. It was my first introduction of that kind of work. And when I showed some of that work, there was a lot of interest. And it led me to a new consciousness about the fact that so many people live in body types that are not the type that's being sold by fashion models.
(...) Heather MacAllister, who formed the group, was an anthropologist by training. And during one of our sessions, I said to her, what are you doing with your anthropological training? And she said, I'm doing this, meaning this Fat-Bottom Revue. And she went on further to say, whenever a fat person steps on stage to perform, and it's not the butt of a joke, that's a political statement. And I found that quite profound.

Leonard Nimoy, excerpts via/full article: LINK



photographs of Leonard Nimoy and Sandra Zober (Westwood, California, 1966) via

Peter Falk's Eye

"Young man, for the same price I'll get an actor with two eyes."
Harry Cohn, Columbia Pictures



Peter Michael Falk (1927-2011) had a cancerous eye removed at the age of three. The navy did not take him because of his glass eye. "So I joined the merchant navy who allowed monocular crew, if you worked in the kitchens. You're not wanted on deck or in the engine room with one eye, but you're good to fire up the ovens and cook hundreds of chops." (via). Despite warnings he became an actor, and a very popular one.

As an aspiring actor, he was reportedly warned by one agent the false eye would preclude him from working in television. In fact, it became another endearing trait of his most famous character. (via)

images of Peter Falk and Leonard Nimoy (Columbo, A Stitch in Crime, 1973) via

Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations

Spock's IDIC (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations) medallion first appeared in the dinner scene of "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" (season 3, 1968). It was inserted into the script because Gene Roddenberry wanted to sell it at his Lincoln Enterprises (he had already tried to include the IDIC at the end of the episode "Spock's Brain" but his suggestion was ignored, probably because it was too late to implement it). As Nimoy, Shatner and other actors were not amused, Roddenberry agreed to rewrite the dinner scene and use the Vulcan IDIC in a less prominent way (via and via).



"Our first day of filming, Tuesday, July 16th, arrived, and I was greeted with a mutiny on the Enterprise. Bill Shatner and Leonard Nimoy had very strong objections to a portion of the scene we were scheduled to do that day and were refusing to film. Since the objection was to dialogue involving a piece of jewelry that Gene Roddenberry had designed, he was summoned to the set. (I have since learned that Leonard Nimoy first phoned producer Fred Freiberger to tell him of the problem. When Freiberger refused to take any action, Leonard called Roddenberry.) The morning was spent in a round table war with the six characters involved in the scene plus Gene and me. But the battle was strictly Bill and Leonard vs Gene. Bill and Leonard felt Gene was using the scene as a promotional commercial for a pin he had designed; the pin was part of Leonard’s costume. Gene vehemently denied these accusations, but the guys were adamant in their refusal to be a part of something they considered to be commercially oriented." 
Ralph Senensky

"I got my script change, read the new scene and with my jaw still hanging open, I called Fred down to the set, asking him, 'What's this IDIC thing about?' I knew that Lincoln Enterprises would soon be selling these things, and there was no way that I was going to muck up a perfectly good story line just so we could include Gene's rather thinly veiled commercial. With that in mind, I flatly refused to do the scene. Freiberger hemmed and hawed about the difficulties involved in re-revising the script, but as I spoke to him recently for this book, he finally admitted that he was actually relieved that I wouldn't do the scene. It was probably the first time in history that a producer was glad to be dealing with a 'difficult' actor...
Leonard and I had both seen through Gene's marketing ploy, and one after another we'd refused to play the scene. Still, when Gene came to the set, he did his very best to push it through. To his credit, Roddenberry was completely honest about the situation and didn't try to mask his free publicity scam behind any half-baked creative half-truths. He simply stated that Lincoln Enterprises would soon be marketing these medallions, and that he'd really appreciate our cooperation in getting the product into this storyline.
So I went through a great deal of soul-searching and teeth-grinding over the situation, and finally I just had to say, 'Gene, I'm sorry, but I can't do this.' Roddenberry accepted my refusal, but kept working on Leonard." 
William Shatner

"Although I didn't appreciate Spock being turned into a billboard, I at least felt that the IDIC idea had more value than the content of the original scene. We filmed the scene as Gene had rewritten it. But the whole incident was rather unpleasant; Roddenberry was peeved at me for not wanting to help his piece of mail-order merchandise get off to a resounding start, and Fred Freiberger was peeved at me for going over his head."
Leonard Nimoy

"I go by the Star Trek philosophy. We called it IDIC, an acronym for infinite diversity in infinite combinations. To have a good, vibrant society, we need to recognize that as an asset - something that makes us a much more progressive society but also, a more engaging society.
George Takei

"Infinite diversity and infinite combinations is what makes the world beautiful and it's true, as true today as it was then. And that's where a place of in my heart. I thank Gene for that legacy."
Nichelle Nichols



Original script:

MIRANDA
No, I was merely looking at your Vulcan IDIC, Mister Spock. (looks up, curiously) Is it a reminder that as a Vulcan you could mind-meld with the Medeusan much more effectively than I could? (to the others, but smiling) It would be most difficult for a Vulcan to see a mere human take on this exciting a challenge.

McCOY (to Spock) 
Interesting question. It is a fact that you rarely do wear the IDIC.

KIRK
I doubt that Mister Spock would don the most revered of all Vulcan symbols merely to annoy a guest, Dr. Jones.

SPOCK (to Miranda) 
In fact, I wear it this evening to honor you, Doctor.

MIRANDA
Indeed?

SPOCK (nods) 
Indeed. Perhaps even with those years on Vulcan, you missed the true symbology. (indicates medallion)
The triangle and the circle... ...different shapes, materials, textures...represent any two diverse things which come together to create here...truth or beauty. (indicating the parts, looks up) For example, Doctor Miranda Jones who combined herself and the disciplines of my race, to become greater than the sum of both.

Kirk can see Miranda isn't fully sold on Spock's intentions ...he changes the subject.

KIRK
Very interesting, I might even say...fascinating.



And here the official description of the IDIC pendants:

"SYMBOLOGY [sic] OF THE IDIC. There are two basic shapes and two basic colors and textures, i.e., the circle and the triangle. Generally, they represent that all things meaningful or beautiful are created by the joining together of different things. The pyramid can represent man and logic while the circle represents all of creation, i.e., man and creation joined together to create beauty. Also, the triangle-pyramid represents man and the circle represents woman and the jewel represents the beauty that their joining together is capable of creating. Or it can mean the truth which comes out of the blending of different ideas and creeds or the strength and beauty that comes out of the joining of different races, or the rich life which comes out of surrounding oneself with friends who have ideas different from your own and the rich cross-fertilization which occurs in such associations.
The Vulcan in it, is that the glory of creation is in its infinite diversities and infinite combinations possible. As such, the IDIC represents and idea of universal brotherhood far beyond that represented by any other symbol we know of."

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images via and via and via

Dear Mr. Spock,... (1968)

Dear Mr. Spock,
I am not very good at writing letters so I will make this short. I know that you are half Vulcan and half human and you have suffered because of this. My mother is Negro and my father is white and I am told this makes me a half-breed. In some ways I am persecuted even more than the Negro. The Negroes don't like me because I don't look like them. The white kids don't like me because I don't exactly look like one of them either. I guess I'll never have any friends.
F. C.
Los Angeles, Calif.

Leonard Nimoy's reply:

As you may know, only Spock's mother was human. His father was Vulcan. Spock grew up among Vulcan children and, because he was different, he had to face the problem of not being accepted. This is because people, especially young people it seems, and Vulcans, too, tend to form into groups, kind of like wolf packs. They often demand that you be just like them or you will  not be accepted. And the Vulcans were no different than humans are when it comes to prejudice.
Most of the Vulcan kids didn't like Spock because he was half human. So they wouldn't include him in all the things they did. He was very lonely and no one understood him. and Spock was heartbroken because he wasn't popular. But it was only the need for popularity that was ruining his happiness. The question was: which was more important, being 'popular' with the pack who might turn against him at any minute or being true to himself?
It takes a great deal of courage to turn your back on popularity and to go out on your own. Although inside you're not really like the members of the pack, it's still frightening to decide to leave them, because as long as you're popular, you at least have someone to hang around with. But if you do leave, then you may end up alone.
Now, there's a little voice inside each of us that tells us when we're not being true to ourselves. We should listen to this voice. Often we try to talk ourselves into believing our actions are good-'it's ok to pick on that person' we say because it may make us popular for awhile with the pack.
But usually there is no good reason for picking on anyone. He's only bullied or turned away because of his background, because of the way he looks or talks or thinks. It's always only because he's different - not worth less personally than anyone else.
Spock learned he could save himself from letting prejudice get him down. He could do this by really understanding himself and knowing his own value as a person. He found he was equal to anyone who might try to put him down-equal in his own unique way.
You can do this too, if you realize the difference between popularity and true greatness. It has been said 'popularity' is merely the crumbs of greatness.
When you think of people who are truly great and who have improved the world, you can see that they are people who have realized they didn't need popularity because they knew they had something special to offer the world, no matter how small that offering seemed. And they offered it and it was accepted with peace and love. It's all in having the patience to find out what you yourself have to offer the world that's really uniquely yours.
So-the answer to the whole problem, the answer that Spock found when he had to make his big decision, in in overcoming the need to be popular. It's in choosing your own personal goal and going after it and forgetting what the others are saying. If you do this, then the ones who accept people for the right reasons-for their true worth-will find you and like you.
So Spock said to himself: 'OK, I'm not Vulcan, so the Vulcans don't want me. My blood isn't pure red Earth blood. It's green. And my ears-well, it's obvious I'm not pure human. So they won't want me either. I must do for myself and not worry about what others think of me who don't really know me.
Spock decided he would live up to his own personal value and uniqueness. he'd do whatever made him feel best about himself. He decided to listen to that little voice inside him and not to the people around him.
He replaced the idea of wanting to be liked with the idea of becoming accomplished. Instead of being interested in being popular, he became interested in being intelligent. And isntead of wanting to be powerful, he became intersted in being useful.
He said to himself: 'Not everyone will like me. But there will be those who will accept me just for what I am. I will develop myself to such a point of excellence, intelligence and brilliance that I can see through any problem and deal with any crisis. I will become such a master of my own abilities and career that there will be a place for me. People of all races will need me and not be able to do without me. And that's just what he did. And when I see him standing there on the bridge of the Enterprise, facing danger and life-and-death problems so cooly and with so much intelligence, I'm sure he made the right decision.

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- text via
- photograph via

Spock, the Outsider

"For years, he was about the closest viewers could get to a multiracial role model on American TV."
Robert Ito

"Hands down, the most popular reason that people connect to Spock is that he makes them feel like it's O.K. to be an Other. It's O.K. to be outside the mainstream."
Adam Nimoy



Spock's most attractive trait is not his brain, not his ears. It is his outsider status resulting from having a Vulcan father and a human mother. As Nimoy's son puts it, 99% of the people he asked what they liked about Spock said "the fact that he's an outsider".

Spock needs to choose his (Vulcan) logical or (human) emotional self in different situations. There is hardly an integration of the two selves. According to Teresa Williams-León (California State University), this is "an interesting way of looking at how biracial people have had to suppress aspects of themselves, or one part of themselves."

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- Ito, R. (2016) Outsider Appeal of Spock. The New York Times International Weekly, Der Standard, 24 October 2016, p. 4
- photograph via

Love. It Comes in All Colors.

"Love. It Comes in All Colors." was part of the National Urban Coalition's campaign to promote "racial" harmony. Political activists and celebrities from different fields participated in the TV commercial and print advertisement produced in 1970. The commercial showed a group singing "Let The Sun Shine In" and was broadcast during shows, for instance "The Ed Sullivan Show" (via).
Among the many celebrities was ... just have a look: third row down from the top, far left ... yes, ... Leonard Nimoy.



Here the clip (Leonard is in at :30 and at :35):



image via

Leonard Nimoy on what he would say upon being the first man to set foot on the moon

“I’d say to earth, from here you are a peaceful, beautiful ball and I only wish everyone could see it with that perspective and unity.”
Leonard Nimoy



photograph via

The Conscience of Star Trek

"Mr. Roddenberry started calling me the conscience of Star Trek."
Leonard Nimoy



"In fact, I got to know Mr. Spock long before I knew the actor who played him. It was a mark of his integrity that he was so loyal to the role he portrayed. When I finally did get to know the man better, I discovered his compassion, his intelligence and his humanity. All of which laid the foundation for his keen sense of philanthropy."
Walter Koenig

According to Star Trek cast member Walter Koenig (U.S.S. Enterprise's navigator "Pavel Chekov"), Leonard Nimoy fought for gender pay equity in the 1960s and made sure "Lieutenant Uhura" Nichelle Nichols was not paid less than Walter Koenig and "Hikaru Sulu" George Takei.

"Leonard (Nimoy, Mr. Spock) was always kind of unapproachable. But a very good man. Sound ethics and a good sense of morality." "When it came to the attention of the cast that there was a disparity in pay in that George [Takei] and I were getting the same pay but Nichelle was not getting as much, I took it to Leonard and he took it to the front office and they corrected that." "There was also the case where George and Nichelle we’re not hired to do their voices in the animated series. I refused to do Spock until they were hired. Mr. Roddenberry started calling me the conscience of Star Trek."  Walter Koenig

- related posting: Leonard Nimoy
- photographs of Leonard Nimoy via and via

Leonard Nimoy

Leonard Nimoy was the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants living in Boston. His parents and grandparents had moved to Boston's West End where the three generations lived together in "a kosher home". With his grandparents he only spoke Yiddish. The West End was a place with about 60% Italians and 30% Jewish, a place which Nimoy described as "a very interesting neighbourhood", a "village within the city" where "Italians spoke Yiddish and the Jewish spoke Italian". Nimoy experienced what a "crossover relationship" was, his friends were a mix of Jews and Italians living in the same building: "Second floor was Italian, third floor was Jewish". With a smile he said in an interview that you could tell who lived where by the the smell of the food (via).



The neighbourhood was "a very interesting and a healthy way to grow up because you learned about other people, other cultures. I feel very grateful that I had this kind of life as a child."
Leonard Nimoy



The Vulcan salute: "In his autobiography I Am Not Spock, Nimoy wrote that he based it on the Priestly Blessing performed by Jewish Kohanim with both hands, thumb to thumb in this same position, representing the Hebrew letter Shin (ש), which has three upward strokes similar to the position of the thumb and fingers in the salute. The letter Shin here stands for El Shaddai, meaning "Almighty (God)", as well as for Shekinah and Shalom. Nimoy wrote that when he was a child, his grandfather took him to an Orthodox synagogue, where he saw the blessing performed and was impressed by it" (literally via).



When asked about aspects of the Spock character that were Jewish he said:
"Spock is an alien wherever he is because he is not Vulcan and he is not human, he is half and half. He is a half-breed, what we called a half-breed, a mix breed. Vulcan father, human mother. So he is not totally at home in the Vulcan culture, not totally accepted in the Vulcan culture because he is not totally Vulcan, certainly not totally accepted in the human culture because he is part Vulcan. And that alienation was something I had learned in Boston. I knew what it meant to be a member of a minority and in some cases an outcast minority. So I understood that. I understood that aspect of the character and it was helpful when playing it."




::: Leonard Nimoy sings:
The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins: WATCH/LISTEN



photographs via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via
information via an interview in Yiddish and English, October 2013