The Wil Wheaton Effect (Part 1)

Unlike the barb that Mozart slammed Salieri with in the movie Amadeus as he credited a work of the latter as a source of inspiration ("A funny little tune, but it yielded some good things."), the acknowledgment I give here that Wil Wheaton's blog has given me several initial topics that I would like to address is more complimentary. He is the pro and I am the novice. I won't gush about anyone to the degree that his fans do because it is not my nature, but I will say the writing is often interesting and entertaining, no matter whether the subject matter is exciting or mundane.

Post one is about the well-worn topic of the animosity directed towards the character that Mr. Wheaton played on ST:TNG, Wesley Crusher. I offer a different position than Mr. Wheaton's stated belief that dislike of the character stemmed from the way he played the part or from bad dialogue or situations that the writers created. My position is that the hatred of Wesley came from the incongruity between what the physical appearance of a geek in space should look like and the natural appearance of the actor Wil Wheaton.

It was a great idea to put a super smart teenager aboard the Enterprise as it would possibly draw in additional teenage, geek-like male viewers who would be happy to see someone like themselves operate a spaceship and save the day. It would show them and society that the best looking fellows may have plenty of opportunities to be successful down on Earth, but the geeks of the world will control the heavens. Unfortunately, and I sincerely mean this as a compliment to Mr. Wheaton's genes, Wesley looked like a young male model with the physique (via costuming) of a Greek statue.

I suppose this could be referred to as wearing geek-face, but more importantly it made less attractive viewers angry that their position in Sci-Fi culture had been taken by a character who was clearly just a pretender. Instead of a geek, Wesley should have been a pin-up boy of the time, a famous child star who might have played a popular character named Wil Wheaton in a highly rated hologram series.

BTW, I believe the situation could have been mitigated by giving a lower status to the mother, Beverly Crusher. Instead, on top of everything else that Wesley had going for him, his mother was beautiful, a doctor, and an officer on the Enterprise. Too much. If instead she had been a space hag, or a scrubwoman, or had been played by Roseanne, it could have made Wesley's life not seem so perfect. It is all water under the bridge, but it did give me a topic with which to start this blog.