About This Object

This piece of art was painted to continue a running joke between the Wheeler family about the Gorn in Star Trek. It was created by the contributor’s mother and given to him as a present for Christmas.

From the Contributor

We would always watch [Star Trek] every Sunday morning. You know it was always on with syndication and what not. But we were driving home one night from shopping – and I don’t know what possessed my mom at the time – but she took a straw, she started stabbing my dad on his shoulder and making like Gorn noises, “grrrrrrr.” We thought it was hilarious at the time and so it kept kinda popping up on occasion. It’s kind of a running gag in our family that the Gorn keeps showing up as random jokes. [When my mom] took up painting again after years of not and decided that this was the one that was for me. It was just perfect. So yeah, she painted it for me, and I have to admit I’ve loved it since she gave it to me. And I’m glad I can share it with the random nerds that I’ve run into today. —Bryan Wheeler

Fan Culture

A History Harvest Perspective

What we see when we look at this painting is how cool it is, but to the contributor it is so much more! It is an original work created by his mom that represents an inside joke shared between the family as well as fandom culture. Gorn itself is a popular meme seen in Star Trek culture. In all of the original TV episodes, it appears only once, but it is one of the most recognized alien characters within the entire franchise. In fact, when looking at the original transcript, Gorn never speaks a word. Rather, only its actions are described in the script. Perhaps what makes it so contemporarily loved and adored is how terribly the Gorn costume looks.

Star Trek itself has one of the fastest growing fandom communities, and the Trekkie population, those a part of the Star Trek fandom, are some of the most hardcore fans of all of the fandoms. Fandoms represent a cultural and personal community. They give people something that they can identify with and also a community of people for them to relate to. As you might know from your own fan experiences, fandoms tend to create their own language and slang relating to the thing they all stan. I bet you that if you listened in on a conversation between Trekkies, you would not be able to keep up or understand their lingo. The Gorn is a great example of this. It is lingo that would only be recognizable to a Trekkie. ¹. It is kind of like a secret language.

If you want to discover more about the Star Trek community on IU’s campus, be sure to check out the Indiana University Archives! It has tons of original Star Trek scripts, set pictures, editors notes, and more, making IU a major hub for Star Trek TV memorabilia².