Leave it in and there’s still a point to be made. How many other male characters have been shown sexualised in their underwear just because?
None.
Compared to the majority of the female characters, and essentially all of the ones who matter.
When we see Kirk in his underwear, it’s a result of his decisions, not some other characters’. And we know we’re never going to see Spock or Scotty in their boxers. But there’s not one female character we can name who we can be sure we won’t see in underwear just to show off.
So consider this side effect: If you’re not willing to show off in lingerie, you can’t be an actress on Star Trek.
Oh, granted - TOS is still deeply limited by the failures of its time. It’s guilty of body-image-obsession, victim-blaming, marginalisation, and a multitude of other sins, frequently falling very far short of its egalitarian ideals
But at least it had them. TOS is guilty of failure to follow through - but Hollywood is guilty of the far more tragic and terrible sin; failure to try.
Yes, it is, but that is to cast Hollywood in the role of cultural advancement. It’s ShowBiz. A money-making machine.
They’ve tried very, very hard - to figure out how to maximise the cashflow from the franchise. And it’s working. Which is, culturally and sociologically, awful. For their investors - awesome.
ST’09 was sort of ok popcorn-stuffing stuff. None of the deep resonance of the Original Series. I forget 99% of it.
I don’t feed money to these monkeys anymore. The output is so trite, wrong and lightweight. I have a LoveFilm (UK) subscription, and I watch all the original shows for free. But even then, against the massed backdrop of modern leading men, I find myself criticising Shatner for his minor tum. I am not immune. None of us are.
If the newer films are anything like the newest series then it’s only Star Trek by name anyway. There’s no spirit that’s remained from the originals. I tried to watch a few of the episodes, and it was just some generic space opera.
It’s the future. In the future science will cure all those gays and transforming them into true gun-loving patriotic US-Americans - at least that’s probably what those conservatives are hoping.
Roddenberry probably would have had more active women on the bridge, but yes, calling our Rand and chapel is pointless in this exercise. They were not core bridge crew and thus not eligible for the the much shorter movies.
Also, both had lames roles anyway. Speaking extras.
Note that Roddenberry didn’t do much better later on. They had one Tasha Yar (who promptly cried and had a rape history, of course) and the other two women where a medical doctor and a psychologist - for give their softer, nurturing insight.)
My only problem with that as a test is that all Uhura, Marcus, and Gaila could have been on screen at the same time, in their underwear, discussing how the three of them were going to have a threesome, and that would pass the test.
Sure. Because even if the purpose of the scene would be to titillate the male viewers, at least those three women would be fleshed out enough to be doing something that isn’t focused on the men in the film.
I think it can be, but not in the current Hollywood blockbuster model. An indie-level Star Trek movie could do it, but I don’t know what the logistics of making that happen would be. Whoever owns/controls the franchise would have to sign on for something very scaled back, and that’s certainly not the direction the movies are going in now.
My only problem with that as a test is that all Uhura, Marcus, and Gaila could have been on screen at the same time, in their underwear, discussing how the three of them were going to have a threesome, and that would pass the test.
But that’s the whole point of the test, Shane_Simmons - that it’s an extremely low bar to clear. You can pass the test while being misogynistic, sex-obsessed and offensive to women, or indeed humans, everywhere. And yet film still can’t manage to beat that hurdle.
If the test demanded actual reasonable standards, it wouldn’t make the point nearly as well.
Amanda Grayson, though I suppose she got thrown in the refrigerator, didn’t she? You still don’t see her in her underwear.
Now, I just want to be clear I’m doing this mostly to have a Star Trek geek-out moment. I don’t seriously think the scenario I’m playing out was intended by the writers of the 2009 Star Trek.
First, I’m going to dismiss your comment that Kirk was in his skivvies due to his own actions, while all the women did not. That implies that the women were coerced into taking off their clothes in some way, or that Gaila is a victim. In the 2009 Trek, it was pretty clear that Gaila and Kirk were about to engage in consensual sex. Kirk goes under the bed because Uhura is coming in, who had apparently extracted a promise from Gaila to not have any guys over. Uhura changes out of her uniform, presumably to get ready for bed or maybe go out in civvies to hit the bars. The conversation between Gaila and Uhura fails the Bedschel Test, yes, but only because Uhura discovers that Kirk is under the bed because of Kirk’s loud breathing.
The Carol Marcus scene is idiotic, but the reason she was in her undies was because she was changing uniforms and didn’t take time for any more modesty than to say, “Turn around.”
The thing is, though, if anyone in the physical relationship between Gaila and Kirk is a victim, it’s almost certainly Kirk.
Gaila is an Orion. In Trek canon, there are Orion slaves, yes, and on TOS the implication is that the green dancing girls were slaves, but on Enterprise it was revealed that the Orion women have control over their pheromones and can use their pheromones and physical appearance to coerce men into doing their will; basically, the Orion slavers were actually slaves themselves.
So there’s the sinister subtext: there’s a chance Kirk is a victim. It’s doubtful Gaila would be foolish enough to use her pheromones to coerce men into sex, but it could happen. Maybe Kirk has better grades than her and she’s using her powers to get help with her homework. If that were the case, there’s no possible way Kirk could have given consent.
But again, I want to emphasize that I understand where you’re coming from, I just have a minor nit at the implication that the women were coerced while Kirk has free will, somehow implying that a woman would never disrobe willingly in the presence of a man. I do agree that it’s more than a little offensive that only one major female character gets to keep her clothes on.
I don’t expect cultural advancement from Hollywood, but I do expect them to stay no more than 30 years behind in actively dragging us backward. When they hit this level of terrible… I say so, and don’t go. Every little counts.
Yep, agreed. I wasn’t suggesting that it’s ok, but that without any dis-incentive, they’ll keep doing it. In that sense the 60’s is, for all its goods and bads, a cultural high water mark.
The modern consumer seems, as ever, to have cloth between the ears.
I was hoping that the new Star Wars trilogy would be a step up from the prequel, where the protagonette torpedoed the Republic because she was too busy moping over her boyfriend to uphold her duties and then climbed into the refrigerator and died of being sad. Now I’m sad that the same guy is doing the SW reboot. Probably won’t die of it, though.
Other than the three bulls, characters didn’t get a huge amount of screen time in the original series, but every character had episodes that highlighted them. Uhura got to kick ass every now and then.
I think it’s also important to keep in mind just how crazy it was at the time that Uhura was a character of any importance at all. I once saw an interview with Whoopi Goldberg who saw Star Trek on TV when she was young, and immediately ran out of the room to find her mother yelling, “Mommy, there is a black woman on TV who isn’t a servant!”
I was young myself at the time. That was the first experience that really hammered home to me how real racism was and how harshly it has impacted people’s lives. That Star Trek broke that barrier was a big deal.
And I’ll give you Yeoman Rand, who was there primarily as a damsel in distress, but nurse Chapel was a real if minor character.
You missed the point. Uhura did not choose to reveal her body to Kirk; it was revealed to him because of his choices and actions (ie, hiding under the bed), not hers.
