May 10th, 2009
by
Ariel Wetzel
I saw Star Trek this weekend, and overall enjoyed it. The special effects and characterizations were all engaging. This post contains spoilers!
Despite overall enjoying Star Trek, I was disappointed in the lack of women in the movie. There are three major women: Spock’s human mom, Kirk’s mom, and Lt. Uhura. The first two women are in the film because of their connections to the male leads. Spock’s mom dies to serve as a catalyst in Spock’s character development, while Kirk’s mom is just in the film in the opening to birth Kirk in a very corny and sappy birth scene.
Lt. Uhura, while a brilliant xenolinguistic and highly competent officer, consistently has to deal with sexual harassment from Kirk. As Spock’s lover, she seems to take on the emotions for both of them. Uhura cries for the loss of the world Vulcan when Spock cannot, suggesting that women are responsible for reminding their men to have emotions beyond anger. Like the other women in Star Fleet, she wears tall black boots and an impractical short skirt that rides up when she sits.
I understand that the source material is rooted in the 1960s, and that Lt. Uhura was the only female officer on the show. But in an update, Kirk could have been reprimanded for sexual harassment. Women could wear the same uniforms as men. We could have seen women as ship captains or in combat roles. “To boldly go where no man has gone before,” was updated to “to boldly go where no one has gone before,” so why not make the rest of the film more inclusive to women?
One of the most disappointing “updates” is the revision of the economic system presented in Star Trek’s future. Although there are contradictions between episodes and series, the economy of the Federation is basically socialist, especially by The Next Generation. On the last episode of season 1, the crew finds three people frozen since the 20th century. One is a wealthy business man, and he finds out his investments are gone because human civilizations have evolved past capitalism. The economics of the Federation are later developed in Deep Space 9 with the on-going tension between the socialist federation and the capitalist and patriarchal Ferengi. Even in the film Star Trek IV, Captain Kirk tells Dr. Taylor that there isn’t money in the 23rd century.
In the new film, however, a young Kirk uses a Nokia cellphone and Uhura orders several name-brand drinks at a bar. This product placement ensures that multinational corporations will still be delivering their goods in the 23rd century. McCoy mentions his ex-wife took all of planet earth in the divorce, which suggests to me that the economic and legal arrangements on earth are fairly similar to the United States today.
The filmmakers were comfortable revising the economic system to assure we see representations of multinational corporations existing in the future, why couldn’t we see less of a patriarchal culture, too? Probably because representing a feminist future is less profitable than a capitalist one. I love science fiction because it can represent a future without oppression and exploitation, whether it’s economic or gendered. The new Star Trek doesn’t represent either.
![[Slashdot]](http://slashdot.org/favicon.ico)
![[Digg]](http://digg.com/favicon.ico)
![[Reddit]](http://reddit.com/favicon.ico)
![[del.icio.us]](http://images.del.icio.us/static/img/delicious.small.gif)
![[Facebook]](http://www.facebook.com/favicon.ico)
![[Technorati]](http://technorati.com/favicon.ico)
![[Google]](http://www.google.com/favicon.ico)
![[StumbleUpon]](http://www.stumbleupon.com/favicon.ico)
- More blogging by
Ariel Wetzel at
http://www.lake-desire.com
Previous:
Caprica disappoints on the gender & race front --- Next:
MammothFail ’09
Filed under TV & Film, Women in Space | Comments (16)
On the economics, part of the problem is that while they repeatedly said there was no money, we regularly saw people behaving in a manner as if there was money. Rare, non-replicatable goods were treated as scarce and clearly owned by individuals, for instance. And Star Fleet was either paying its officers a stipend when they weren’t in Federation space or covering their tab, either way raising questions of what economic activities they were involved in to raise that capital. So honestly, it never quite worked for me to merely say there’s no money in the Federation.
More than that, though, this movie took place quite a bit of time before TNG where no money was really established (such as it was); it seems reasonable to me that they’re still in a transition phase.
Star Trek certainly has more than its share of inconsistencies, which is why I consider myself only a casual fan. I really appreciate that it works within the utopian tradition of science fiction, but the plot holes are hard to reconcile.
Thank you! I really wanted to enjoy this movie- it is a great reboot- but the miniskirts and the demotion of Uhura to the stereotypical “hero’s girlfriend” role kept stopping me from really getting into the film. (In this interview, Abrams and Quinto make it clear that Uhura is less a character than a prize for Kirk and Spock to fight over.)
I grew up watching old series reruns, and later TNG and DS9 as they aired. As a kid I remember asking my mom why the girls had to wear skirts in the old show, and she told me that that was “that era” but things were better now. Women could wear the same uniforms as men! Progress! Abrams putting the women back in miniskirts just tells me that “that era” isn’t really dead and gone the way I believed it was as a kid. Women still have to be sexy first, and competent Starfleet officers second.
Why didn’t we see any female captains? Because showing a mature women in a position of command and respect wearing a miniskirt would highlight how absurd those uniforms are. So all the women in Starfleet are inoffensively young and hot, so as to not cause an cognitive dissonance or a moment of insight in the audience.
Really, really disappointed in the movie.
The miniskirts aren’t even accurate in-universe, as they didn’t show up until the third episode of the series. At this point in history, they should be wearing the uniforms from The Cage, which included pants for women.
I understand folks problems with the gender roles etc- but as to various departures from canon such as money- Abrams pushed the ultimate re-set button and basically dumped the entire Trek universe as we knew it. Easy way to take things in his own direction. I will be curious to see where this leads now that he has established his universe. I for one am thrilled with the new film, with a couple of caveats. It’s just nice to know that these characters, who I have loved since 1966, will live on. Lets hope his development of his female characters will change and grow. I am happy with the reboot. Perhaps when this franchise is old and creaky one of you will take it a few steps further!
Crone, already old and creaky.
The miniskirt as a uniform. While ridiculous it is in some ways the least offensive thing about her character’s treatment. At least Uhura gets the “attagirl” nods in both deciphering the transmission tha alerts Kirk that somethings up, and in not easily falling for Jimbo’s suppossed charms.
What irritates me is the almost-under-the radar bits of sexist stereotype. It’s pretty clear that her basic role in the film is eye candy – even in one of the new posters she is seen peering coyly out from the side of Kirk’s head, while every other character is depicted facing the audience straight on.
While I really couldn’t stand was the “Tell me what you need” scene in the elevator, the oops-sorry-I-accidently-groped-you scene in the bar, the “you have a talented tongue” business also in the bar (was that suppossed to make him look attractive?) and the absolute capper, when Uhura herself mentions her “exceptional oral sensitivity” as one of the reasons she should be considered for inclusion in the Enterprise roster.
Clearly, sexism in the far-flung future is alive and well.
I think that was “aural”, not “oral”, though the words sound similar.
I would probably add the Orion girl as the fourth woman in the movie. Which is an improvement. From ‘slave girl’ to Starfleet cadet. And I liked how Uhura was comfortable enough to toss Kirk out while in her underwear, without really seeming to care she was in her underwear. Though I had hoped cadets were in non-gendered dorms/barracks.. I guess we can still think they are and it was just coincidence two women got roomed together.
They did lose an opportunity when they didn’t include Number One, but I guess she would’ve screwed up the chain of command and stood in the way of Kirk and Spock.
As far as the miniskirts go, I swear I -did- see see a female crewmember in the pants uniform in the background of at least one scene. So the argument could be made that the women could be wearing either and Uhura -chose- to wear something completely impractical and silly (Which, of course, degrades her character even more) along with dangly earrings which were truly military issue.
Regardless of the Access Hollywood interview, Uhura did not come across on screen as someone to be won. She and Spock were established.
I agree with the miniskirts and the product placement was distracting.
Kirk’s mom was essentially a prop in order to get James Tiberius in the Canon.
Spock’s mom was friged (google: women in refrigerators.)
Still… I can’t wait to see it again!!!
I agree, it was an absolute demotion to “Hero’s Girlfriend” when they paired them up. I don’t think there was much buildup, either. The scene in the elevator really bothered me, because it was so unexpected. I was thinking she would comfort him as a friend or student to teacher, but instead she throws herself at him? To me, that was out of the blue. I don’t like the fact that she was turned into the pining woman waiting at home for the hero’s return, either.
I’ve got a review at Heroine Content that goes more into it, but really, I liked the movie, but could have liked it a lot more.
[...] Source:Star Trek doesn’t update the gender roles [...]
>>(Which, of course, degrades her character even more)
Why does that degrade her character “even more?” Wearing a short skirt and dangly earrings did not prevent her from capably carrying out her responsibilities. I’m not a Star Trek aficionado, but so far as I could tell, she’s a translator – a role that doesn’t exactly involve athletics.
One thing I liked about showing the female cadets in skirts was that some of them wore their uniforms at obviously different lengths – high school all over again! That was something I could relate to, whether it was intentional or not. We had kilt uniforms at high school, and girls would always play with the length depending on how they felt. It was neat to see that.
Ophelia – you mention correctly that the short skirt doesn’t prevent her from carrying out her duties. Sure, she’s a translator. She could do them in a tutu as long as she didn’t want to sit down, be comfortable or not freeze.
My problem with the uniform is that is restricts what women are able to do. With this uniform, women are not able to perform any roles that are not sedentary in nature within the military. No physical combat and no fixing the engines.
I’ve written more about this at my blog. Feel free to comment.
I actually disliked this movie a fair bit. Felt very fanfic-ey, lots of gathering together familiar and trite Trek characters while ripping the heart out of the canon universe just for drama. The plot was utterly nonsensical, the characters predictable or infuriating and the tone at once cheesy and cynical.
I’ll also agree that the gender depiction was extremely poor, making for weaker aeshetics and ethics of the film. The new Trek re-introduced a lot of the worst elements of TOS Trek in this regard. Even back in the 60s show I don’t remember Kirk’s sexual push being that insistent and demeaning, nor did the movie seem to revel in his lust to the same degree. It’s beyond pathetic that Uhuru as a character was put in the situation of having to be paired off with either Kirk or Spock. Yay for dependency.
If curious, set your transporters to http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=7795, where I did a guest post on the Star Trek reboot, including gender roles.
Athena Andreadis
The Biology of Star Trek