To Boldly Go...Backwards
I can't remember wanting to love a movie as much as I wanted to love the new Star Trek.
I grew up watching the original series in re-runs, entranced by the hard-charging, womanizing captain of the Enterprise, his coolly logical (but underneath the exterior, tormented and passionate!) first officer, and its egalitarian vision of the future.
I watched every episode. I went to all the movies. I devoured every paperback that detailed the further adventures of the Enterprise's crew. When I was thirteen, I even -- oh, this is painful -- convinced my parents to take me to a Star Trek convention in downtown Hartford. (My parents were not the most socially adroit people, but even they somehow realized that this was a severely nerdy undertaking. They dropped me off at the corner).
When the ads for the new film started running, I should have been suspicious. "Not your father's Star Trek?" What was wrong with my father's Star Trek? I liked my father's Star Trek! But still, there I was, on opening day, with a bucket of popcorn, surrounded by what looked like the entire staff of several area comic-book stores.
There was much to love about the movie. Kirk was hot, and Spock was cool, and their relationship felt just right, at once edgy and familiar. Unlike the earlier outings, where a shaken camera connoted a collision, danger, and/or black holes and time warps, the special effects were, indeed, special.
I'm not so much of a nerd that I couldn't handle the way the film chucked continuity and ignored some of the original show's rules of the road (although, note to J.J. Abrams: if a Vulcan is bonded and his spouse suddenly dies, he either dies, too, or ends up in mortal agony, and should not be depicted just calmly hanging out on a transporter pad. Okay, fine, maybe I am that much of a nerd).
I was even okay with the way the plot recycled Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (in "Khan," the villain deploys a Doomsday weapon because he believes Kirk was responsible for the death of his wife. In "Trek," the villain deploys a Doomsday weapon because he believes Spock was responsible for the death of his wife....and let me just add that, in the all-important categories of "pecs," and "scenery chewing," Eric Bana is no Ricardo Montalban.)
Honestly, I didn't have a problem until about midway through the film...at which point I realized that every single lady on screen was either a mother, a ho, or an intergalactic hood ornament.
We begin with mama Kirk. As the film opens, she screams and grunts her way through labor, pops out young James T., bids her doomed husband a weepy farewell, and is never seen or heard from again. How does she feel when her reckless son runs off to join Starfleet? We don't know. The movie doesn't ask.
Next up: the luscious Andorian Kirk beds at Starfleet Academy. She's green. That's about it...except somewhere, Eddie Murphy is smiling (I'd link to his bit about the dubious hygiene of green-faced girls, but it's filthy. Filthy!)
Even though Romulan war ships were, in the original series, frequently commanded by women, there's nary a chick aboard rogue Romulan Nero's vessel. This, perhaps, explains why he and his crew are in such a bad mood.
The film throws the ladies a few bones in the form of a couple of female members of the Vulcan High Council. There's a woefully underutilized Winona Ryder as Spock's human mother, and a tossed-off reference to Leonard McCoy's ex (the bitch took everything, don'tcha know, leaving him with just his...well, never mind).
Finally, there's Uhura...and what Abrams and company do with the Enterprise's communications officer will not be warming the cockles of any feminist hearts.
We first meet her at a bar, all ponytail, miniskirt, and long legs. Kirk hits on her. She brushes him off. He persists, prompting Uhura's fellow cadets to mop the floor with him (couldn't she have kicked his ass herself? Probably. So why didn't the movie let her?)
We are told, rather than shown, that Uhura is an extraordinarily capable linguist. We are told, rather than shown, that she's intercepted an important transmission, the plot device that jump-starts the film's action...as soon as Kirk tells Captain Pike about it. But Uhura's primary function isn't professional. Her job, in this brave new universe, is to look cute in a red dress, and to humanize (and by "humanize" I mean "mack on") her coolly logical, eminently reasonable mate.
In other words, she's Michelle Obama in outer space.
I'm willing to be patient here. I understand that, to attract an audience glutted on testosterone-heavy summer flicks, you need a certain amount of the old ultraviolence to get butts in seats, and that the lofty, utopian ideals of the original have to make way for a few brute shoot 'em ups. I understand the value of simply showing audiences an (allegedly) strong black woman, even if most of what she does is stand around looking worried; the same way I know that Michelle Obama has to tread carefully as she makes the role of First Lady her own. And hey, maybe organic gardening and pairing J. Crew twin sets with kicky belts and cute pins aren't bad places to start. Baby steps.
In spite of my disappointment, I've still got high hopes for the new Trek franchise. In a few years, my daughters will be old enough to watch TV and movies the way I watched them: for entertainment, yes, but for inspiration, too, for a vision, or a series of competing and overlapping visions, of how their future could look.
Plus, if the guy who gave us Sydney Bristow and Kate Austin can't serve up any kick-ass, take-charge ladies, then who can? It's only logical.
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Ill take it a step further (I loved the commentary by the way). the movie didnt make use of aliens either. the only good alien was spock and the rest of the aliens were either caricatures-the green lady or that weird short thing with scotty. there were no useful aliens, which i sorely missed, as another avid and feminist trekkie in highschool. there were only enemy aliens and only humans were depicted as being useful. it annoyed me.
Oh, for crying out loud, it's a movie for Pete's sake! Get a grip.
ST:TOS was MUCH worse. James Kirk and James Bond were both products of the 1950's/1960's attitudes toward women. Both characters have women fall into bed with them without so much as a "how-do-you-do?". So what? They are time capsules - once you realize that, you move on and enjoy the movie.
Not everything always has to be a political statement. C'mon - it's a popcorn movie.
James Bond was technically born out of World War Two, specifically the upper-crust nobility that flocked to join the old Special Operations Executive and later MI-6.
Movies are important in defining culture, and identity, for young people especially. I remember how dismayed I was at the role models in "Top Gun." I was in a law practice near an Air Force base, doing a string of divorces in which the "top guns" were ditching their high school sweethearts for bimbos.
Then here comes this movie creating as an idol for adolescent girls the narcissistic creep played by Tom Cruise, and how the strong, intelligent woman falls for him. Gee, I still get mad thinking about itl;!
http://www.safetycenter.navy.mil/media/approach/brownshoes/Jul-90.pdf is a fun little mockery of TOP GUN.
Three quick disagreements with this post:
1. Abrams took the only female character in the original series and gave her a much bigger role and expanded her starfleet resume beyond "futuristic telephone operator."
2. Your complaint that Uhura didn't kick Kirk's ass in the bar is entirely wrong-headed. She was the only one in the scene who wasn't being depicted as an irrational dolt. That was the point of the scene.
3. I don't think the Orion was a "ho." She was just depicted as more sexually liberated than her human counterparts. It was a classic reference. The fact that you saw a "ho" (a disgusting phrase to my feminist sensibilities) speaks more about you than Abrams.
Overall, this is far from a step backwards from the original series. If you honestly believe that, then you need to go back and watch those episodes again.
I agree with all of this. Uhura is a very complex character in the new movie. How is she in any way a "step backwards"?
And at the end of the day, you still call Kirk "hot". There is irony.
Andorians are blue and have antennae on their heads. Minor issue. Also, I seem to recall that the reason Khan was so pissed at Kirk was that the planet they were left on (a paradise at the time) somehow shifted (meteor strike?) and became a desolate wasteland. He was angry that no one ever came back to check on them. Again, minor.
I have to agree with sagcat's points and that Uhura behaved as I'd have expected. I'm sure she would hold her own with a phaser if that became necessary, but she never leaves the ship so hard to work that in.
All in all, I loved the movie but I was a little taken aback that my son (who is not a Trekkie) had to point out that, indeed, a redshirt did buy the farm. They covered all the classic bases! lol
So, the "sexually liberated" Orion woman makes Kirk hide under her bed because her roommate's coming back....?
She made him hide under the bed because she broke her promise to stop bringing men home. It has nothing to do with her sexual liberation.
"The fact that you saw a "ho" (a disgusting phrase to my feminist sensibilities) speaks more about you than Abrams."
I'm really glad others are picking up on this! When I read it I thought, she can't be serious using this word to describe women and then turning around and accusing the film of sexism. What a hypocrite.
You have got to be kidding me with Kate Austen. What? Not a discernible personality trait to her name. I challenge you, name a quality she has. Describe her with an adjective. YOU CANNOT.
She runs away. That's Kate's defining characteristic.
The problem with today's movies are they actually have women believing that a 100lb skinny as can be women heroine can kick ass on a 250lb special ops trained bad guy.
Sorry- but one punch from him would drop her like a ton of bricks.
Thank you for saying it. Thank you from the bottom of my equal-rights-loving-but-let's-get-real heart.
what fight scene between a 100 lb girl and a 25lb boy are you referring to?
I'm a five feet tall, 120 lb second degree black belt in aikido, and I have chucked 275-lb men over my shoulder. Easily and without them "letting" me.
Trained women can fight - and part of being a trained woman is not letting the 250-lb special ops guy land a punch on you. In fact, being big is sometimes a drawback, as your knees and groin are more accessible to a smaller person.
I smell a Huffington Post/You Tube Challenge Match....
I have to go with LSophia on this one. I am a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido and I could drop Kirk in a second. I have taken down 6'2" 200lb guys half my age. Size doesn't always win.
The other problem is Kirk is no where near 250lbs, and at that point in the movie he is a drunken slacker not a special ops trained bad guy. So, sure some movies go over the top with girls that kick butt. I'll give you that, but in this case Uhura could have taken care of herself.
Part of that scene was her aggravation at Kirk and the testosterone-poisoned cadets that got into it. She's too smart to get into a bar brawl.
This female has no problem with the females in the movie. I just wanted to enjoy seeing Trek. I get my empowering moments from real life situations done by real females and males.
Don't forget that to even bring women and men together on the same space ship was new and daring in the sixties when all of NASA were men. And on a five year mission yet.
Kirk was subject to the business rules of the sixties - don't have sex with the other employees. I think that is why he had to lose his memory, or encounter alien women who were chemically irresistible in order to fall in love.
A joyless and ultimately wrongheaded analysis of the film. To have developed every thread you want would have created a bloated, narratively meandering film of about 4 hours, instead of the perfectly paced popcorn flick that we got.
Did you really want to see Uhura kick Kirk's ass in the bar? Part of the point is that the men are pathetically immature violent dolts, while Uhura is able to be above all the childish nonsense. She's actually the only admirable person in the scene. I don't need to bring the film to a screeching halt to have a scene where Uhura translates a communication in order to understand that she is a woman of enormous capabilities and a leader in her field.
Neither mother needed to be developed or it would have added nothing other than a PC nod to some need of yours that this fun film become some paean to the nobility of motherhood. You seem to have a very retro notion of what a feminist icon can be - to you women must be sexless or they are "ho's". I didn't think less of any of the women for their capacity to enjoy life, the judgment is all yours, never made by the film.
agreed
so you like Syndey Bristow and Kate Austin do you ....TV characters that were developed over several hours of a developing tv series...not two hours of movie time with there were several other characters to be developed and a "gasp" a story t0 tell..
How exactly much can you jam into a couple of hours of space opera do ya think??? This never was going to be Norma Rae.
and really...is there something wrong with Michelle Obama's choices that she gets this back handed diss....
It's a movie based a tv show decades old....all this talk about what Uhura used to be in the old series
is hilarious as the character barely got lines beyond "Hailing frequencies open sir" and I can't recall one episode centered on her.
Maybe someday they'll remake Voyager...that should balance it all out.
sfsilver and viewfrom uphere, thank you for your responses. I was very angry after reading this "review" but you two said what I was feeling very well.
you welcome...
WOW you were VERY ANGRY?????
There is something wrong very wrong with that. NO ONE can have an opinion that differs from yours without you getting VERY ANGRY???
By "Not your father's Star Trek," they meant "Not Rachel Weiner's Star Trek." Or mine for that matter.
What you say is true, but cry me a river Jennifer! In Eleven movies and 5 series set in a Utopian future where human difference is celebrated not discriminated, there has never been a SINGLE GAY CHARACTER (and no, the faux-lesbianism of Dax does not count)!
How do you know? Many things that happen in the lives of these characters are now shown on screen. That's why we have fanfic. Seriously, though, I know you mean openly gay. Be patient, we'll get there soon, I'm sure. Meanwhile, go watch Doctor Who and Torchwood. They're delightful.
wait! I thought Sulu was gay... wasn't he?
Only in real life. George Takei is gay.
Gay Klingons? Hmmm, nope I'm just not feeling it. Besides, maybe that came up with a cure for gayness by then. *snark*
Actually that would, unfortunately, be very realistic .. we are already on the brink of being able to identify homosexuality in the womb - and thus guaranteed abortion of every such baby, at least in Muslim and Chinese cultures .. and that is 4/5 of the planet right there. Custom baby recipes through abortion will only get worse in the far future.
Uh, Mirror Universe Ezri.
No gay characters--true--but sexual identity was dealt with. As for Dax, the symbiote wasn't male, female or gay. The entire point of the Dax character was not able gayness or straightness, but rather the fluidity of sexual identity. That's actually a more radical concept.
I do accept take your point, however.
Okay, I agree. But, and this is not to out-nerd the columnist but Andorians are blue with antennae; Kirk was in bed with an Orion.
geek alert!
Oh,m let's really get nerdy. The Andorians weren't even in the Federation at the time that the Enterprise launched.
Yeah, but in this alternate universe, they obviously are. Isn't that convenient?
How do we know that? "Journey To Babel" had them as full members. Perhaps something in "Enterprise", which I rarely watched?
Since when do Orions have red hair? Every Orion I've seen has had dark hair.
L'Oreal?
Just how many have you seen?
As much as it pains me to out-nerd another self-professed nerd...
The girl Kirk beds (Uhura's roommate) is Orion, not Andorian. Orion's are green-skinned. Andorians are blue-skinned and have antennae.
As for the post itself...I think Jennifer has missed the forest for the trees. Star Trek has always been about Kirk and Spock for the most part. An equal amount of criticism could be aimed at how most of the supporting cast were relegated to the role of comic relief; however, even that would be disingenuous, since it ignores the fact that they are supporting characters meant to provide a backdrop to the Kirk/Spock saga. That doesn't mean that they aren't strong characters in their own right.
It's interesting that Jennifer laments Uhura as being a marginalized female role, when the opposite is true. Uhura in the original Star Trek series could have been the poster child for marginalization. She was little more than the token black/female amongst the regular cast, consigned to acting as little more than an intergalactic switchboard operator. Now, she's an extremely competent xenolinguist who forges her own path and can even confront a senior officer when she feels she was passed over for a prime position that she rightfully deserves.
Uhura, you've come a long way, baby! :)
Speaking of Orion girls...I seem to recall that the original Orion girl, played by Susan Oliver in the pilot "Menagerie," was described, at least among fans, rather casually as an "Orion slave girl." And I seem to recall that Capt. Pike made no protest when she was "presented" to him...(he managed to git' wit' her anyway). Maybe this doesn't count for much since it was an image being projected into his brain by the Talosians...but apparently we hadn't "come a long way baby" in our father's Star Trek, either.
Secure from Geek Mode.
That's what I remember, too. Orions kept "slave girls" so the green girl isn't as sexually liberated as some posters think.
And if I recall correctly, Uhura's character in spite of being an intergalactic Ma Bell, was pretty damn groundbreaking at the time. Whoopi Goldberg has cited the character's influence on her as a role model - after seeing an episode, Goldberg told her family, "I just saw a black woman on television; and she ain't no maid!"
Gene Roddenberry never made any secret that he had diversity in mind with the concept of the series, and the franchise that went along with it. Women and minorities in roles unconventional for them at the time, and the overall themes of embracing diversity in the series. NBC took huge risks at the time, and they have paid off.
It'd be unfair to judge a movie that seeks to recapture the sensibility of the original series by the standards of either modern Hollywood politics or modern blockbuster movies.
I figured it was just part of the shifting the universe had gone through, along with the Feds having known the Cardassians long enough to have a popular drink named after them.
I notice that no one is decrying the relatively small and inconsiquential role of Dr. McCoy, where is the outrage over that, or the russian(?) accent used for comedic effect for Chekov? The movie, like the original series and previous movies, focuses on Kirk and Spock, everyone else is a supporting role. That is the way it has always been. At least they gave Uhura the relationship with spock and let her appear more often than Scotty or Sulu, otherwise she would have just been in the background saying " I'm picking up a distress call" which is about all she did in the other movies.
I agree. Bones was great in this, but was relegated to a supporting character.
Parts of this are due to the lack of real women writing for, producing, signing off to and directing films as well as actresses not speaking out about sexist roles or accepting them due to the money. If only a particular sub-group of men control, what do you expect. Perhaps if more filmgoing women speak out like you do in this article, perhaps choose not to go to these films that do not protray women in a more balanced way, them maybe things will change.
...or maybe audiences are tiring just a bit of the uber-women that have uber-populated the screen since Sigourney Weaver did battle with the first Alien. Don't get me wrong, I welcomed the change back then...but maybe its time we once in a while indulged in a little old-fashioned macho.
Hear, hear. I am a straight female, and much prefer watching men kick tail than women.
Just sayin'.
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