(note: should have said late Sixties, but as a child in UK I experienced Star Trek in seventies)
It was a treat to go down memory lane to remember the world of the 70s when men were heroes and women were adornments, showed their legs and needed protection. I remember the episodes of Star Trek I caught on Biritsh TV somewhere between the broadcasting of Benny Hill and Are you being served?
But seriously – is there a need to have the future look like the future was imagined back in the late 60s? but silly me, its just a bit of harmless Star Trek nostalgia fun.
However here’s the conundrum – for the majority attending the movie Star Trek into Darkness it was simply a great action movie, and to have a bit of fun, enjoying yet another Hollywood blockbuster. But there’s something strange about sitting in a room full of nearly all men watching the movie, cheering the hero, and not seeing the movie the way they’re seeing it (I was attending a showing as a 'morale' event for a software company). If the movie had portrayed black people as servants would they all be cheering on the hero and saying oh it’s a tribute to the Star Trek franchise? Probably not because we acknowledge the world has changed and it would be bad taste. I know to raise feminine issues would be considered poor taste and a party pooper as it’s just some fun, so I keep silent but will anyone consider what I see? But please just consider…
The hero of the movie is James Kirk a womanizer, seen with women in bed, flirting when allowed and later can’t recall names of women he’s slept with but we forgive him as it adds to his laddish character.
The fashion for women hasn’t changed from the mini-skirt and tight fitting tops – the year is 2013, and to project a future that was acceptable in the late 60s, seems just wrong now. Not only those on the ship wear the flippy miniskirts but also the women in the crowd scenes – seems there’s not a lot of option for clothing
styles in the future.
The number of women in at the Starfleet Command meeting, which is the meeting of the upper ranks looks to have the same proportion of women in the room as one might find in the year 2013 so I guess progress for getting a more gender diverse is slower than we’d anticipated.
I’m willing to go with the fictional idea that people can beat each other up for several minutes in a movie using various metal objects to whack each other and leap off moving vehicles, but once in that fictional place please don’t then show that when a female character gets kicked once in the stomach, she needs to shriek out loud,
and then be escorted away by two female nurses to the hospital (of course all three wearing miniskirts).
Needless to say the limited female characters are designed to support the men of the movie. The PhD’d scientist is obviously insanely attractive, and even Bones is desperately trying to flirt with her when on a mission. And yes, she looks lovely in black underwear but how did that add to the storyline? Then of course when she tries to stand up to ‘Daddy’ he quickly dominates her and whizzes her back to his ship – naughty girl, what was she thinking.
Now I challenge you to watch Hollywood movies and see how many times women are allowed to have signs of wrinkles on their foreheads compared to men. In this movie the male characters were allowed to be sweaty, porous, and frowny, while the 2 female characters had barely a ripple on their foreheads.
Lastly, when Kurt is given his speech in the final scene on a stage in front of the military, there are a few people sitting on stage behind him of distinguished ranks, two are women – I wonder if any of the writers or directors of Start Trek ever thought about their adventures and missions and what it took them to get there? They were probably placed there deliberately to balance a gender thing without much thought. I hope one day Hollywood will tell their story as I’d like to see their movie heroics.
It was a treat to go down memory lane to remember the world of the 70s when men were heroes and women were adornments, showed their legs and needed protection. I remember the episodes of Star Trek I caught on Biritsh TV somewhere between the broadcasting of Benny Hill and Are you being served?
But seriously – is there a need to have the future look like the future was imagined back in the late 60s? but silly me, its just a bit of harmless Star Trek nostalgia fun.
However here’s the conundrum – for the majority attending the movie Star Trek into Darkness it was simply a great action movie, and to have a bit of fun, enjoying yet another Hollywood blockbuster. But there’s something strange about sitting in a room full of nearly all men watching the movie, cheering the hero, and not seeing the movie the way they’re seeing it (I was attending a showing as a 'morale' event for a software company). If the movie had portrayed black people as servants would they all be cheering on the hero and saying oh it’s a tribute to the Star Trek franchise? Probably not because we acknowledge the world has changed and it would be bad taste. I know to raise feminine issues would be considered poor taste and a party pooper as it’s just some fun, so I keep silent but will anyone consider what I see? But please just consider…
The hero of the movie is James Kirk a womanizer, seen with women in bed, flirting when allowed and later can’t recall names of women he’s slept with but we forgive him as it adds to his laddish character.
The fashion for women hasn’t changed from the mini-skirt and tight fitting tops – the year is 2013, and to project a future that was acceptable in the late 60s, seems just wrong now. Not only those on the ship wear the flippy miniskirts but also the women in the crowd scenes – seems there’s not a lot of option for clothing
styles in the future.
The number of women in at the Starfleet Command meeting, which is the meeting of the upper ranks looks to have the same proportion of women in the room as one might find in the year 2013 so I guess progress for getting a more gender diverse is slower than we’d anticipated.
I’m willing to go with the fictional idea that people can beat each other up for several minutes in a movie using various metal objects to whack each other and leap off moving vehicles, but once in that fictional place please don’t then show that when a female character gets kicked once in the stomach, she needs to shriek out loud,
and then be escorted away by two female nurses to the hospital (of course all three wearing miniskirts).
Needless to say the limited female characters are designed to support the men of the movie. The PhD’d scientist is obviously insanely attractive, and even Bones is desperately trying to flirt with her when on a mission. And yes, she looks lovely in black underwear but how did that add to the storyline? Then of course when she tries to stand up to ‘Daddy’ he quickly dominates her and whizzes her back to his ship – naughty girl, what was she thinking.
Now I challenge you to watch Hollywood movies and see how many times women are allowed to have signs of wrinkles on their foreheads compared to men. In this movie the male characters were allowed to be sweaty, porous, and frowny, while the 2 female characters had barely a ripple on their foreheads.
Lastly, when Kurt is given his speech in the final scene on a stage in front of the military, there are a few people sitting on stage behind him of distinguished ranks, two are women – I wonder if any of the writers or directors of Start Trek ever thought about their adventures and missions and what it took them to get there? They were probably placed there deliberately to balance a gender thing without much thought. I hope one day Hollywood will tell their story as I’d like to see their movie heroics.