So how much does having a nice body impact female starfleet personnel?

Not trying to be offensive but lets face certain realities. Also I'm approaching this from the viewpoint of a heterosexual male and not attempting to disparage or speak for the views of other genders and/or sexual orientation.

Off the head I can think of Uhura (both old and nu), Chapel, Rand, McGivers, Saavik (both versions) Troi, Crusher, Yar, Shelby, Lefler, Ro, Seven, T'Pol, Dax (both versions), Kira and some others I'm sure I'm missing and the constant stream of one show wonders.....and they all have something in common. Their bodies range from "Very Good" to "Bam!!!" And I think if they put out a "Women of Starfleet" calendar of them in swimsuits most Star Trek male fans, and even some women ones, would find the calendar pretty nice.

I mean there's even an admiral, I think it was Satee, who is in her 50's but even she is in great shape.

I know people will point to Pulaski or Janeway and there's the occasional out of shape Admiral, but those are few and far between....But Diana Muldur (Pulaski) was hot in TOS I've never seen young pictures of Mulgrew but she looks like she would have been pretty easy on the eyes when she was younger.

Meanwhile look at the men. Sure there are guys like Riker, Worf, Sisko and Scotty during TOS who are pretty big strapping lads. Sulu obviously hit the gym a lot, at least during his TOS years, Bashir is a looker in the face. But really most of the men don't exactly scream GQ.

Except for the first season Krik always had a belly, Bones looked frail as hell, Spock was trim but didn't exactly scream out "Wow" then in the films Kirk and Scotty just got plain fat and Bones looked like a skeleton at times.

Picard and Data were like Spock, trim but not what I imagine most people would buy pictures of in a Speedo. Laforge looks silghtly overweight, O'Brien more so. Barclay look fit into the same category as Bones in that a good breeze might knock him over.

Odo wasn't exactly a looker. I didn't get into Enterprise or Voyager but the doctor on Voy wasn't a knockout. I guess Kim was good looking from what I saw, but the rest of the male crew seemed pretty average. Backula was a good looking guy in his prime and has aged well but is more distinguished than drop dead hot.

In NuTrek, Kirk was a bona fide hunk, Sulu was decent looking, NuSpock was like old Spock. But McCoy looked drunk, Chekov looked like a teenager in the early stages of male pattern baldness, Scotty looked slightly crazy and also with male pattern baldness and none had a build I would describe as strapping or muscular.

Call me crazy but I seem to notice a direct connection between the kind of body female starfleet personnel have and their starfleet prospects. Conversely the men don't really seem to have to fit any particular standard of attractiveness body wise.

I mean just to give one example. Shelby commits a direct act of insubordination by going to Picard over Riker. Picard doesn't endorse her plan, but doesn't chew her out for not following the chain of command, he's even kind of understanding about it. Then Riker even kind of just sits there in the turbo lift letting Shelby badmouth the hell out of him and he doesn't really do anything except make a vague threat. Would Picard and/or Riker have taken that kind of crap from Barclay? Did it help Shelby not get ripped to shreds that she had certain "assets"

And it doesn't even stop at Starfleet. Kaylar was hot, the Duras sisters, despite their unattractive faces, also had certain "assets" that their uniforms put on prominent display. Most Romulan women, despite the huge shoulder pads, looked like they were fit and trim. Especially because they brought back Denise Crosby.

Like I said....I notice a distinct pattern.

Don't get mad at me. I'm just calling it like I see it. I didn't make the casting choices or uniforms. But even in the "enlightened" 23rd and 24th century where things like poverty and money don't exist anymore, it still seems like a nice body is still very much in play as an element of success for women.

 

Re: So how much does having a nice body impact female starfleet person

Do you want an "in-universe" explanation or an "out-of-universe" explanation?

In-universe:
The ready availability of healthy, nutritious food without the various sugars, chemical, and oils that contribute to obesity would naturally lead to healthier body shapes, and the rigorous fitness requirements of Starfleet, the KDF, the Romulan Imperial Fleet, etc. would contribute to the overall "fit and trim" appearance of the various people you mentioned.

Out of universe:

Fat people don't get very far in Hollywood.

 

Re: So how much does having a nice body impact female starfleet person

In the fictional world of ST, I doubt it makes a blind bit of difference. However in the reality of 21st TV/Film production producers like to cast "attractive" be it men or women as leads, I'm not saying that is always the case or that it's right. People should be cast/hired based on merit not looks/gender/ethenticty etc..

 

Re: So how much does having a nice body impact female starfleet person

explain that to shatner or doohan or orson welles or roseanne barr.

I know the obvious real world reasons. It just seems to me that an "enlightned" show like ST wouldn't be so overt about making sure most main female characters could double as swimsuit models while with the men it's "Overweight, underweight, bald, no muscle tone......whatever. No problem"

I mean they go to great lengths to stress how the concept of money is obsolete and a person's worth and opportunities aren't determined by their financial status anymore.....But apparently some nice T&A still swings a pretty big hammer.

 

Re: So how much does having a nice body impact female starfleet person

About as much as it impacts women in all walks of life in the real world, I'd say.

You know how people talk about prime Trek and new time lines and parallel dimensions etc etc

Well not a lot of people know this but......"all" movies are set in an alternate universe where everyone is slightly better looking than they are in ours

She's an alcoholic, chain smoking, brain surgeon who lives in the shadows.......starring Megan Fox

 

Re: So how much does having a nice body impact female starfleet person

Since when has Star Trek ever been "enlightened"?

 

Re: So how much does having a nice body impact female starfleet person

Don´t tell that any members of the House of Duras

 

Re: So how much does having a nice body impact female starfleet person

I don't know. I'm pretty handy with a Bath'leth (or how it's spelled) I could hold my own if it came to blows

 

Re: So how much does having a nice body impact female starfleet person

I'm not personally saying it's that enlightened. But you'd think from the way Roddenberry talked about it and how it's been passed down through the generations and the way many fans go to great lengths to talk about how so enlightened and special and so on and so, you'd think it's sacrilege to think anything else.

 

Re: So how much does having a nice body impact female starfleet person

One thing I've noticed from Trek TV is that if they cast an older actress as a guest star, she'll usually come from the experience of being this gorgeous bombshell from an older generation of Hollywood. That includes Muldur, and also Majel Barrett as Lwaxana. Just these beautiful women who, back in the 60s, would have surrounded Don Draper in a glamour shot.

As for Mulgrew, there are more than a few pics of her younger days simply because she was an established film and stage actress well before Voyager (that's a major reason why she got the part, too. She brought stage cred to the production). But she also has an autobiography coming out soon which has herself in her 20s as the cover image.

Yeah, there's certainly real-world gender biases at play here. How it translates into Trek's depictions is pretty interesting. Even Amanda Grayson had Winona Ryder, who's otherwise still pretty young herself! Whereas if older men are cast in minor roles, they're usually all shapes and sizes.

One thing about the Duras sisters, though: the actresses under the makeup are pretty attractive, only becoming physically conniving post-makeup, so at least there there's an intentional creative choice for physical representation. But then they have chest windows for easy access, so...

 

Re: So how much does having a nice body impact female starfleet person

Oh yeah and nu Carol Marcus......can't believe I forgot that one.

 

Re: So how much does having a nice body impact female starfleet person

I've never seen the Duras sisters actresses but I always strongly believed they were good looking underneath the make-up.

And on the topic of the older actresses being bombshells in their youth I remember hearing Erin Gray was one of the considered actresses for Janeway. She looks good for her age, but man was she a knockout in Buck Rodgers and Silver Spoons.

 

Re: So how much does having a nice body impact female starfleet person

I would send a troop of Jem´Hadar.

Speaking of nice bodies... The founders did a great job of cloning me .... Kilana is eye candy. Even for the Dominion "Sex sells" is a general rule.

 

Re: So how much does having a nice body impact female starfleet person

This. Generations of good nutrition likely leads to healthier people.

If I want to see fat and/or ugly people, I can look in a mirror or go outside.

 

Re: So how much does having a nice body impact female starfleet person

Then something went awfully wrong when the Dominion cloned Iggy Pop/Yelgrun. I´m asking myself if Iggy is more attractive as himself or as Vorta.......

 

Re: So how much does having a nice body impact female starfleet person

Or walk down the Vegas strip. The image they always give it on TV of row after row of glamorous people strolling the expensive shops DOES NOT live up to what you see for real.

 

Re: So how much does having a nice body impact female starfleet person

There's a number of male actors who could be considered "larger" who I love to watch. John Goodman, Dean Norris, George Wendt (RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman and James Gandolfini). I'm hard pressed to think of a similar number of actresses of the same category -- the few that there are like Gabourey Sidibe and Kathy Bates are treated pretty condescendingly, "heroic" that they succeed in such a shallow business, but such comments don't really criticize that business to begin with. Now, those actresses definitely exist and I'm sure they produce good work, but they don't get noticed or just get outright ignored and so that work rarely gets seen, which is really unfair. But that's the nature of the beast. How to change that beast is difficult matter.

 

Re: So how much does having a nice body impact female starfleet person

That's the trick isn't it? Men can be bald, fat, ugly, etc. and still get work and a gorgeous female costar. Women on the other hand...

A previous comment mentioned Jimmy Doohan. He may have been overweight in the last few Trek films (as was Shatner) but when he first starred in TOS he was fit and trim.

ETA: However, Star Trek, unlike many fictional properties has a ready excuse for the beauty and fitness of its main characters - healthy food, healthy living, and better medical care.

 

Re: So how much does having a nice body impact female starfleet person

It's very obvious their looks are used to 'sell' them to the audience. Watch any behind the scenes stuff on the DVDs and they always mention about needing to find actresses that are attractive and appear intelligent to be the toughest casting, though sometimes it does seem that they forget the latter part and see whose got the biggest cup size--the bigger that is the tighter the outfits can be.

 

Re: So how much does having a nice body impact female starfleet person

I remember having seen the Kes actress Jennifer Lien with a lot of additional weight, not only 3-5 kilos. After filming a show the actresses are free to let themselves go.