He was right on the money about people spending too much time on entertainment...and right-er today.
Harlan Ellison: Star Trek Was Just "A Cop Show"
- Thread starter cooleddie74
- Start date
Yeah, TAS. It's good as well is that episode. How many times do they get her to fix the comms stuff though?
Still though, the idea that she was playing some strong female role model or that she was doing a mans job seems a bit of a stretch. 99% Nichelle Nichols played a bit-part switchboard operator. Very good at is she is too, but she's neither a particularly strong character either in terms of gender or race. She's much the same as Sulu, Chekov and Scotty in that regard. A token gesture towards realising Roddenberry's utopian vision of the future onscreen.
Noble it may be but it's tokenism nonetheless.
Yeah, i knew that, but on the show itself there was no formal exit for the character.
She might have been assigned to Planet Claire for a while.
Transporter School!
Definition from the Oxford Dictionary:
Tokenism is the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to be inclusive to members of minority groups, especially by recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of racial or sexual equality within a workforce.
I'd say it describes the casting situation on TOS. Yes, they had Nichols and Takei but both were marginalised and beyond a few moments (which are the exception, not the norm) neither of them gets very much to do beyond just 'be there' so that we can look at the multinational, multiracial bridge crew and harp about how groundbreaking TOS was.
The whole idea of TOS being either unusually inclusive or regressive falls apart under the slightest scrutiny. All the lines in the show go to the three white male Americans. In the meantime Sulu is the designated driver, Uhura answers the phone and Chekov get's do make a funny about how Russians invented everything in a comedy accent.
Don't get me wrong mind, I love TOS. I just don't put the 1970's fan convention spectacles on to watch it.
And of course I meant progressive here... A combination of autocorrect and way too much sativa. Apologies.
Except Shatner the actor is Canadian and Spock the character is half-Vulcan. The only person in the Troika who's both American in real world origin and as a Trek character is McCoy.
So was James Doohan, so two of the four lead characters on TOS were played by non-Americans while of the seven leads one was half-Vulcan, one was Scottish, one was of Swahili origin from East Africa, one was Japanese-American and one was Russian. The only white American male characters were Kirk and McCoy and Kirk was played by a Canadian actor born in a province where French is the chief spoken language.
Which, okay, the Enterprise bridge is a little more diverse than it may appear at first. Conceded. The part I took umbrage with is that Uhura had a 'man's role'. I think anyone is on at least shaky legs if they are taking the standpoint that TOS is some kind of pro-feminist oeuvre.
On a side note thanks to all for putting the Ellison interviews up. What a passionate, concerned and intelligent guy.
On a side note thanks to all for putting the Ellison interviews up. What a passionate, concerned and intelligent guy.
James Doohan was never a leadon Star Trek.
Robert Lansing's General Savage got an off-camera death on 12 O'Clock High, but that was to explain a swapping of the lead actor.
If you insist.
Scotty was a tertiary character. Remove him from the show and not much changes, unlike Kirk, Spock and Bones he wasn't essential to the dynamic of the show, he had a role to play but it was supporting.
Scotty was a secondary character, not tertiary. Kyle was a tertiary character.
