There's so much to pick at here, and the parallel you draw later to MLK is absolutely disgusting (prominent civil rights leaders ≠ fictional TV characters), but the only thing I really want to respond to is that most people do not experience TV this way. Most people understand that TV shows are not representing an actual reality, but have instead been created by humans, whose professional & personal agendas, motives, and biases have shaped the content in ways both conscious and unconscious. The OP's niece certainly understands -- that is the entire basis of her reaction, knowing nothing about the BtS she could tell immediately, at age 9, that something was fishy with that costume. And she's right. It does not fit the expressed ethos of the show. They can add a line or two to justify it, and they did, but it was starting from the sex appeal and working backwards, and that justification will always feel like an awkward retrofit to many, because that's exactly what it was.
You're telling people they're wrong for responding negatively to sex appeal jammed into a show, because Janeway never said "Seven, your job will be to provide T&A." But they're not wrong, they're just more sophisticated consumers of television than you are. If you prefer to narrow your focus to exclusively what is in-universe and pretend that these are the actual travels of the starship Voyager, that's perfectly fine. If that's the way you enjoy the show the most, that's great, you do you! But people who recognize that BtS imperatives sometimes damage the product aren't wrong, they're just taking a more full view of the show, and of life/reality overall.
This, absolutely this.
Failing to understand the difference between empowering and exploiting is central to the problem and people either get it or they don't.
It's ridiculous to talk about a show which shows us an "optimistic future" (I'm not convinced on that score anyway, it seems to be something oft mentioned but rarely seen but that's another matter) being a justification for perpetuating a real world social norm which violates the ideals presented.
It's placing art above the reality it supposes to comment thus making the comment meaningless and hypocritical at best, self defeating at worst. If you want to present a message in your work you start with the manner in which it is made and proceed from there else it's a house of cards.
Seven is a perfect example of how this fails. The character may well be praised by many fans for the qualities she possesses but the question of her attire is still the main focus of discussion,
over twenty years later. That we keep having this conversation is very telling about the impact the character has had on popular culture and it's not a positive sign. If all this time later she's remembered first and foremost for the catsuit then any argument about how that was justified in terms of her being a positive role model look very suspect indeed.
If she was such an influential role model why does that so often come into the conversation
after the fact, as a defense against criticism, rather than as the feature which made her memorable?
It's because most of us saw her on screen and knew instinctively what was being sold to us, what the purpose of that image was. We knew perfectly well that her role was in no small part to be presented as a body to look at and we know in retrospect she was uncomfortable with that on more than one level. It takes an almost willful detachment from reality not to see that.
I've been making similar arguments for years and it's interesting how the patterns of responses have changed as more and more questions have been asked of the industry and the spotlight has focused on the treatment of performers.
I'm sorry
@Timo, where it comes to counting the windows on a model starship and calculating the wattage of a phaser you are without peer, but where it comes to the underlying human themes and values you're yet to achieve the status of fish out of water.
Jeri Ryan could have said she wouldn't wear the catsuit. No one forced her to wear it. Women in movies don't have to rip their clothes off but they do because they want money.
Unfortunately for the longest time they frequently
did have to if they wanted to work, both onscreen and off. That's not ok. Actors (and I'm using one word to refer to everyone onscreen here) are not there merely to be objects of sexual consumption, not for the audience and not for those who have the power and influence behind the scenes.
Jeri Ryan wasn't physically forced to wear the suit, but she didn't want to. She wore it because she felt powerless to object.
She could have said no, she could have stood up to the intimidating man who could end her career, the man well known for being a vindictive and sexually predatory bully who would abuse his power on set and off it. She could have walked away and been blacklisted in an industry which was (doubtless still is) accustomed to demands being met and ousting those who objected.
Or she could have toed the line as thousands have done before and after because that was what was expected of her and she was too small, too alone, to change the world. Nor should she have to.
Claiming she had the power to change that situation is absurd and saying "sex makes the world go round" in no way makes your claimed exasperation seem even worse. There's both a place and a role for entertainment which doesn't boil down to exploitation and we can show sexy perfectly well in context. Michael Burnham for instance is a sexy character, SMG is capable of portraying that aspect of herself onscreen very well indeed where it is integral to the plot. That doesn't mean we are watching her going about her day to day duties in an outfit which makes no sense except as an opportunity to ogle her.
