John Meredyth Lucas was the credited writer of both “The Changeling” and “Elaan of Troyius”.
Kirk’s Comment in Elaan of Troyius
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Would you settle for "obtuse"?You may now call me a monster.
The question is not whether an particular individual or humans in general can have conflicting impulses. Of course they can and do. The question is whether the following is an insult to woman.
NOMAD: That unit is defective. Its thinking is chaotic. Absorbing it unsettled me.
SPOCK: That unit is a woman.
NOMAD: A mass of conflicting impulses.
Which, of course it is. Whether we take it as a harmless joke or a harmful insult is debatable and depends on whether everyone laughs and whether there is a counter joke towards men to balance it out.
You mention Nichols behavior with Roddenberry, but what about Roddenberry's behavior having affairs with so many women. Those are conflicting impulses too. I wouldn't want his behavior generalized to me.
I never said men were unconflicted. If Nomad absorbed GR's mind, you'd get the same report verbatim, and Nomad would be just as unsettled. Nobody doubts that. But GR's conflicting impulses would be different ones, and today we are expected not to know it.
Saying that a woman, especially a given woman, has conflicting impulses is not false. It is a nuanced, insightful, and factual observation. A woman seeks power and control in life, but at the same time, a straight woman is biologically wired to be the receptive partner, which means she has some submissive fantasies. Those are conflicting impulses. Even the most ardent feminists, if they are hetero, may have submissive fantasies.
Nichelle Nichols, in real life, stood strong and took charge, pursued a bold career path-- and she is the same woman who admits she got her kicks hiding naked under Gene Roddenberry's desk and servicing him. During the work day. At risk of unspeakable humiliation. Those "conflicting impulses" drove a successful woman to be sexually submissive.
The real trouble now with "The Changeling" is that, to be fully compliant with today's dominant ideology, and thus safe from attack, we have to throw nuance out the window and pretend that everyone's mind and body are wired exactly the same. When referring to a protected class in 2019, anything less than wild praise puts one at risk of being called a monster. The "mainstream" is enforcing an unchecked, extreme ideology that forbids nuance and honest observations of humanity.
You may now call me a monster.
I decline that invitation, but most if not all of what you've said fully applies to any given male. Spock's line in The Changeling is problematic, and unlike Pike's comment and Kirk's comment, Spock's comment doesn't arguably result from a (less than amusing) attempt at humor. As a perspicacious poster noted above, Spock should have said "That unit is a human," and it would have caused no trouble in the late sixties, it would pose no trouble in 2019 as we analyze a fifty-year old program,* and the line would have been totally consistent with Spock's well-advertised views on humans.**
*Isn't it awesome? That we do that?
**Which were more than a bit xenophobic, but that doesn't really offend anyone because everyone making the show - as far as we know anyway - belonged to the deprecated class.
Yes, in a perfect world, Spock would have generalized it to humans.
Of course we're taking the line so much out of perspective because that's what we do here, Ws analyse the stripes, shirt colours, number of decks. speed of asteroids, number of ships in the fleet, Kirk putting on his boots, doors opening and closing, transporter controls, just to name a few.
A couple of attempts at humour at womens expense amongst 79 episodes doesn't make TOS a piece of sexist junk like BSG OS say. In fact TOS inspired many woman to take up serious science (at least thats what they say).
How much of what Ms Nicolls (or any other woman of that day) allegedly did in show-business was because of what they had to do to get a role and how much because they wanted to sleep with a powerful man 20/30 years older than them?Saying that a woman, especially a given woman, has conflicting impulses is not false. It is a nuanced, insightful, and factual observation. A woman seeks power and control in life, but at the same time, a straight woman is biologically wired to be the receptive partner, which means she has some submissive fantasies. Those are conflicting impulses. Even the most ardent feminists, if they are hetero, may have submissive fantasies.
Nichelle Nichols, in real life, stood strong and took charge, pursued a bold career path-- and she is the same woman who admits she got her kicks hiding naked under Gene Roddenberry's desk and servicing him. During the work day. At risk of unspeakable humiliation. Those "conflicting impulses" drove a successful woman to be sexually submissive.
The real trouble now with "The Changeling" is that, to be fully compliant with today's dominant ideology, and thus safe from attack, we have to throw nuance out the window and pretend that everyone's mind and body are wired exactly the same. When referring to a protected class in 2019, anything less than wild praise puts one at risk of being called a monster. The "mainstream" is enforcing an unchecked, extreme ideology that forbids nuance and honest observations of humanity.
You may now call me a monster.
I can accept Nomad 's comment being directed at Uhura in particular and not all women in general. but the trouble was in TOS Uhura was the "only" women we had, And thus she represented all women in TOS. (I refuse to count Chapel with her ridiculous teenage crush on Spock).
So say you make a comment like "women are bad at sport". To a certain extent you are correct, Women are generally not as good at sport at men because they are not as strong. However there are many women who can out do many men in sport. So the comment isn't really all that useful and puts in people's minds that they are stupid to watch women's sports when they could be watching mens.
So if its OK when Nomad says "women" are a mass of conflicting emotions, whatever surely someone should have generalised that men were a mass of conflicting emotions and illogic in the episodes featuring Dr Crater, Dr Daystrom, Charlie, Bele and Lokai and that guy the Medusan episode. Instead Uhura cops its for just singing on deck.
There are a lot of women who are more logical, less emotional and better drivers than many men so why is it OK to generalise
Maybe that gets at the heart of it, like the dialogue is caught in a struggle between the particular and the universal. Today's dominant ideology is sometimes referred to as a movement of "universalist values."
I think it must have taken longer to animate those disruptors, that's the only episode they are shown in, so there's no potential for stock footage, as the reuse of the weapons fire in Deadly Years was recycled from Errand of Mercy. It's by far the most "detailed" look at the weapon actually being launched and hitting Enterprise. And there is quite a few shots. I really like how they have them coming from the front of the engine pods, all the ship designs I've seen following have the disruptors there, probably it was easier to tap into the engines to power them.
Great post.
What did you think of the remastered effects for EoT? When I rewatched it the other day - and found to my total shock that it was a good, perhaps even excellent episode - I used CBS All Access, so I saw the new effects. I may rewatch again (I liked it that much!) with the original effects but I'm curious about your opinion.
It's not at all hyperbole.
Bob Clampett, the director, was a big fan of jazz music and he went out of his way to hire actual black performers to voice and sing the characters in that cartoon. And yet, despite his love for these performers and working with them, it was so commonplace to make race-based jokes that he loaded his otherwise hilarious cartoon with such unnecessary humor. Years later the culture generally considers these jokes at the expense of blacks as offensive and thus the cartoon in not shown or cartoons like them have those moments edited out or replaced years later (many Tom & Jerry cartoons had Mammy Two-Shoes replaced by an Irish-accented white woman). Star Trek routinely trafficked in sexist attitudes, sexist comments and sometimes infantilized women. Today we see those comments as unacceptable but brushing them off as "of the time" is largely as ineffectual an excuse as one could make about race-jokes in the 1940s.
I fail to see a huge distinction here. They are different degrees of the same thing.
Oh this doesn't even merit arguing. That's some outright ignorant sexist generalization and wading in muck.
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As Surak himself once said some 2,000 years ago: "Wha...?!"
Saying that a woman, especially a given woman, has conflicting impulses is not false. It is a nuanced, insightful, and factual observation. A woman seeks power and control in life, but at the same time, a straight woman is biologically wired to be the receptive partner, which means she has some submissive fantasies. Those are conflicting impulses. Even the most ardent feminists, if they are hetero, may have submissive fantasies.
Nichelle Nichols, in real life, stood strong and took charge, pursued a bold career path-- and she is the same woman who admits she got her kicks hiding naked under Gene Roddenberry's desk and servicing him. During the work day. At risk of unspeakable humiliation. Those "conflicting impulses" drove a successful woman to be sexually submissive.
The real trouble now with "The Changeling" is that, to be fully compliant with today's dominant ideology, and thus safe from attack, we have to throw nuance out the window and pretend that everyone's mind and body are wired exactly the same. When referring to a protected class in 2019, anything less than wild praise puts one at risk of being called a monster. The "mainstream" is enforcing an unchecked, extreme ideology that forbids nuance and honest observations of humanity.
You may now call me a monster.
Eh?
Fact check: Roddenberry born in August, 1921, Nichols in December, 1932. So a difference of 11-12 years. GR would have been 45 on the day Star Trek debuted in the US and Nichols would have been 33.
Kinda doesn't dismiss the fact that hollywood back then and even up to this present day world and does harass women and co-hearse them into sex just so they can keep a job.
Didn't intend to dismiss anything other than the hyperbole that I bolded and responded to.
I do, however, find it dismissive of Nichols to assume that the only motivations she could possible have are career-oriented.
I believe according to Nichols, she actually liked Roddenberry. I think it was really just a matter of having an affair and having fun. It's revisionist history in this example to paint their affair as some kind of casting couch situation.
I'm surprised at so many people defending the nobility of the Nichols/Roddenberry "love affair" but I'm going to let it go for the moment.
I'm just going to reject the idea that Nichols personal behaviour should reflect on her character's behaviour. Uhura never seemed to be more illogical or emotional than any of the men in the crew.
I know she said she was frightened a couple of times but you know she probably was right to be frightened in the situation but perhaps wrong to say it out loud. In "The Tholian Web" when they thought Uhura was upset by the captain's apparent death and seeing things she was actually right.
One way Uhura had conflicting impulses was that she was both scientifically inclined and artistically inclined. Spock once commented on her being more qualified than anyone else when she was soldering circuits, which was part of her past work. Also, we see she is a singer with an artistic and free-minded attitude.
However, this should have been brought out as a complement to her. Maybe Nomad should have said something about a "dichotomy" that she possesses. It would be expected that this could unsettle Nomad and would still work in the story line and would have also advanced the tendency of the show to be forward looking. But, the writer(s) took a different direction which just means a good opportunity was lost.
However, this should have been brought out as a complement to her. Maybe Nomad should have said something about a "dichotomy" that she possesses. It would be expected that this could unsettle Nomad and would still work in the story line and would have also advanced the tendency of the show to be forward looking. But, the writer(s) took a different direction which just means a good opportunity was lost.
+1
"Of the time" is a terrible argument for rationalizing any transgression as basically forgiveable. It overgeneralizes public attitudes and forgets that many people realized the transgression was wrong. Racism is racism. Sexism is sexism. The time doesn't matter, and just because "everyone did it back then" doesn't make it excusable. For example, there was no excuse for Jefferson or Washington owning slaves, and they even knew it was wrong on every level. They just rationalized doing it. They basically convinced themselves they were "products of their time." The immorality of slavery is immutable, and their actions must be explained and held accountable in that context. "The times" is never an excuse, just as "I was only following orders" is never a defense for an immoral act.
So much of TV in the 1960s was sexist or held to cartoonish stereotypes of men and women and relationships. Luckily for most of those shows, few get watched over fifty years later. But there are cringe-worthy moments in plenty of those that do.
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