All the men are. That’s what a ST uniform is, not to mention the men are frequently topless or in their underwear. Troi’s looks and sex appeal are always over rated if you ask me but it’s also true that I think Sirtis is a dreadful person and that colours it for me.
Kirk had his shirt ripped off a few times in TOS, Spock was shirtless once, Picard and Riker got their shirts off a couple of times, then its not until ENT that male characters are finally exploited in similar ways to female ones, though again this is only a few instances whilst T'Pol struts around in catsuits the whole time, so the balance sheet is most definitely not even. When female characters are in uniform it is over a tighter jumpsuit whilst male characters are in two-pieces. It really is time for all that kinda crap to stop, or if they insist on it then make it equal, if they want women to look hot in tight uniforms to emphasis curves then put the men in the same ones.
The uniforms are equally tight and fitted and the only point you have is the contrast between two pieces and one. Furthermore if it’s equality you are pursuing you should be regarding any objectification which is apparently not the case. This is not a topic of equality but of ideology and a lopsided one at that.
Yeah no...sorry, but no. The men on Star Trek are definitely not objectified in the same way characters like Rand, Troi, Seven or T'Pol were with their miniskirts (sorry skorts) super-tight bodysuits (frequently with cleavage) and the "Starfleet Industrial Strength Brassier" (that ads inches) and the high-heels that create a posture that showed off their curves a lot better. The only time the uniforms were equally tight was in the first two seasons of TNG, after that the men had a somewhat loser two-piece combo (note some extras continued to wear a "updated" version of the Season 1-2 suits, to save money) Or maybe I have just missed all the seasons were they put Riker in a silly custom uniform nobody else wore just to prominently highlight his ass and (padded) bulge... Plus even if the physiques of the men are highlighted (which they never are in the same way as those of female characters I mentioned), they are shown that way to make them seem more powerful and strong. On the flip-side when a woman gets put in a cleavage-revealing catsuit it's not to show off how powerful she is, but it's done to to titillate the audience. That is the difference and why objectification is more often talked about in relation to female characters.
If anything this shows that equality is your last concern and that you have a fixed idea, specific to perceived titillation that you are conveying. The subjective and one sided view of objectification in men is to make them seem strong but in women to be objectified demonstrates that there is not an equal perspective in the least. I can’t help but note that this is simply a disparaging stereotype on the audience primarily and holds to no ethical value so what I’ll take from it is that you view Star Trek fans as pubescent oglers and female fans self conscious prudes. To your view I say, sorry no. Sorry not sorry of course.
It's kinda understandable for a counsellor to want to appear approachable / less formal - and we have to remember when this show was made. I'm watching 'Friends' at the moment and it's painful to see how skinny the women are. By the time of Enterprise though, it was just embarrassing - and that costume left nothing to the imagination. And those awful decontamination scenes, desperately unsexy and forced.
Sorry but if you are really trying to deny that Troi, Seven, T'Pol etc. were put in sexy, revealing/skinitght outfits to get horny teenagers to watch, then I dunno what to say. Show me one male trek character who pranced around dressed like Agent Gibson from Rooster Teeth (who himself is a deconstruction of this issue) for a season, let alone a whole show, and you might have a case, but there isn't one, so you don't. If they hadn't settled on making the new character in Voyager a Borg Babe (their words) instead of a guy (as originally planned) the character would have never been put into a reflective outfit so tight that it caused Jeri Ryan to pass out on set.
Look, I do understand the point you are trying to make. The problem is that there is an overlay with how you are subjectively seeing these characters and the fact they are women. I didn’t make it far enough into Voyager to make a comment on 7 of 9 so I’ll stick to Troi and T’Pol. Troi’s uniform was relatively tight but the difference between tight and fitted is slight (fitted being the uniforms on male characters). The only difference was cleavage and that’s well covered in an aspect of fashionable expression. Women often comment on the assertion that revealing clothing doesn’t mean that they’re appealing to the opposite sex and her costume was only slightly revealing at that. T’Pol didn’t have cleavage at all, just a form fitting all in one. The question here is why do you view this as sexual projection? There are underlying factors of course, that women exercise value of beauty and men of resources in evolutionary terms but that is barely perceptible in terms of the contrast of costumes between men and women. There are further degrees of fashionable presentation and character driven forces but all others are in the eye of the beholder. For instance: I find Sirtis unattractive and therefore interpreted her look as one aspiring to be relevant to the bridge via projected confidence and hence the thought of sex appeal never entered my mind. Still the terms of men in states of undress is ignored in this matter or classified as non-objective that weakens your argument further. The concept of objectifying these women for the purpose of catering to some cliche of ravenous pubescent boys is just absurd. Men and women are different and this has barely been addressed. My anticipation is that your ideology of feminism and false oppression is colouring your view but it is a view. Nothing you state has any solid basis except for the fact that your perception of sex appeal existing in Star Trek seems to offend you.
Well I guess I am a late-comer to this thread, but I always liked Deanna best in her uniform. She really rocked her science division outfit! I never really liked her civvies all that much.
I think I fell in love with her for a moment the first time I saw her in the blue dress. She just looked really beautiful. I think the skant looked better in All Good Things than Farpoint but it was also probably the way she held herself.
Okay, to the homey who's saying that men get objectified as much as women, the deal about women choosing to wear outfits like that is that the actors did not choose to wear outfits like. that. Star Trek has been under the thumb of male network executives, marketers and producers since day 1. Yes, Jeri Taylor and yes Kirsten Beyer. But the over-sexualized costumes are not the choice of women. They're the choice of men.
Not all of us. I love seeing ladies in long dresses, and uniforms. I think it is disrespectful to make them wear something they don't want to.
She did look great in the uniform but, at the same time, I'm a heterosexual male and can only say that the "bunny suit" or the green/blue dress was hard to resist.
OT: Seven of Nine looks a LOT better on Picard than she ever did on Voyager. Back on Topic, I know of no woman who would opt to wear this: To me, its sole purpose is to attract the 18-35yo male demographic.
It is disrespectful. As far as I know, all the Trek ‘babes’ hated their catsuits. Marina Sirtis has been vocal about how she loathed a number of Troi’s outfits, particularly the turquoise dress. A simple toilet break was the stuff of nightmares for her! It’s amazing to me how sexist Trek still was back in the 90’s with the way it displayed its female characters as sex objects.
Its only sexist if they treated the men differently. Exploitative on the other hand? Totally. For all that effort, and pain, the Berman shows were sexually void.
Hugh was a babe/hard body/hottie? I'll have rewatch that episode. I see to have really missed something.
Not to mention the fact that this is supposed to be professional attire, not a fashion statement. I'm still annoyed that they put even Kira in a more catsuit-like uniform after season 3 (or was it 2?), and so was the actress, btw. That was my reaction back when I first watched DS9, too. Totally agree with the #notallmen sentiment (yes, even back then), but unfortunately the wrong men were in charge of these things.
My comment wasn't about whether a male or a female character would have been "more interesting" (I find the statement that that gender is a big factor in how "interesting" a character can be highly problematic and kinda myopic, btw) I was just saying that the male movers and shakers of Star Trek at the time wouldn't have tried to sexualize a male Borg ex-Borg drone as much as they tried to sexualize Seven. A male Borg might have spent more time in their Borg clothing instead of changing into a skin tight, reflective suit with built-in high heels, but that's not a critique of Seven, that's a critique of the sexist show runners and was simply used to illustrate my point that Star Trek exploited and objectified many of his female characters, but not its male characters. I was not saying that I would have preferred a male Seven or that a male seven would have been written any better (Seven, in my eyes is the best written character on Voyager and one of my favorites in Trek) but it is true that she was only put in tight catsuits because she was a woman and older Star Trek exploited what they thought would be "sexy" to their perceived target audience.
If the clothing people wear on the show seems inappropriate or something that is trying to lure people to watch the show, lets also remember it's the 24th century, who knows what direction fashion will take in the future.