Is there a problem with Seven for young girls & women today?

This is very true, but there's an obvious flaw in making a strong case on the basis of it.

Thirty years had passed, thirty years in which the world had changed, feminism had supposedly happened and Star Trek had gone from a fairly bland sci fi action show with promise to a wordlwide cultural icon which purpoted to challenge social norms.

For all the good he did Gene Roddenberry had some fairly awful traits and whilst they were deemed acceptable (or at least could be overlooked) at the time things should have improved. Saying a 90s' era show is no worse in this regard than its' 60s era predecessor is really quite regressive if used as a defence (I know you weren't, btw, but many would).

This may be unfair but I would expect higher standards from VOY in this regard than TOS, not harkening back to it. Likewise I expect higher standards now from DSC.

That doesn't mean no sex, it doesn't mean no sexuality, it means not reducing a character and the performer playing them to eye candy to boost figures.

 

Wouldn't that be the nineties, though? Aren't we today supposed to let womenfolk dress (or body-modify, or talk and walk) just as they please, not forcing them into baggy trousers or anything?

It's a terrible message to pass to one's daughter, teaching that there are right and wrong ways for women to dress.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Wait just one freaking minute.

No scary stories?

Does that include "The Haunting of Deck 12?"

 

She didn't want to wear it, in fact she went along with it to keep the peace and "not make waves".

That's the opposite of empowerment and very much the problem people have with it, not to mention that she was made physically ill by it and required emergency oxygen on at least two occasions.

 

"Fairly bland"? TOS?

Heretic.

 

As opposed to TNG, which was gloriously bland.

 

Hmh? In-universe, the character herself chose to wear that thing. By telling assorted daughters that the character must not be seen wearing X or Y, assorted sexist pigs can then easily proceed to the step where they define when characters can and cannot spread their legs.

Desperate segues to backstage events will not detract from that sort of chauvinism, male or female. The one and only issue here, that is, on screen and in front of the eyes of the tender audience, is the character Seven of Nine and what she wears aboard the starship Voyager -not what Jeri Ryan might feel about her character or the costuming choices relating to that.

Timo Saloniemi

 

You really don't get these concepts of sexism and objectification do you?

You try, but somehow you get it entirely the wrong way round.

 

You seem to think that a child asking "Daddy, who's that black man on television saying he has a dream?" should be told "See, behind the scenes he's a callous rapist, which goes to show that black men shouldn't speak up and having dreams is bad for you".

There's nothing particularly progressive or helpful in going baa-baa about 1990s Hollywood policies when the subject matter is a positive fictional future and the potential for doing good quite considerable.

Timo Saloniemi

 

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 run astrometrics and provide T&A." But they're not wrong, they're just consuming television in a more sophisticated way than you. 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.

 

I agree with the OP. Seven and her skinny suit don't age well.

I love Seven as a character, she added a new dynamic to the show, she's a strong character and she doesn't rely on boobs, beauty, sex appeal... which makes that suit even worse because the intention of those who put Jeri Ryan into this suit was, of course, to appeal to a certain audience... like in your face obvious.

Back in the 90s I didn't care all that much - but when I rewatch VOY, the suit, the cut of the suit to just emphasize all her bits makes me cringe. And it's not about freedom of expression, or freedom of choice what you're wearing. The doctor just put her in that suit and she just kept wearing it (and the high heels that came with it) - whenever she could actually choose (holodeck episodes come to mind) she chose a more loosely fitting outfit.

 

...Which IMHO simply is an odd and wrong thing to do. Star Trek shows us a positive and hope-filled future, where nobody takes umbrage with Seven's choice of attire, and only the most hardened villains play any sort of a sex or gender card against her. This could be our future. Heck, it could be our present. But for some reason it has to be perverted into a lesson about forbidden forms of expression.

What does that lesson teach anyway? That forcing is wrong? No, only that forcing X is wrong, because X isn't accepted female attire or behavior. It teaches the victim to hate people who look like the Sevenized Jeri Ryan (or even people who look like Jeri Ryan without the pumped-up boobs and the high heels). It's a typical message of tolerance from the past couple of decades, one telling the victim to hate, hate, hate, because anything else would be encouraging the wrong thing.

Well, I won't hate the image portrayed in VOY. It's courageous and tolerant, rattling our expectations and promoting commentary, defying convention and then laughing at our expressions. Inside, Seven is a frightened little mouse of a girl, hurt and reeling. Showing her stooping and slouching in all grey and with timid hair and shy makeup would be the expected thing to do. Another thing was done instead. If a couple of sexists had fun doing so or a couple of producers got top dollar from sexists by doing so, so what? It would have happened anyway - but this once, it had very positive results.

Faking moral outrage over Hollywood being Hollywood is low. The cure there isn't having Hollywood be somehow better - it's having Hollywood stop be. We lose the empowering stories along with the porn and exploitation, then, but at least we can pretend that the way the world works isn't true any longer because a fantasy factory just stopped working that way. What a great way to change things, striking down fantasy!

Dunno. I'm just tired of this mock rage that unfortunately is no less rage for the mockery part. "But that woman looks different and scary!" is a great thing for a child to observe, and "Don't worry, it's not real!" and "Yeah, isn't that horrible!" are both incredibly damaging responses to that.

Timo Saloniemi

 

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.
And no where in my message did I mention that I condoned the action. I merely stated that the world revolves around sex. It sucks that in this day and age that a person cannot even state a fact or, if you prefer, an observation without someone feeling offended or outraged and getting chippy about it.

 

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.

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.

 

That you don't get to explain to people how they should think or feel or interpret fiction.

 

I won't deny that we need to think more deeply about decisions made in the presentation of women in media. However, we do end up coming to a no-win situation far too often. We know quite well the decisions made by Berman and Braga in the conceptualization of Seven of Nine and how she was styled. Yes, there was a seriously misogynist trope that they were following: the overly beautiful woman who needed a strong man to realize her sexuality. On the other hand, Ms. Ryan has said that she had not problem with how the character's costume sexualized her. What she had a problem with was the level of discomfort she endured to wear it. That's no different than the myriad of Star Trek characters who suffered through tortured clothing, extensive prosthetics, and masks to the point of forced calls every day. On the other hand, Ms. Ryan has said that she is proud of the character and the work she did on the series, and recommends them to both her children.

The trap is that we only consider how one group objectifies women, using them to tell women how they comport themselves. Is it really appropriate to say that the only reason women are sexualized in media is because men want them to be? Is that not limiting women's autonomy? Are not women who wear tight clothing in their daily lives expressing themselves?

Perhaps more importantly, what does it say about us if we spend all our energy debating how women dress, both in real life and in media? Personally, I don't want to become one of those old men who wag their fingers at young girls who wear short skirts and low necklines. It's not for me to objectify their bodies, either as a pervert or a prude.

 

Dude... really. Sometimes...

 

I gave it skant attention.

Too soon?

 

But you do?

A bit beside the point, though, when the whole thread is in the form of a direct query on how to think or feel. (Or then exactly on point there.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

I never liked Seven's outfits either, but I'm still at a loss as to how explaining them is supposedly such a minefield to explain to a child. This isn't like the time I asked my parents what rape meant.