Kirk drift—misremembering a character…
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One can love TOS while also recognizing that certain of its episodes were highly misogynistic -- and also while recognizing that TOS's misogyny reflected ingrained cultural norms at the time of its production.
Oh for heaven's sake. TOS was written and aired in the 1960s, a time where there was still a good deal of misogyny.
One can't judge a show of 50 years ago by today's values. One can only be grateful that things have changed for the better.
For it's time, Trek was rather progressive. Many shows has females in what were then traditional roles - housewives, or pink collar professions. A woman on a Starship? Hell, we didn't even have a woman astronaut at the time!
So quit trying to explain away the 1960s writing. It was flawed. See the good in the show that was there, and just recognize that the bad was a product of its time.
I wince myself at the really chauvinistic stuff, but realize it was what it was.
One can't judge a show of 50 years ago by today's values. One can only be grateful that things have changed for the better.
For it's time, Trek was rather progressive. Many shows has females in what were then traditional roles - housewives, or pink collar professions. A woman on a Starship? Hell, we didn't even have a woman astronaut at the time!
So quit trying to explain away the 1960s writing. It was flawed. See the good in the show that was there, and just recognize that the bad was a product of its time.
I wince myself at the really chauvinistic stuff, but realize it was what it was.
Loving TOS does not mean being blind to it being a product of it's time and attitudes that are unsavory. A mature love is to see the flaws and enjoy it anyway, accepting for what it is.
TOS is still my favorite Trek, but that doesn't mean it didn't have problems. Makes me appreciate what it did well all the more.
Word for word, this is pretty much the way I look at it.
I think boiling Vina down to a Jezebel trope does her character a great disservice. She's far more complex than that and is one of the few female characters in TOS that is given any agency.
I never read the conversation with Boyce as implying Pike wanted to be a slave trader. It was Boyce reminding him of the kind of society he was thinking of joining. Pike was questioning his place within the civilised system and Vina was testing him, testing how far his fantasies went.
There are a lot of more blatant sexist tropes later in TOS. The poor yeomen are as dumb as rocks and constantly being victimised. It just got more subtle as time went on. Read an article about Gates McFadden complaining that Wesley was always turning to the men for advice. Then there's Troi whose advice is always rubbish so Picard can find his own path. Plenty of people love to complain that the women have got above their station whenever they use their own brains to work out a conclusion. On some level, some people still want those dumb yeomen in short skirts serving up coffee and adoration and not much else.
WRT all the ‘stop being so sensitive/you’re so easily offended’ comments…
We are all offended by different things. Some of us are extremely sensitive to percieved criticism of white males (mostly joking, dont hate me); some of us find the sexualisation of slavery distasteful.
Throwing about ‘you’re so sensitive/easily offended’ isn’t really constructive to good debate/conversation most of the time. Everyone has different things they find important or find trivial, no one is really above it all- so just calling people snowflakes or whatever doesn’t really mean anything. Especially when no one here is getting particularly emotional or anything, we’re all having a pretty reasonable conversation about a TV show.
We are all offended by different things. Some of us are extremely sensitive to percieved criticism of white males (mostly joking, dont hate me); some of us find the sexualisation of slavery distasteful.
Throwing about ‘you’re so sensitive/easily offended’ isn’t really constructive to good debate/conversation most of the time. Everyone has different things they find important or find trivial, no one is really above it all- so just calling people snowflakes or whatever doesn’t really mean anything. Especially when no one here is getting particularly emotional or anything, we’re all having a pretty reasonable conversation about a TV show.
... what agency? She spends the entire episode either serving the Talosians or trying to seduce Pike. In the end, she refuses to return to human society because she believes she is too ugly. There is no agency. Whatever complexity she has is purely the result of Susan Oliver's performance and nowhere to be found in the text.
And the fact that the episode depicted sexual slavery as a tantalizing thing and asks the audience to find it titillating is misogynist. It would be one thing is the episode framed the idea as repulsive rather than tempting; but the narrative asks us to feel tempted along with Pike.
All this is very true. There's a lot of misogyny running through ST.
It was said aloud in “The Menagerie”: the Talosians wanted Pike as breeding stock. To them he was little more than an animal they were trying to prod into mating. They therefore used whatever means they had at their disposal to make it happen. But Pike, despite temptation, doesn’t take the bait and doesn’t cooperate. He doesn’t give in to baser instincts.
Everything referenced and actually shown within the episode can be seen as an analogy of contemporary society’s temptations to lure Pike away from his better nature. With another man it might have worked, but Pike is meant to represent the guy male viewers are supposed to identify with and like to see themselves as—the guy who makes the same moral choice as Pike.
Vina as the green Orion slave girl is the most blatant depiction, and analogy, of pornography—the fantasy illusion of no-strings-attached sex. And society is full of these kind of depictions in varying forms for both men and women.
You can see sexism in TOS, but it’s reaching to charge it with misogyny, as was said way upthread. Hatred of women is not flagrantly displayed in TOS, unless you think the depiction of any form of human sexuality as an expression of sexism and even misogyny. Candidly thats a rather limited and uninformed view.
I’ve likely offended someone—so be it. You cannot have any sort of open and honest discussion with risking offence.
Everything referenced and actually shown within the episode can be seen as an analogy of contemporary society’s temptations to lure Pike away from his better nature. With another man it might have worked, but Pike is meant to represent the guy male viewers are supposed to identify with and like to see themselves as—the guy who makes the same moral choice as Pike.
Vina as the green Orion slave girl is the most blatant depiction, and analogy, of pornography—the fantasy illusion of no-strings-attached sex. And society is full of these kind of depictions in varying forms for both men and women.
You can see sexism in TOS, but it’s reaching to charge it with misogyny, as was said way upthread. Hatred of women is not flagrantly displayed in TOS, unless you think the depiction of any form of human sexuality as an expression of sexism and even misogyny. Candidly thats a rather limited and uninformed view.
I’ve likely offended someone—so be it. You cannot have any sort of open and honest discussion with risking offence.
Really, this thread should just be retitled "Thread Drift - Misremembering a Topic" at this point. Kirk has barely even been mentioned in passing in pages.
New Kirk Drift: Kirk is a gambler and a cheater. Throughout TOS, Kirk repetitively "gambles" his life, the life of his crew and his ship against outrageous odds...and wins! Kirk even loves to know how bad are the odds (ref. Errand of Mercy), and "cheating" is fully acceptable. Later in TWOK, it even become a plot point:
DAVID: He cheated!
KIRK: I changed the conditions of the test. I got a commendation for original thinking. ...I don't like to lose.
SAAVIK: Then you never faced that situation, ...faced death.
KIRK: I don't believe in a no-win scenario.
KIRK: I changed the conditions of the test. I got a commendation for original thinking. ...I don't like to lose.
SAAVIK: Then you never faced that situation, ...faced death.
KIRK: I don't believe in a no-win scenario.
I think this was an exaggeration of TOS Kirk. In TWOK it makes Kirk look cavalier about taking risks and thats not how he comes across in TOS. TOS Kirk took risks out of necessity. His choices in TOS were often certain death or take a calculated risk to escape or solve the problem.
TWOK is also bs on the point of Kirk not facing death. He had indeed faced death, numerous times—his own likely death and those of his friends. He also had to deal with the death of his mentor Captain Garrovick. So for someone to write those lines in TWOK displays ignorance of Kirk’s portrayal in TOS. TWOK is a poster child for basing Kirk’s portrayal largely on a caricature of him rather than a solid knowledge of the character.
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Apparently, in-universe and not alternate universe, something big affected the Federation in the years between TMP and TWOK to change the direction of the Federation and the characters to become more militarist (besides new production staff). My bet it's the Klingons.
It was the Organians. They stopped enforcing the treaty and took off for parts unknown.
Not sexual.
His desire to wring the neck of the Keeper is another base instinct he was able to work in to an advantage.
The question is whether he would actually do it or if the Keeper simply believed he would.
I have felt that way for a very long time and in my mind that is exactly the case. TWOK, to me, feels very much like a reboot/reset after TMP.
I'm pretty sure that the OP has said at several points in this thread that the topic is not limited to the character of Kirk; it's meant to be about character drift generally.
The article linked by @Warped9 in the thread-starting post, while using Kirk as the central example, is also not wholly focused on that character (nor entirely on TOS, or even on Star Trek).
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