Misogyny and Racism in STU

[BBC 2 6pm]

Uhura asks a crewman to fix her door in the very first aired episode that she was in. It may not be a heavy command decision or anything and she frames it as a polite question, but she does give a white man a job to do that he is required to perform.

You're not wrong, but here's the dialogue:

UHURA (to crewmen) The door to my quarters still rattles when it opens. Would you stop by and see if you can do something about it? Thanks, Bobby. (Green changes into African crewman) Crewman, do I know you?
CREWMAN: In a way, ma'am. You were just thinking of someone like me. I'm guessing of course, but you do look a little lonely.
UHURA: I see. So naturally, when I'm lonely I think of you.
CREWMAN: Ina cuvanea mwanamke turee.
UHURA: Una kafeeri Hur. You're Swahili?
KIRK [OC]: Lieutenant Uhura to the Bridge. (the crewman begins to reach for her face) Lieutenant Uhura to the Bridge.
RAND: I'd better get this tray back. Bye, Beauregard.
SULU: Wait a minute, I'll walk along.
KIRK [OC]: Lieutenant Uhura, report to the Bridge.
UHURA: Lieutenant Uhura. On my way, sir.

I think that's borderline, because it's framed as a polite request (though you are right he has no real choice) rather than an order. Kirk's line is an order! But also it's about a 'domestic' matter rather than ship operations.

 

[somebuddyX]

What happened to OP? Did they hit the self-destruct in one day? Wow.
Anyway how about how the starship names are written in English instead of every other language on Earth. AND THE GALAXY. That's .... something? Oh wait, no, that's nothing. Sorry.

 

[Timewalker]

There's a moment in TOS where a robot scans the crews brains, and is all like "what's with this crazy mixed up one?". The response is something like, "oh that's just a woman..."

Someone on reddit recently pointed out that despite being a bridge officer, Uhura never gives an order to a white man (or any man, or any white person?) throughout the entirety of TOS, not sure about the movies.

She does in the TAS episode "The Lorelei Signal".

CHAPEL: Results of every scan run by the women science teams. If there is an answer, it's here.
COMPUTER: Computer on.
CHAPEL: Summation of medical, biological, astrophysical scans.
COMPUTER: Working. Probe directed at ship from planet surface is severely enervating to humanoid males. Exposure causes increasing weakness. Possibly to point of death.
UHURA: Lieutenant Uhura to Security Officer Davison.
DAVISON [OC]: Davison here.
UHURA: I want an all-woman security team on every transporter immediately. No one is to transport down to the planet unless it is on my order.
DAVISON [OC]: Aye, aye, Lieutenant.
CHAPEL: What are you doing?
UHURA: Taking command of this ship.

Later dialogue shows her informing Scotty that she's taking responsibility for running the ship. Scotty has no objection.

 

[BBC 2 6pm]

Yeah actually the reddit thread I'm thinking of devolved into an argument about whether TAS 'counts'. I'm inclined to think not, since it was so much more of a niche product.

 

[Rincewiend]

Alien races based on cultural stereotypes...
I know its older than Star Trek...

 

[Timewalker]

Yeah actually the reddit thread I'm thinking of devolved into an argument about whether TAS 'counts'. I'm inclined to think not, since it was so much more of a niche product.

I should think it does by some measure, since the bigotry Spock experienced on Vulcan in his youth (in "Yesteryear") was referred to in the nuTrek movies.

But in TOS, Uhura wasn't shy about standing up to Mirror-Sulu or disarming Mirror-Marlena when the men hesitated at doing so.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

(Hurriedly hides copy of Mudds women in the Code of honor BR box)........oh wait!! lol

 

[Pauln6]

I require a certain level of formality on the bridge. I'd appreciate it if everyone wore a skant.

Jellico played by Leslie Nielsen would have been awesome.

 

[1001001]

Jellico played by Leslie Nielsen would have been awesome.

"I want a four-shift rotation. And don't call me Shirley"

 

[Tosk]

"The bridge? What is it?"
"It's the room on top of the saucer where the captain sits, but that's not important now."

 

[Pauln6]

Someone on reddit recently pointed out that despite being a bridge officer, Uhura never gives an order to a white man (or any man, or any white person?) throughout the entirety of TOS, not sure about the movies.

I think it's more accurate to say you don't HEAR her giving an order. In City on the Edge of Forever, she's the only member of the search team with a rank stripe so she is actually in charge of a security team of white guys. I think that scene was deliciously subversive for its time. It was an adjustment to the original script where Rand (a senior petty officer) was left in charge of a security team - presumably made up of crewmen.

You're not wrong, but here's the dialogue:

UHURA (to crewmen) The door to my quarters still rattles when it opens. Would you stop by and see if you can do something about it? Thanks, Bobby. (Green changes into African crewman) Crewman, do I know you?
CREWMAN: In a way, ma'am. You were just thinking of someone like me. I'm guessing of course, but you do look a little lonely.
UHURA: I see. So naturally, when I'm lonely I think of you.
CREWMAN: Ina cuvanea mwanamke turee.
UHURA: Una kafeeri Hur. You're Swahili?
KIRK [OC]: Lieutenant Uhura to the Bridge. (the crewman begins to reach for her face) Lieutenant Uhura to the Bridge.
RAND: I'd better get this tray back. Bye, Beauregard.
SULU: Wait a minute, I'll walk along.
KIRK [OC]: Lieutenant Uhura, report to the Bridge.
UHURA: Lieutenant Uhura. On my way, sir.

I think that's borderline, because it's framed as a polite request (though you are right he has no real choice) rather than an order. Kirk's line is an order! But also it's about a 'domestic' matter rather than ship operations.

Uhura flirts with Spock. She then asks a crewman to stop by at her quarters and fix her rattling doors. The telepathic alien understood that she was lonely. Thinking about it, that crewman was going to be using every tool in his toolkit to fix that rattle. I think the exchange was very tongue in cheek to sneak in some smut.

Trek suffered from a mild form Smurfette syndrome for many years with a couple of high profile female characters and then largely male characters unless they had a romantic plot in mind and it isn't a surprise to see Enterprise so far behind in the 'Bechdel test. I have no idea why they thought two women in the main cast was anywhere near enough.

I recall watching an episode of TNG, Galaxy's Child (with Leah Brahms) with my grandmother. After the episode, she said she didn't really like programs that were all about black people. I thought back to the episode and it was a Geordi focus that also featured Worf, Guinan, April Grace as transporter chief, and Lanei Chapman as helmsman. I hadn't noticed and I felt quite proud of Trek for getting me to the point where I just accept the characters as presented without even thinking about their ethnicity. It can work both ways though if they just have one token character. There have certainly not been many Asian, South Asian, or Arab characters.

Aliens as racial stereotypes is more problematic since almost all aliens were portrayed as thumbnail monocultures. I think if you smoosh together all the top tier aliens from Trek, Babylon 5, and Farscape, you end up with a broad variation of alien races. Each show on its own struggles a bit with diversity.

 

[dswynne1]

First, the so-called Bechdel Test is a tool used to guilt-trip producers and editors into an ideological "box". I have NEVER been a fan of academic claptrap designed to stifle "free speech", particularly when it comes to creativity. If a story is worthy of consideration, then it should be judged on its merits, rather than whether or not it meets its "quota".

Secondly, STAR TREK was designed, from its inception, as a "mirror" of real social issues, which is why I've been more of a fan of the TOS era, than anything else. You want example of sexism? "Elaan of Troyius". You want racism? "Let that Be Your Last Battlefield". Toxic masculinity? "Shore Leave". And that's just the tip of ice berg. So, the question for this topic is loaded, rather than nuanced, because the episodes presented in TOS (and others) were morality plays (modern Aesop Fables) that grew out of the theater circles of the 1950s, when the writers of those dramas immigrated into the medium of television (see: TWILIGHT ZONE, OUTER LIMITS, etc.). It may not have been the point of the writers, but the seeds were there to teach a lesson while entertaining an audience.

Finally, I think that today's crop of writers have more than met the mark having more women be up-front and center, starting with DISC. The lead? A woman. Half the principle cast are women in prominent roles. Most of the secondary cast members are women. And, the romantic tension amongst the characters tends to take a seat back, unless the story requires it to be front and center. So, I think in this case, the goals of inclusivity have been met in this iteration of 'Trek.

 

[Oddish]

Star Trek is pop culture, and as such had to keep an eye on ensuring a healthy bottom line. That includes not completely defying the society that it exists in. Since human society has been sexist for the last 30,000 years (longer if you don't just count homo sapiens), and has only really begun to seriously move away from it in the last century or so, it's not going to go down all at once. As was demonstrated when Number One was nixed, in the TOS pilot.

 

[Pauln6]

First, the so-called Bechdel Test is a tool used to guilt-trip producers and editors into an ideological "box". I have NEVER been a fan of academic claptrap designed to stifle "free speech", particularly when it comes to creativity. If a story is worthy of consideration, then it should be judged on its merits, rather than whether or not it meets its "quota".

Finally, I think that today's crop of writers have more than met the mark having more women be up-front and center, starting with DISC. The lead? A woman. Half the principle cast are women in prominent roles. Most of the secondary cast members are women. And, the romantic tension amongst the characters tends to take a seat back, unless the story requires it to be front and center. So, I think in this case, the goals of inclusivity have been met in this iteration of 'Trek.

The opening paragraphs from the article that you may not have read state:

"It’s not a test of whether or not a movie is feminist (Star Trek [2009] only passes because Uhura and her roommate Gaila talk about a science project while Kirk is hiding under their bed secretly watching Uhura change). But if a show or movie can’t even meet this extremely basic standard, it can indicate a lack of women characters and/or that the ones who are there might be tokenized, stereotyped, or one-dimensional."

Alleging that its purpose is to 'stifle "free speech"' is hyperbolic nonsense; it's just a litmus test. Any show or movie is free to be as sexist as it likes - Fifth Element is HUGELY sexist - and viewers are free to point that out. That is the basic concept of free speech. A failure to meet the Bechdel Test is just a simple way for people to point out obvious probable shortcomings in the writing of female characters. Why would a Star Trek writer deliberately WANT to write something sexist? The problem was more that the writers just weren't paying that much attention to the female characters and defaulted to largely sexist. TNG actually doesn't do badly on the Bechdel test but it was still extremely sexist. Troi's characterisation after season 1 is dire until, when around season 5, they scraped the bottom of the barrel and someone realised, hey, wait, this woman is a high-ranking officer, not just an armchair therapist. The Bechdel Test is an easy way to increase awareness, critical thinking if you like, to try and write consciously so that the women aren't so lame.

While I think Discovery is lacking in many respects, I will take my hat off and say that they finally cracked the issue of gender and ethnic representation. Caucasian people make up only 10% of the Earth's population so I would expect to see around half that number of Caucasian humans on screen after aliens are taken into account. Discovery might still be slightly over-budget but they have done better than any other show so far. When you have an equal number of men and women on screen, the female characters tend to be written better because the dialogue is spread around more evenly.

 

[Oddish]

Troi's characterisation after season 1 is dire until, when around season 5, they scraped the bottom of the barrel and someone realised, hey, wait, this woman is a high-ranking officer, not just an armchair therapist.

Having a dickweed captain order her to dress appropriately might have (at least partially) been the catalyst for that.

 

[at Quark's]

Having a dickweed captain order her to dress appropriately might have (at least partially) been the catalyst for that.

He should have been briefly visible in the wedding scene in Nemesis.

Riker: How did that sh@$@! come in? I'll have him thrown out!
Deanna: Calm down, Imzadi, I invited him.
Riker: YOU!? Why would you ever invite that d@%#$#!?
Deanna: Because I owe him. He finally got my career back on track by telling me to dress appropriately when on the bridge. People started to take me more seriously after that and it wasn't too long before I was a full commander.

 

[Pauln6]

Having a dickweed captain order her to dress appropriately might have (at least partially) been the catalyst for that.

I realise her rank was given in episode 1 but I forgot about that and assumed that she was Councillor Troi, a non-Starfleet ambassador and advisor until season 2. Taking her out of uniform was a sexist decision along the same lines as sticking Seven in a catsuit. Frustratingly, it worked, so when a large chunk of your audience is sexist men, you can't blame them for doing it, although it annoyed the hell out of Mulgrew and she blamed Ryan for it for a good while. For Troi it had the effect of spiralling her further away from the command structure. Seven was at least able to lean heavily into being ex-Borg so she was able to stay more relevant, and often central, to the storytelling.

 

[Oddish]

Nothing wrong with Troi wearing civilian attire while counseling, since a uniform with command rank might be seen as intimidating. Of course, the cleavage would be distracting in its own way.

 

[BBC 2 6pm]

Nothing wrong with Troi wearing civilian attire while counseling, since a uniform with command rank might be seen as intimidating. Of course, the cleavage would be distracting in its own way.

Her being both a therapist and having the captain's ear is a bit awkward anyway. You can imagine many people would be reluctant to be fully candid with her.

 

[somebuddyX]

Uhura definitely gives an order to one white guy. She tells Mr. Adventure to get in the closet. BOOOO. What a homophobe!