...the women extras had as many or more lines than the men. . . for me, personally, I don't want a ratio/quota of males to females, and I would rather not have one-note characters: "butch" "feminine" "kick-ass" . . .I want well-rounded characters, male and female, who are germane to a well-conceived plot. . .and if that means wives, mothers and girlfriends (as well as communications officers), then so be it.
I agree in principle but well-rounded characters all start as quotas on the drawing board. Seven of Nine became a woman on the drawing board when the decision was made to replace Kes instead of Harry Kim.
I agree that the background was reasonably balanced with a few oddities. The medical staff (as usual) are well-balanced but the security staff (as usual) are not.
However, we have Pike, the Starfleet Admiral, the Vulcan Science Acadamy Master, Spock's tormentors, Nero, his first officer, Robeau and his senior bridge crew (two were women, most were men), Cupcake, Olsen (chief engineer), Puri (chief medical officer - not seen but I included him to demonstrate that Pike's department heads also seem to be men), and Keenser. These are characters that interact in the foreground and they're all male. I'm not seeing any well-rounded women to balance them out or anything germane to suggest why the non-canon characters could not have been women, one-note or not.
Quotas may be annoying but what do you suggest instead? The prejudiced status quo? That seems to be the antithesis of Start Trek!
Realistically the fourth tier characters have to be one-note characters in a two hour movie and quotas are a really quick, simple, efficient way to achieve a balance that has never yet been achieved.
But isn't Kirk, who is also in his underwear, also a sex-object in that scene? There is your balance. . .Uhura is in her room, doing what most women do when they get home, ie. take off uncomfortable clothes. . . she doesn't cower and cover up when she discovers nearly naked Kirk under the bed, and isn't coy and showing off her body, she takes charge and kicks Kirk's ass out of her room. And exactly how is Uhura demanding to be on the Enterprise and listing her qualifications making her a sex object? At that point in the film, we didn't know that they had any sort of relationship. . . and how is her comforting Spock in the Turbolift making her a sex object? Her actions are not eroticized, it's about offering support. . just like when Kirk's name isn't called and McCoy offers him support and sneaks him aboard. . . as a matter of fact, all of McCoy and Uhura's scenes parallel each other. . . Uhura's character has been promoted to the same level as McCoy's. . .it really is the Big Four now. . .
So all Uhura was to you was a girlfriend (even though she saved the ship, and contributed as much as anyone else on the Big 7). . . that's all you got out of her character? That's YOUR problem, not a problem with the script or characterization. . .and as I said, there were other females in the background who had lines and jobs and wore pants.
Hang on Kirk in underwear. Uhura and Gaila in underwear. Isn't that 1:2? Is that the definition of balance?
I do like Uhura's expanded role. She is very important to the dynamic of the plot in a way that she never was in TOS. She did well in the movie and her comforting Spock in the turbolift was a great scene. However, juxtapose that with the horrifically inappropriate snogging on the transporter pad and I start to have doubts. Some view her using her influence on Spock as using their relationship against him - I view it as demonstrating how she could use logic against him - it's a nice touch that balances out the turbolift scene later.
I am anxious to avoid hailing frequencies open and then nothing but the relationship stuff. For the record, I don't expect that is what they will do; I agree she is now part of the Big Four (taking up the space vacated by Rand that was never really filled). However, I'm not fan of tokenism either. Princess Leia may be a fabulous heroine (who wasn't butch and still functioned as a love interest) but nobody could ever suggest that the Star Wars saga wasn't sexist. So I don't think Uhura should be the only woman to be treated as more than eye candy.
Actually Padme is a good example of what poor, sexist writing can do to a decent character. She was fantastic in the first film, shoehorned into an action heroine role that didn't suit her in the second film (keeping her bodyguard as (gasp) a second female lead would have worked better), and she was useless in the third film, tottering around in a helpless state of concerned pregnancy for almost the entire movie. It can happen if the relationship stuff dominates too much and Padme was a much more interesting character than Anakin forced (no pun) to take second place to his witless gurning for the sake of the plot.
All I can say is your assumptions are just that, assumptions. . . stop presenting them as facts. . .there are people who do not share them. . .Star Trek is supposed to be about the human condition . . .and part of the human condition is being married and having kids and being in relationships. . . something that Star Trek has ignore for far too long. . .and to portray that, women have to be wives and mothers and girlfriends (and men have to be husbands and fathers and boyfriends). . . so maybe instead of looking at being a wife and having kids as limiting, look at if as something unexplored in Star Trek. . .
Hey, I did acknowledge that they are assumptions! I also acknowledge that assumptions can be wrong. I assumed that they would update the franchise to 21st century ideals of equality for the first movie!
Ok the skirts are so iconic they had to stay but other than that I assumed that balancing the sexes was so simple it would be a no brainer. Instead we ended up with a worse ratio than TOS.
So I suppose I now consider this to be lobbying.
Votes for women!! Votes for small green aliens from Alpha Centauri! Er or maybe... Phasers for women!
I'm in favour of a mixture of male and female characters. Some can be feminine, some can be butch, some can be kick-ass, some can be sexless. I raise my concerns about the tendency to have too narrow a selection of women in the supporting cast beyond the Big 7.
