That's just Cogley's style.Considering his speech is a cobbled edit of multiple takes because apparently he had trouble with his lines, it's great. But his expression changes with every take.
Shouldn’t Areel Shaw have been disqualified?
- Thread starter FredH
- Start date
He's the guy Herb Solow hired to adapt and produce from the 1968 satirical novel by Francis Pollini. It's not like he invented it.
And Roddenberry was the second writer to take a stab at adapting the novel to film, just as Roger Vadim was the second director attached to the project. (I'd forgotten Solow was involved, though, if I ever knew it.)
But XCV330 has a point that Pretty Maids was very much a couple of horny middle-aged guys' interpretation of feminism and the Sexual Revolution, assuming it meant that hot young women were now freely sexually available and willing. It was based on a novel, yes (basically a hardcore porn novel that the movie was greatly toned down from), but it does pretty clearly reflect Roddenberry's sensibilities and attitudes, and Rock Hudson's character feels like an authorial self-insertion, which makes me suspect that Roddenberry was ambivalent about the morality of his own libertine tendencies. I think he tried to be feminist and inclusive, but his own habits, preconceptions, and character flaws got in the way.
As long as there's been feminism, there've been guys portraying themselves as feminists for a variety of good and bad reasons, including to get laid. You have to look at their actions. Herb Solow — not exactly a hostile witness to Roddenberry — reported that WNMHGB director Jimmy Goldstone overheard Gene say, "I'm hiring her [Andrea Dromm for Yeoman Smith] because I want to score with her." GR was 44; Dromm was 24. Serial philandering, power imbalances, and what we could now call grooming are all pretty hard to reconcile with feminism. Or more broadly, even just being a decent person.
Or who sincerely believe themselves to be feminists but don't quite get it, or fall short of their ideals. I think Roddenberry was in that category. A lot of prejudice persists because people don't even recognize that they have it. They think they're enlightened because they don't realize that some of their attitudes are discriminatory.
Roddenberry was scum. He knew what he was. He was married and cheating on his wife. We do know that.
I'm still a Star Trek fan, but I have no interest in defending Roddenberry.
Hard disagree. I think you are giving Roddenberry way too much credit.
Well, neither of us knew him, so we can't actually know. In such a case, I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt. If I assume the best about someone and they fall short, that's their failing. If I assume the worst and they don't deserve it, then the failing is mine. Giving other people the benefit of the doubt is about keeping our own ethics in order.
He's pretty uncharitable to Roddenberry throughout Inside Star Trek. I suspect there was a falling out at some point.
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