Star Trek Into Darkness & The Bechdel Test
- Thread starter Shaka Zulu
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Yeah, applying the Bechdel test to any single film, particularly one whose characters had been selected in the 60s and whose
, is not a fair application of the test. They did put women in nearly half of the commanding positions, and made nearly half of the bridge crew women, so it is not like there was not any attempt to represent women fairly.
Now, if you insist it should have been a more central goal (which makes sense if you see Star Trek as a vehicle for progressive messages of fairness and equality), you could have made
, you could have made Keenser or Gatt's character female, or made the tactical officer from the Kobayashi Maru a black woman in 2009 (or the Kobayashi Maru supervisor).
But if you do, I'd like to point out something: In both films, with the exception of Gatt's character, the only non-main cast that ever spoke on the Enterprise bridge were women. I don't recall a bridge guy ever speaking. Even cupcake shut up once he went up there. The universe in which the film seemed pretty fair and equal to me.
And the film is centred around Kirk, who has a perception of the world that can be described as harmlessly sexist-ish, so you could claim it makes sense for the story to fold around his perception because he does not hang out with his female comrades as much and pays less attention to their actual accomplishments. Not a good excuse, but you can come up with something in-universe to explain the focus on the original crew. Two crew women arguing in the turbolift about the captain's attitude will do for me.
ETA: The turbolift thing is cheesy. Give a crew woman an assignment meant for Chekov after she went to complain to the captain for showing too much favouritism for the kid, even though she was as qualified as him for it, even better, give it to her after Chekov screws it up. Or something along that line, just not written by me.
main antagonist was actually born in a male-dominated world
Now, if you insist it should have been a more central goal (which makes sense if you see Star Trek as a vehicle for progressive messages of fairness and equality), you could have made
Carol's mum the bad admiral
But if you do, I'd like to point out something: In both films, with the exception of Gatt's character, the only non-main cast that ever spoke on the Enterprise bridge were women. I don't recall a bridge guy ever speaking. Even cupcake shut up once he went up there. The universe in which the film seemed pretty fair and equal to me.
And the film is centred around Kirk, who has a perception of the world that can be described as harmlessly sexist-ish, so you could claim it makes sense for the story to fold around his perception because he does not hang out with his female comrades as much and pays less attention to their actual accomplishments. Not a good excuse, but you can come up with something in-universe to explain the focus on the original crew. Two crew women arguing in the turbolift about the captain's attitude will do for me.
ETA: The turbolift thing is cheesy. Give a crew woman an assignment meant for Chekov after she went to complain to the captain for showing too much favouritism for the kid, even though she was as qualified as him for it, even better, give it to her after Chekov screws it up. Or something along that line, just not written by me.
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I'll agree with this for STID. The '09 movie at least made successful attempts at inclusion, and not just in terms of face time, but actually doing something important. Each character got something, and that was nice. They felt more like a "family" at the end of that film that during the entirety of STID to me, so I can definitely understand why TOS fans are happy.
I guess my issue is that I didn't really get to see any of that happen in this film. You could argue that Uhura being the only one to speak Klingon is one of the things that makes her indispensable, but when she speaks Klingon it really is all for not.
The same kind of goes for Carol's "big moment," to me. She's supposed to be the expert weapons specialist, but when she's trying to
deactivate the torpedo
I just come away with the over all opinion that the women weren't handled well in this film.
Yeah, applying the Bechdel test to any single film, particularly one whose characters had been selected in the 60s and whose, is not a fair application of the test. They did put women in nearly half of the commanding positions, and made nearly half of the bridge crew women, so it is not like there was not any attempt to represent women fairly.main antagonist was actually born in a male-dominated world
Now, if you insist it should have been a more central goal (which makes sense if you see Star Trek as a vehicle for progressive messages of fairness and equality), you could have made, you could have made Keenser or Gatt's character female, or made the tactical officer from the Kobayashi Maru a black woman in 2009 (or the Kobayashi Maru supervisor).Carol's mum the bad admiral
But if you do, I'd like to point out something: In both films, with the exception of Gatt's character, the only non-main cast that ever spoke on the Enterprise bridge were women. I don't recall a bridge guy ever speaking. Even cupcake shut up once he went up there. The universe in which the film seemed pretty fair and equal to me.
And the film is centred around Kirk, who has a perception of the world that can be described as harmlessly sexist-ish, so you could claim it makes sense for the story to fold around his perception because he does not hang out with his female comrades as much and pays less attention to their actual accomplishments. Not a good excuse, but you can come up with something in-universe to explain the focus on the original crew. Two crew women arguing in the turbolift about the captain's attitude will do for me.
ETA: The turbolift thing is cheesy. Give a crew woman an assignment meant for Chekov after she went to complain to the captain for showing too much favouritism for the kid, even though she was as qualified as him for it, even better, give it to her after Chekov screws it up. Or something along that line, just not written by me.
I do. And it wasn't just a word or two. There's a bald guy in a blue shirt standing at one of the stations that I can swear has a conversation with Spock or someone.
And Chekov. He's been through enough. I kind of felt bad for him in this movie.
What's he been through?
And YellowSubmarine your second spoiler suggestion was fantastic!
It would have been way more significant than anything else that you could do within the limitations of the film, and it would have fitted in more than wonderfully without violating any written or unwritten canon rule. The more I think about it, the more I like it.
It's really so simple. The problem was so easily solved..
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deQuFc3BP74[/yt]
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deQuFc3BP74[/yt]
Re-read the part you put in bold. "With the exception of GATT" is the bald blue shirted guy. No need for a contradictory statement in this case.
I guess my issue is that I didn't really get to see any of that happen in this film. You could argue that Uhura being the only one to speak Klingon is one of the things that makes her indispensable, but when she speaks Klingon it really is all for not.
The same kind of goes for Carol's "big moment," to me. She's supposed to be the expert weapons specialist, but when she's trying toit kind of seemed like she got it right out of luck just as much or more than skill and like it was played for comedic effect a little. So, it kind of fell flat for me.deactivate the torpedo
I just come away with the over all opinion that the women weren't handled well in this film.
Yeah, applying the Bechdel test to any single film, particularly one whose characters had been selected in the 60s and whose, is not a fair application of the test. They did put women in nearly half of the commanding positions, and made nearly half of the bridge crew women, so it is not like there was not any attempt to represent women fairly.main antagonist was actually born in a male-dominated world
Now, if you insist it should have been a more central goal (which makes sense if you see Star Trek as a vehicle for progressive messages of fairness and equality), you could have made, you could have made Keenser or Gatt's character female, or made the tactical officer from the Kobayashi Maru a black woman in 2009 (or the Kobayashi Maru supervisor).Carol's mum the bad admiral
But if you do, I'd like to point out something: In both films, with the exception of Gatt's character, the only non-main cast that ever spoke on the Enterprise bridge were women. I don't recall a bridge guy ever speaking. Even cupcake shut up once he went up there. The universe in which the film seemed pretty fair and equal to me.
And the film is centred around Kirk, who has a perception of the world that can be described as harmlessly sexist-ish, so you could claim it makes sense for the story to fold around his perception because he does not hang out with his female comrades as much and pays less attention to their actual accomplishments. Not a good excuse, but you can come up with something in-universe to explain the focus on the original crew. Two crew women arguing in the turbolift about the captain's attitude will do for me.
ETA: The turbolift thing is cheesy. Give a crew woman an assignment meant for Chekov after she went to complain to the captain for showing too much favouritism for the kid, even though she was as qualified as him for it, even better, give it to her after Chekov screws it up. Or something along that line, just not written by me.
I do. And it wasn't just a word or two. There's a bald guy in a blue shirt standing at one of the stations that I can swear has a conversation with Spock or someone.
And Chekov. He's been through enough. I kind of felt bad for him in this movie.
He's not talking to YellowSubmarine about the contradictory statement. He's talking to Spock/Uhura Fan, who was disagreeing with YellowSubmarine about there being no male non-main characters speaking on the bridge, because she saw a bald guy with a blue shirt speaking. Except that YellowSubmarine had already mentioned the Gatt character (who was the bald guy with blue shirt she was unknowingly referring to) as an exception to his remark about male non-main characters not speaking on the bridge.
Does that clear things up?
Thanks, and sorry to Ovation.
Okay, so here's another one. There's the guy who couldn't speak Romulan in the first film. So, there you go.
Who was replaced by Uhura because she could. Those misogynist writers! 
And I've said many times that I think the first movie was well-done. I commend them on what they did with that film and I have supported and defended it. This film, however, is a different story for me. I would never say that they are flat-out misogynists, because I don't think that's true. But, they rushed to make the script, and I think when that happened they fell back on some stereotypes for women that one can argue are programmed by traditional roles for women in action movies. Some of those traditions are rooted in sexist or misogynistic views. That is all.
Which stereotypes would that be?
I guess I simply don't notice all this mistreatment of women in movies. I grew up with strong women and continue to have strong women in my life to this day.
Here's the one that I had an issue with:
http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/04/22/female-stereotypes-persist-in-american-films/13047.html
For me, the Uhura I saw in the last film was very strong and capable, and she showed that. When she's entering her dorm room talking to her friend about the day that she had, it's about a transmission that she was able to intercept and translate. When a member of Pike's bridge crew wasn't able to perform, she was. All of that was her, and she didn't rely on anyone else for that. Yes, she was in a relationship, but that wasn't the main thing with the character in the 2009 film to me. The relationship was just a part of her life, and she was a successful woman who could stand up for herself when needed.
In STID, her abilities get overshadowed by the men in the film. She speaks Klingon, but nothing comes of it, and then there's a fight where she and her cohorts are saved by the "bad guy." That quickly moves on to a whole thing with him and Kirk, and to me, her "contribution" is easily forgotten.
Then, when she beams down to "help" Spock, who's fighting Khan, again, her contribution falls flat to me. She has to rely on her boyfriend to take the bad guy out because he's more than her phaser can handle.
I've seen where some people here have no issues with any of this and they think it all worked just fine. For me, it didn't.
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Getting to the topic of the thread, though, did we decide if STID passed or failed the Beschdel Test or no? I don't remember 2 women having much of any kind of conversation in the film, but I only saw it once.
He's talking to Spock/Uhura Fan, who was disagreeing with YellowSubmarine about there being no male non-main characters speaking on the bridge, because she saw a bald guy with a blue shirt speaking. Except that YellowSubmarine had already mentioned the Gatt character (who was the bald guy with blue shirt she was unknowingly referring to) as an exception to his remark about male non-main characters not speaking on the bridge.
Does that clear things up?
His character name is listed as "Science Officer 0718". Previously publicized as GATT5000 and GATT5000. Played by Joseph Gatt.
He's talking to Spock/Uhura Fan, who was disagreeing with YellowSubmarine about there being no male non-main characters speaking on the bridge, because she saw a bald guy with a blue shirt speaking. Except that YellowSubmarine had already mentioned the Gatt character (who was the bald guy with blue shirt she was unknowingly referring to) as an exception to his remark about male non-main characters not speaking on the bridge.
Does that clear things up?
His character name is listed as "Science Officer 0718". Previously publicized as GATT5000 and GATT5000. Played by Joseph Gatt.
This has been a clarification of the clarification of the clarification of the clarification. We've gone fractal.
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