Trek's catsuit problem with female actresses

Well, people have their personal values and feel the need to assert them...loudly. It amazes me sometimes the outrage provoking things.

The horror.

 

Sometimes i think Star Trek survived for so long not because but despite of Berman!

 

Never bet against Fandom keeping Trek alive even in its worst of times.

 

Wow, long memory...grudge much? I don't even know who you are.....

 

I think you need to realize that female actors have been pressured into sexually objectifying costumes as a condition of employment by straight men since the dawn of Hollywood and that therefore having worn a catsuit on ENT or VOY or whatever does not mean that that actor actually wanted to be dressed like that or thought it was fine. Choices are limited when you're a jobbing actor trying to survive.

 

This. It always depended on who he had working for him. Even better if said people stood up to him or circumvented him.

Actually, there's another way Rick Berman and Gene Roddenberry were similar besides being perverts: They were both hindrances instead of help by the end.

 

IIRC wasn't it Grace Lee Whitney that wanted to wear a skirt in TOS and what why most women had to wear them in the series?

 

yeah, she took credit. Like Nichols, she was proud of her legs. I think she said they planned on having the women wear pants like in WNMHGB and The Cage. It’s in one of those books Eaglemoss/Hero Collector put out.

 

I'm fully aware of some of the abhorrant things that young female jobbing actors have historically been cajoled into doing in Hollywood, and the people who perpetrated such things on these women should have saw jail time, just like Weinstein, but is wearing a catsuit on set really the same as being told to wear a see through costume, or a costume that leaves no dignity?
Surely the mini skirts on TOS were a product of their time, had the show been made in the 70s, then there would have been no minis on display.
And by the same logic, catsuits are perhaps a product of the 80s onward on Trek.
I don't know and I'm not getting into this anymore, have a nice day.

 

One myth that should be dispelled is that Jeri Ryan suffocated because of the catsuit.

It was because of the full Borg costume collar.

She tweeted it herself

 

Why are you still using the horrifying word "female" after we've been told we should say "woman" instead? :O In fact, why aren't you saying "person?" Don't you know we're not supposed to assume or even acknowledge gender?

 

It was a different world back then. Miniskirts were considered feminist attire. And compared with what preceded them, i.e., clothing that was as concealing as possible (it wasn't that long ago that showing a bit of ankle was considered obscene), they were.

 

Since the state of Missouri's legislature just voted on what a very specific dress code for women, I don't think those days are over yet, everywhere.

I'm on the fence about 7's outfit, but generally think it was a bad idea. Other recovered borg were shown not to need to wear a skin-tight biosuit, so the argument doesn't hold up well.

Tpol's clothing never made any sense whatsoever, as no other Vulcan was ever shown to dress like that. Vulcans seem to like flowing robes, lots of tacky jewelry, and the bowl-cut. They've been shown to wear uniforms, including their own (carbon creek) and will fit in as necessary. She made no sense.

The miniskirt outfits don't bother me at all: we can only speculate what fashion sense would be like in two hundred years from now. We've been in a bit of a fashion rut since the 1800's, really. Once she was part of Starfleet, especially, she should have had the uniform. It seems as if anyone can have a skirted/long-tunic uniform variant if they want it, and most of the time, officers don't.

The most egregious starfleet uniform sin is the lack of hats.

 

"Into Darkness" gave their dress uniforms hats.



EDIT: here's the link https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/File:Alt_USS_Enterprise_crew,_2260.jpg

 

It's easy to cherrypick one or two perspectives to make it seem like the costumes were not a problem. Nichols and Whitney aside, the guest actors and day players could find the short skirts stressful, especially when not fitted well for them. Jeri Ryan herself seems to have complained about the sexiness of her outfits, only the fit (and she is on film, wearing the shiny blue outfit, complaining with nervous laughter that she could not eat ever). And when Nana Visitor worried when her costume changed in the fourth season, she feared that her character was being sidelined in favor of Worf more than anything else. Conversely, they had trouble developing a permanent group of Dabo girls because the actors refused to come back after the first day because of the costume.

Acting has always been feast or famine. The talent don't necessarily have time or luxury to always consider the implications of what is required of them and how they think it will affect their images and reputations. Thanks to cognitive dissonance, they are more likely to be invested in the idea they made the right choices at the time. A better outlook takes into account the long term impact that the costumes have had on audiences.

 

I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.

 

It's a skin-tight painted-on catsuit that shows off in great detail the shapes of the most intimate parts of their bodies and which also creates enormous pressure on those actors to maintain an extremely thin figure. So, yes, it is just as sexually objectifying as those other practices.

Not the same thing at all. The miniskirts on TOS were an example of an attempt at sexual liberation being co-opted by the male gaze to objectify women, but they started as an attempt to represent sexual agency and liberation against a culture that had previously tried to repress all expressions of women's sexuality. In no sense were catsuits a 1980s or 1990s act of sexual liberation -- the context was completely different. They were only ever about sexual objectification.

 

(I admit I didn't read all posts in this thread)

So what to do next? choose to not watch old Star Trek? ban old Star Trek so nobody watches it?

 

Catsuits were undeniably sexy, but also practical-- a lot easier to maintain than uniforms… What really looked inconsistent with being an active officer, was high heels.

I think the catsuits on Seven and T’Pol – two strong, brainy, daunting women characters –were supposed to make them appear less threatening to men….more feminine and approachable. Same with Kira to a lesser degree. But I dunno, maybe guys are actually more uncomfortable with the bimbo image than with the braininess.
At any rate, it seems that strategy pretty much ended after ENT.