Why is Profit and Lace considered so bad?

[JirinPanthosa]

I don't think Quark's 'Female training' was sexist so much as incredibly badly written. They could have touched on the idea of 'For these big businessmen to listen to a smart woman she's forced to act demure and use sex appeal', but instead of making that comment they approach it with Some Like It Hot style 1950s slapstick.

It's true it makes sense that the female rights movement would take a long time to evolve, but I would argue this episode makes it seem like Ferenginar went from stone ages to complete gender equality overnight because one businessman met a clever female. This episode could have been saved by more satire, less slapstick and ending in a baby step rather than instant cultural conversion.

 

[GalaxyX]

This episode seems to be standard Ferengi fare, with the inclusion of a very flamboyant Ferengi cross-dressing scene.

I expected it to be atrocious considering everyone hates it. It wasn't amazing, but is was a decent watch.

So what is it that people hate about it?

I don't normally post in the DS9 forum but, I saw this and felt the need to respond.

First of all, I don't understand how this is a serious question, because it's pretty darn obvious why the episode is so bad considering it's pretty demeaning to not only women (Oh, look, they're all controlled by their emotions and hormones!) but to people with real gender-identity disorders.

And, for me, as someone who tends to get very nitpicky about stuff it opens a LOT of questions regarding surgical techniques in the 24c. We can probably assume off the bat Quark didn't have "everything" done if you get my drift, but one thing he does have done is has ears shrunken to fit the female look for his species.

Now, in all of the years of Trek by that point what do we know about Ferengi males and their ears?

Doesn't it strike you as very, very odd that Quark would be so willing to have his most sexually sensitive organs REMOVED/reduced in size? And then what are they replaced with when he goes back?

It's easy to think of this as being makeup on an actor, but Trek often forgot at times that these things are actual parts of a creature's body and in Quark's case his ears are a very sensitive and male-centric part of his body. Sure, he likely has genitals like most bipedal species in Trek seem to (since he seemed able to perform with females of other species) but we know his ears are where his big "g-spot" is, so to speak. And he just lets them get lopped off.

That one tiny problem in a huge problem of an episode that pretty much makes fun of people with gender identity disorders and reduces females to being "controlled by their hormones' given how Quark acts in most of the episode.

The episode is degrading on so many levels and this is coming from a straight man with no sexual identity issues.

Ok you've made some good points. But all of Trek post TNG has always shown Ferengi culture to be like this, so we're getting a stronger dose of it in this particular episode, but nothing that's not on par with the course.

As for the sex change, well I'll deal with that in a reply below.

This episode seems to be standard Ferengi fare, with the inclusion of a very flamboyant Ferengi cross-dressing scene.

I expected it to be atrocious considering everyone hates it. It wasn't amazing, but is was a decent watch.

So what is it that people hate about it?

Perhaps you found it decent because you were expecting it to be atrocious. So your expectations were low to begin with, conversely people can go into an episode/film with rave reviews and came away dissapointed.

Yes, I think that's what it was. The episode has always been trashed everywhere. I even thought about skipping it when it came time to watch it, but I thought I would see what all the fuss was about. Other than Quark's take on crossdressing, the rest seemed to be standard Ferengi antics.

It's true we constantly see people have cosmetic surgery. Bajorans altered to Cardassians, Cardassians altered into Bajorans, Trills and Bajorans altered to Humans, Humans altered into Klingons.

However it's unclear how 'Natural' their flesh remains when they are changed back to their original shape. After Second Skin how much of Kira's skin is natural flesh and how much is very well fitted plastic? It's different to mess with a Ferengi's ears. Asking a human to live with bits of plastic in his face is different from asking a Ferengi to live with fake ears.

Then again I guess if you can regrow a kidney you can regrow ears.

I have always HATED this concept in Star Trek. TNG started this shitty idea, and the rest of Trek followed suit.

In TNG and post TNG, it is ridiculously easy to have extensive major surgery to change your face and body to look like a completely different species, in what seems like minutes.

Many characters on TNG went thru what was basically facial reconstruction, to another species, and then back to their old selves, with zero blood, zero pain, and as fast as simply switching to a different clothing attire.

So within this context, the Ferengi sex chance seems to be something in the norm and not out of place. But in general, this has been one of Trek's worst ideas to date.

The first time I watched DS9 ages ago, my mind had shut off when I saw Dukat "surgically altered" to look Bajoran

You'd think that removing so many features of your face surgically and replacing them with others wouldn't be an excruciatingly painful procedure, but in Trek it can be done in a matter of minutes, like getting an oil change lol

 

[doctorfoto]

There's an episode of Voyager where Neelix is disguised as a Ferengi, and he at one point proves he's not by showing his ears are fake. Similarly Pel had fake lobes which could be attached and reattached.

But Quark as it was said would have to have had his ears removed and replaced with smaller ones, which astounds me that he would A) be willing to do it and B) that it would be so easy.

But apparently it is. In Homeward, Worf is required to wear a Boraalan disguise which requires him to have his ridges removed twice during the course of an episode. I was stunned when Picard orders him to go back down there and disguise himself again like it was no big deal and he was totally cool with it.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Since I mentioned the movie Some Like It Hot in a previous post I've been thinking about it more. The style of humor in Profit and Lace is EXACTLY the style of humor in Some Like It Hot. Only that movie was written in the 50s when it was normal, and it had much better comedic timing.