• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Why was Mulgrew so polarizing?

How can person's voice be something that makes people like or dislike a person? Lol. How ridiculous is that? For real?
 
No worse than the shape of her shoulders or a psychotic inclination for rage.

Every little clue tells you how much your should adore or loath someone.
 
The other side of the coin is that if you set out to dislike someone, you can always find reasons even if those reasons are basically trivial.

Brit
 
I found her voice comforting and I like the strident Janeway more than soft Janeway. If you were a zillions lightyears from earth would you wish to follow someone you suspect wrestles with self doubt or someone who will own her decisions?

Maybe Janeway's greatest flaw was bad timing - when we're all being told to work toward consensus the one who says "I am your leader follow me - some of you will not make it back but most of you will" - well that's not so popular when times are good. Quite frankly she is looking more attractive me now in times like this.
 
I thought she was fine - she's hardly my favourite Captain, but that has nothing to do with the actress, and as such the occasional bursts of vehemence directed her way are extremely unfair.
Agreed on all counts.

To be honest I think so much debate is garnered around Mulgre and the Janeway character simply because she was a woman.
Big truth here. For all our grandstanding, there are some people that are still uncomfortable with strong, opinionated female leader (insert standard Hilary Clinton joke here... but seriously, I think that the situation is not really different). That's not to say that all people that dislike Janeway are sexist (I'm not a fan myself of how her character was inconsistently written), but there are some undercurrents of that in all the flake she gets.
 
I think my only problem with Mulgrew was that she may have had too much influence on the character. I believe she projected too much of her own beliefs and opinions of what she thought a career woman or officer should be onto the character. Now I guess I should allow some artistic freedom but I started seeing the character as Mulgrew and not Janeway.

That and the fact that when she moaned it drove me nuts, I always had to mute the TV...see Coda for example.

Her voice normally is fine and in some scenes down right sexy but Lord when she moaned it was like fingernails on a blackboard.
 
I loved her on the show. She was one of my favorites! I always thought...that would be the ship i want to be on! I posted another thread where i tell my story of meeting her. She really destroyed my like of the actress and even watching her now on the show is hard.
 
I have a feeling if they kept Genevieve Bujold, people would have liked Janeway even less.

Completely judging from what little we saw of her performance, I'm fairly sure that Janeway would've been known as the captain of inaction.
 
Most people I've talked to seem to either love her or think she was wrong for the role. What about her do you think causes these reactions?

I think it was more the character than the actor. Janeway was atrociously and inconsistantly written. She would go from 'She Kirk' to 'PMS Lady' to 'Mommy' to 'absolute fricking moron' depending on the whims of a scene. Mulgrew had given it what she could, but considering she's on record as not liking Star Trek or the character anymore, I think it's pretty telling that the problems didn't really lie with her acting.
 
My uncle who I used to watch TNG with, just hated Mulgrew and KJ. Said her voice was too mannish! Whatever. he was quite the sexist dork anyways. I liked her-and didn't agree with what he said.:rolleyes:
 
Most people I've talked to seem to either love her or think she was wrong for the role. What about her do you think causes these reactions?

considering she's on record as not liking Star Trek or the character anymore, I think it's pretty telling that the problems didn't really lie with her acting.


hmmm but she doesn't mind making money off the trek crowd at cons and such does she....please give me a break! These actors who say..."oh, I am so tired of that role etc...." that role made her famous...beyond any soap opera she did or bad Mrs Columbo....she should be damn glad she had that opportunity!
 
She seemed appreciative and gracious on the feature on Janeway on the season 1 DVD. Sorry you had a bad experience with her.
 
She seemed appreciative and gracious on the feature on Janeway on the season 1 DVD. Sorry you had a bad experience with her.

Yeah. I saw her at a Trek convention in Bonn, and of all the SF stars there, she was the one who sat at the signing desk and gave (free) autographs until every single one of the (literally) thousands of people there had one. I was impressed with the effort and consideration.
 
Well for me it took a few weeks to get used to her voice, but it was the writing for Janeway it was all over the place
 
I suspect, though I have no proof, that it isn't Mulgrew who has that polarizing effect so much as the Janeway character.

I think there's a great deal of truth in that. Of course, in a long-running series like VOY an actor inevitably shapes the character over the long run, but even so I (who am not always particularly generous when it comes to the subject of VOY) never had a problem with Mulgrew's performance so much as the things her character was made to do.

As far as the actress itself goes, I suspect that unfortunately her voice grated on some people, and the fact she isn't a conventionally attractive actress didn't help much either. My feeling has always been it's superficial issues such as these, together with the writing of Janeway's character, that have attracted the ire of those who dislike her.

Agreed

I have a feeling if they kept Genevieve Bujold, people would have liked Janeway even less.

I think Mulgrew was good in the role. My own theory: Strong women with strong voices tend to provoke strong reactions. I'm a Kate Mulgrew fan, though, from her days in Mrs. Columbo, to her villainous turn in Throw Momma From the Train as the ex-wife who was every man's nightmare.

Also, it didn't help that sometimes the writers made her seem like she was erratic by having her make wildly different decisions in similar situations.

My mother once remarked that she found Janeway to be like a female Captain Kirk, which was an interesting observation. Just once, I would've liked to see Janeway just punch someone out -- wish she could've belted Seska, and said, a la Kirk to Kang, "Here's a little something I owe you!"

Red Ranger
Check On Erratic, K. Janeway Champion of the World :guffaw:
 
Most people I've talked to seem to either love her or think she was wrong for the role. What about her do you think causes these reactions?

considering she's on record as not liking Star Trek or the character anymore, I think it's pretty telling that the problems didn't really lie with her acting.


hmmm but she doesn't mind making money off the trek crowd at cons and such does she....please give me a break! These actors who say..."oh, I am so tired of that role etc...." that role made her famous...beyond any soap opera she did or bad Mrs Columbo....she should be damn glad she had that opportunity!

Y'know, you can love the fans and hate the character. In my opinion, if you trudge through a character that you're sick and tired and the paycheck doesn't justify it anymore, but your motivation is to keep your fans happy and give them more moments to cherish and you see kids happy, then you're one heck of an actor. After all, it's the fans that matter the most to a franchise, not the actor's opinion about his work.

And if she's the only one that sits for hours on end signing every single autograph in the convention hall, that's further proof of dedication despite her personal feelings.

I keep using Wheaton as an example, hah... he's the very first guy who will bash the character of Wesley Crusher and the writing that made him such a horrible character. But he'll also be the first to praise his fellow castmates, be the first to sign autographs, be the first to entertain people with anecdotes free of charge. All around, a really nice guy who will nonetheless crap all over the role that made him famous.
 
She seemed appreciative and gracious on the feature on Janeway on the season 1 DVD. Sorry you had a bad experience with her.

Yeah. I saw her at a Trek convention in Bonn, and of all the SF stars there, she was the one who sat at the signing desk and gave (free) autographs until every single one of the (literally) thousands of people there had one. I was impressed with the effort and consideration.


WOW! I am amazed. Here in NYC she showed up 1 1/2 hrs late. When she walked in she kept her head down. She didn't even glance at the long line of fans that had waited all day for her. They were applauding and all she could muster was a stop at the booth where u had to BUY ur autograph tickets ($45.00) (and no it wasn't for any charity or anything) and ask how many did they sell. SHe sat down and started signing. She never once even looked up. The girl in front of me, who was about 24 yrs old, spent the day saying how Janeway really made her realize a woman could be powerful without being a"man" and made her want to be a teacher. SHe was so excited. When she got to the table, Mulgrew just looked down signed her picture and said "NEXT!". The girl tried to talk to her, but she was given a brush of Mulgrews hand as if to say....please move along. It was a very dissappointing day.
 
Maybe she had a migraine. Maybe she was having a bad day. Maybe any number of things that made it very unpleasant for her to be there that particular day had happened.

I know it's tempting to make assumptions based on seeing someone at one of these things, but you are almost certainly going to misjudge someone, and probably pretty badly, if you do. Someone who is perfectly charming will turn out to be a jerk in private life, and someone who is cool and aloof will turn out to be a wonderful person. And vice versa. That's the way it works. That's the way people work.

I've told the story before about my encounter with Douglas Adams - you can find it here if your interested (I'm near the bottom of the first page): http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=66044

He was considerably less than gracious, but I think it was because he was essentially a very shy man, and I also wondered if he had a cramp in his hand - it kind of looked like that to me. But maybe not - maybe he simply loathed being there that evening. I don't know. But the point is...you can't judge. At all. You might think you can, you might like to think that you have the necessary discernment, but you can't and you almost certainly don't. Not without more evidence than "She wasn't very friendly that day" or "My sister said she wasn't friendly the time she met her, either" or "Somebody on the Trek BBS met her and said she was wonderful."
 
Last edited:
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top