Why were the other characters so hostile to Christine Chapel?
- Thread starter Christine
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Probably a case of Gene thinking ...I seem to recall she threatened him with the couch.
" ... hey great, I can use it for casting new actresses on the show."
Bad comparison as Roddenberry did not preach against greediness. Take Soros respectively Gates, are they hypocrites because they use a lot of the money they made via financial trickery respectively via a monopoly for charity?
I will neither throw the first stone nor put them on a pedestal because somebody who is a crook and a hero at the same time is most likely simply a human being.
Nah, Gene was trying to make a hit TV series with more substance than the average SF show. All that "changing the world" stuff came later on the convention curcuit.
Why not? The adulation was real!
A.V.I.A.F.
Captain
In a very real sense, GR did change the world. Whether he intended to or not is beside the point. His work surpassed him and became greater than him or any one person for that matter. Also, his work no longer belongs to him, it belongs to everyone who enjoys it and who wants to share the dream of a United Earth. No matter how amoral he might have been, there is purity and integrity in the message of the TOS whether intended or not.
Okay, let's all sing Kum Ba Yah
!
Okay, let's all sing Kum Ba Yah
!
"Don't try to be a great man. Just be a man, and let history make it's own judgments."
He never said, "You should all try to improve to be like me"; his message was more like we all should strive to improve together.
Gene Roddenberry in his own lifetime never bothered to follow his own message and lined his pockets with our hard earned income.
Hypocrite!
Hypocrite perhaps, but I don't mind his lining pockets with my cash as long as what he had to 'sell' was entertaining. He was a TV producer not a seer or guru (regardless of what some people, including himself at times, might have believed). I have a bigger problem when his product proved somewhat disappointing (TMP or first season TNG).
And I happily gave it to him. (In any case, I have had my investment returned tenfold in enjoyment, if not more.)
No complaints here. TMP is my favourite ST movie - and I loved Season One TNG, with only a few exceptions.
Do Gene Roddenberry's personal failings have any bearing on my enjoyment of or appreciation for Star Trek? No.
Do I believe anything Gene Roddenberry said about, well, anything? No.
My biggest problem with perception of Roddenberry, though, is that I think he had far less to do with the success of Star Trek than he is given credit for. Yes, he created the initial concept. Yes, he wrote "The Cage". He deserves credit for that. But there is considerable evidence that the majority of what made Trek successful is as a result of the work of other individuals from Gene L. Coon to Bob Justman to Harve Bennett to Nicholas Meyer to David Gerrold to D.C. Fontana to Michael Piller to (yes, even) Rick Berman.
Do I believe anything Gene Roddenberry said about, well, anything? No.
My biggest problem with perception of Roddenberry, though, is that I think he had far less to do with the success of Star Trek than he is given credit for. Yes, he created the initial concept. Yes, he wrote "The Cage". He deserves credit for that. But there is considerable evidence that the majority of what made Trek successful is as a result of the work of other individuals from Gene L. Coon to Bob Justman to Harve Bennett to Nicholas Meyer to David Gerrold to D.C. Fontana to Michael Piller to (yes, even) Rick Berman.
Can we please get back on topic?
In response to the initial question, none of the characters were ever portrayed as being hostile to Chapel. Quite the contrary. Spock chose her to house his soul when Sargon destroyed Kirk, McCoy told her about his "World is Hollow" disease before anyone else, and Spock even acknowledged her love and apologized that because of his biology he was not capable of returning it. Obviously, they all trusted her, valued her, and shared their most intimate secrets with her. And Kirk never hit on her; there's respect!
Still, it was a poorly written part. A better question is, why have the fans always been hostile to Chapel? That sentiment goes all the way back to the earliest days of fandom. The answer, again, is poor writing. Except for the teaser of "Amok Time" and "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" there was no reason for her character. Any day player could have been a sickbay nurse whenever a few lines were needed.
She's not in the series' bible. There is no organic, dramatic or practical reason for her to be a series regular -- which in fact she never was. (Yes, Chekov, Sulu, Uhura and Scotty are also not dynamic characters, but we at least need someone to point the ship and make it go.)
In response to the initial question, none of the characters were ever portrayed as being hostile to Chapel. Quite the contrary. Spock chose her to house his soul when Sargon destroyed Kirk, McCoy told her about his "World is Hollow" disease before anyone else, and Spock even acknowledged her love and apologized that because of his biology he was not capable of returning it. Obviously, they all trusted her, valued her, and shared their most intimate secrets with her. And Kirk never hit on her; there's respect!
Still, it was a poorly written part. A better question is, why have the fans always been hostile to Chapel? That sentiment goes all the way back to the earliest days of fandom. The answer, again, is poor writing. Except for the teaser of "Amok Time" and "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" there was no reason for her character. Any day player could have been a sickbay nurse whenever a few lines were needed.
She's not in the series' bible. There is no organic, dramatic or practical reason for her to be a series regular -- which in fact she never was. (Yes, Chekov, Sulu, Uhura and Scotty are also not dynamic characters, but we at least need someone to point the ship and make it go.)
If you read material like "The Making of the Trek Conventions" and "Star Trek Lives!" of the 70s, there are numerous mentions that fans were seemingly surprised that Majel Barrett was so funny, friendly and approachable, and not what they expected her to be. If they went in expecting dour Number One, clinical Chapel or Wife of the Executive Producer, they got a huge surprise - because Majel was more like wacky partygoer Mrs Troi.
OT, but I think this bears a response.
I think you're going too far in the opposite direction. Roddenberry was acknowledged by many colleague-accounts to be incredibly hands-on during the early part of the series, and was valued by people like Fontana and Coon for his ability to come up with simple solutions to vexing story problems (like his brainstorm to "reduce" the crew to little polyhedrons in order to make the Kelvan takeover believable and keep the budget down). Yeah, he had feet of clay, but he was the foundation that much of Trek was built on, so let's not diminish his contributions in our zeal to give credit to those perhaps under-recognized.
Back On-Topic: Good points, jayrath.
You seem to understand what I'm driving at, but to be clear: I meant the character, not the actress.
It's a rather common phenomenon that female fans can be hostile towards a female character who seemingly has designs on the heartthrob male lead. Some actresses have had very unpleasant encounters with the fans of their male co-stars.
You didn't get around enough.
Roddenberry started to develop his public persona (the "visionary" writer-producer valiantly battling against racist/moronic network executives, etc.) quite early, even before the first Star Trek convention. Read between the lines of this bit he wrote for The Making of Star Trek, published during the 1968 summer hiatus, for example:
--
It's really not hard to see why some fans were so hostile towards Chapel. She had the same crush on Spock as many of them did, and as such was a bit of an impediment to their fantasies.
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