lg: I'm a convicted Star Trek fan, going back way back. One reason I've
been able to stay with it all these years is that the series has been
able to play many roles: intro of sf into US living rooms in 60s &
beyond; raising *camp* to a fine art form; challenging social norms in
the future that were less open to challenge in the present (in our
living rooms/hollywood).
As a little brown girl let me tell you I can list on one hand any tv
shows that had people of color in them during the 60s -- and Star Trek
was one of them. As a budding femme-inist I was pretty grossed out on
occasion by the often ridiculous guest roles for women, but at least
there were alot of women and the regulars were just as efficient,
logical and level headed as their male counter parts.
As I -- and Star Trek -- matured, so did my critique. Any one ever
notice how on Next Generation the only Black stars were either not human
(Worf) or changed in some way (Geordie) so we didn't see just regular
old Black people's faces. Not dissimilar to someone's comment earlier
in this thread about Dax and Torres and Seven of Nine. Okay, so one of
my favorite shows still isn't perfect.
Some of my favorite segments have been those with strong social
criticism content -- remember STNG on the society that locked up it's
no-longer-needed soldiers? how about kirk and spock in the twenties
with the woman modeled after the founder of catholic worker house
(played by Joan Collins!!)? and then, yes, the gender-bending shows of
STNG and DS9 -- even if they were sometimes ridiculous and seemed to
"chicken out" as when Dr. Crusher could love her simbiont as different
men but not as a woman.
I agree with Janice that the high heel factor for Seven of Nine is about
incongruency with her practical nature in other matters. If she
discovers, through experimentation in this delayed adolescence, that she
is gay, great! I think ST has its share of homophobia, even when
"pushing the envelope". They certainly "femmed-up" Tasha Yar and Kira
when their strength, brains, and apparent androgeny made some of us
think (wish?) they were butch (and therefore -- another stereotype --
lesbian). Once Kira started wearing so much make-up and giggling more
she lost credibility with me.
Okay, I guess this was a rant. I've enjoyed the thread.
And for the record, even if Jadzia Dax's wet kiss on-screen was not
about being a lesbian, it was really important to me that my son, for
example, could see a positive IMAGE of two women kissing on tv. That,
in its way, was just as revolutionary as the IMAGE of a Black Lt. Uhura
was in the 60s.
luz
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:07:16 PDT