| TV-Commentary - Star Trek Classic |
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Women portrayed as dummies by classic Trek?
It would be wrong, however, to say that Classic Trek simply portrayed women as one-dimensional fragile and easily frightened creatures. Classic Trek also portrayed them as dummies, too.
While Uhura and Nurse Chapel were never portrayed as being especially dense, neither did they ever come up with the solution to a single problem. And furthermore, a large percentage of the alien women Kirk met were first class dummies.
A classic example of this was the episode "Spock's Brain" where a race of women who lived underground needed Spock's Brain to run their complex. Why? Because the women, clad in tight outfits, short skirts, and tall leather boots (a Classic Trek trademark), were grade A morons. When Kirk tries to interrogate one of them, McCoy stops him, saying effectively, "Jim! This one has the mind of a child!" The women only know what has to be done from a "teacher" a mechanical device (presumably designed by men) that for short periods of time gives them the knowledge to do what has to be done. But the real work has to be done by the controlling brain, not coincidentally in this case a man's, Mr. Spock.
Another classic episode which illustrated this point was the "Gamsters of Triskellion", where Kirk, enslaved by the superintelligent multicolored sponge creates that live miles under the earth, finds himself mated to Shana, a large breasted yellow haired alien wench clad in a bulbous tin foil outfit. Kirk easily fools the dimwitted Shana in one of several attempts to escape, but the telling point occurs when Kirk, running high in seduction mode, calls her pretty. And Shana goes, "What is pret-ty?", sounding just a half step above a mentally disabled person. Now, granted, there were male slaves in this episode too, but Shana got most of the spotlight, and this was only one of many episodes where women were portrayed as dummies.
What Star Trek is saying here is that women are, by and large, less intelligent than men. There's no way around it. There were some episodes with smart women in them (such as the Romulan commander in "The Enterprise Incident"), but many more have been bubbleheads like Shana in "Gamsters", Kara in "Spock's Brain", Teri Garr in "Assignment: Earth", Droxine in "The Cloudminers", Miramonee in "The Paradise Syndrome", and others.
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Spock
posts on 4/30/2008 6:26:42 PM
If you want to blame someone, blame the television networks of the 60s, not Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry tried to have a strong female lead in his first pilot, but the networks shot down that idea. Next time you do some research, try digging a bit deeper.
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posts on 7/18/2006 5:04:48 PM
I agree with you on some of the women being portrayed as dummies; but, they were all so very beautiful to watch. How about the butt-head shaped women in the cage. I don't think they were really that dumb, but hell, they were creepy.
Daniel
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Erika
posts on 10/7/2005 11:29:16 AM
The 60's also had Samantha, a witch with great powers, subserviant to her socially synchophantic yet domesticly domineering duffus of a huband. And told us it was the norm.
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bif
posts on 10/6/2005 7:10:01 PM
In "Spock's Brain," there is a scene where Kirk encounters the feamle inhabitants of the planet, and asks to be taken to their leader. They say there is no one but them. Kirk replies something like, no, really, where are the leaders.
And the Romulan commander was incredibly stupid.
Teri Garr was the smartest female in the series, and she acted like a dingbat. This is consistent with the general approach of the 50s and 60s. Women are only allowed to be strong if they are also willingly subservient (think Samantha Stevens).
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Anonymous
posts on 10/6/2005 5:09:22 PM
Yeah I'm getting dreamy about it cos ur talking about it!
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Sawyer
posts on 10/4/2005 6:53:22 PM
Women were sterotypically "fluff"
in the 60's for the benefit of the white, middle-class males who predominated as the desired TV demographics.
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The commentator junkwalker
posts on 5/21/2005 5:40:55 PM
yes, sad as it is the women of trek are made to look like dingbats,(sorry edith).think about it though, they (the networks) let him get by with a black female com officer, an asian helmsman, a russian navigator, a scotsman for an engineer,and a dr. from georgia. that was pushin it for the 60's
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Morbius
posts on 5/21/2005 12:52:40 PM
"Gamesters" was actually written by Margret Armen, so having a woman write the dumbest blond character on a TOS episode might seem ironic. However, it is Kirk who is the real idiot. He is presented with a gorgeous babe who mistakes "love" for "mating"... and he tries to correct her!
Maybe they gave up trying to get an intelligent female aboard the Enterprise after the studio nixed the character of first officer "Number One" of the pilot episode, played by Majel Barrett. She was actually the prototype for Spock, but look how far she lasted.
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