A Star Trek thing is up! At Comment Is Free! It is by me! In it, we explore important questions, such as: will chicks be able to talk, in the future? Who does a girl have to screw to get a job on the Enterprise? (The answer will... well, it will not really surprise you.) And: what is with the Vulcans' recently discovered fondness for marrying seven-year-olds who may or may not have been involved with Reality Bites?
Also, there is an amazing headline, which I did not write myself, but which I could look at all day long. I love it so much, you guys.*
*I was rooting for "Pigs in Space," originally: however, this is ten times sillier and therefore better.
Also, there is an amazing headline, which I did not write myself, but which I could look at all day long. I love it so much, you guys.*
Oh. And the photo caption, too. Click on it! Click on it now, now, now!Star Trek: warp factor sex
*I was rooting for "Pigs in Space," originally: however, this is ten times sillier and therefore better.
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Good to know that Google Ads is helping your case along...
ReplyDelete"Star Trek Uhura Pics
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oy
Good god, the comment thread needs a warning label:
ReplyDelete"Warning: May be infested with p.stupidia. Read at own risk to forehead and desk."
Your post - great. Congratulations! The comments, unsurprisingly - not so much. Should I say congratulations that you've managed to annoy so many Nice SF Guys (TM)?
ReplyDeleteGreat post. A friend of mine (who's a huge trekkie) went to see it on Saturday and when I asked her how it was she said "Meh. It wasn't all terrible." I think I understand her lack of enthusiasm now.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I loved your shout-out to LeGuin. She's my favorite author.
You are the only other person I've ever read who has also gone "fuh?" at the whole birth control/woman-control thing in That Hideous Strength. That was the beginning of the end of my CS Lewis-liking. Also LeGuin does need many more shout outs.
ReplyDeleteFor my very first comment on Tiger Beatdown, before I gush about how much I love you, I must express my shock and horror that in this fantastic article at Comment Is Free, the creator of Firefly is referred to as "Josh Whedon." I can only assume this was an editing error on their part, because you, as a respectable science fiction and Firefly fan, could never call the amazing Joss Whedon "Josh." ...right?
ReplyDeleteThis is far from a substantive point, but thank you, Sady, for calling the Comic Book Guy "hyper-nerdy." I am so very, very tired of people misusing "über."
ReplyDeleteYou've really perfectly articulated what bothered me so much about the film. I enjoyed it, a lot, and thought it was a pretty well-done movie, but... seriously, what was radical in the 60s is the absolute bounds of what will be acceptable today? Really? Only women whose vaginas have been in contact with the Important Men will be allowed to speak! And racially, it was a little iffy-- I didn't see any POC except Uhura and Sulu, and maybe the Orion girl who is, um, green, which is... not the same.
ReplyDeleteIt felt like, actually, they would have preferred to whitewash (and, I guess, dudewash?) the universe even more, except they were constrained by canon. "Uhura has to be in the movie," they said, resigned, "but by god, that doesn't mean we have to like it!"
Plus, Kirk was one serious ass. Everyone else is on the Enterprise because they are brilliant and they worked hard, but he is there because he is Our Hero and he feels entitled. Maybe I should write my own post on the topic, rather than continuing to rant here!
Also, adding my voice to the LeGuin kudos: Left Hand of Darkness was the first sci fi novel I ever read, when I was 10 years old, and man, it was all downhill from there!
I've been reading so many glowing reviews of this movie and thinking "Huh? Did I miss something?" Yours (along with Roger Ebert's) is pretty much the only one that hit the nail on the head with what I didn't like about this film. And the rest of your blog looks not to shabby as well. Thanks for writing!
ReplyDelete'I am so very, very tired of people misusing "über."'
ReplyDeleteMyself, I'm tired of "uber" altogether - misused or properly-used.
I'd be more interested in an updated Star Trek if they'd updated something besides the actors. It's disappointing, alienating, and boring that they kept gender-relations in the retro-future vision of the 1960s.
So anyway, I saw a pic on IMDB of the new Uhuru in a pretty slick-looking jumpsuit.
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2987625216/tt0796366
Why couldn't they just let her wear that? They updated her hair, so why not her costume?
Also, Winona Ryder is only six years older than Zachary Quinto (new Spock). Playing his mother. I hope she only appears in flashbacks with little-kiddie-Spock, because I'd really hate to think of her having a baby at six years of age. That would be horrible.
Jebus, the comments over there! My god! My blood pressure skyrocketed after reading some of them, and I had to make myself stop. (I don't have high blood pressure!)
ReplyDeleteGreat review.
@Laura: Yeah, that was a typo or proofreading error. They happen! I do, indeed, know Joss Whedon's name.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Spock in charge, did you see the picture that decorated Maureen Dowd's column (which was its only redeeming value)?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/opinion/10dowd.html
Sage: Oh, God! I didn't read anything about the movie before I saw it, which was VERY HARD, so as not to copy anyone, and now:
ReplyDeletehttp://wonkette.com/408433/star-trek-movie-sparks-massive-nerd-war-on-political-internet
Well, I'll... read the available information next time. What can I say.
I was really irritated by some of the advertising.
ReplyDeleteThere are a few (adult) Spongebob fanatics in my home, plus one child, so Nickelodeon is on practically all the time, and they had some commercials for it, some especially for Nick, which had character profiles. One was for Uhura, which showcased her competence, (the speaking 3 Romulan dialects line), but had to include, that she looked good doing it.
I was like, Really Nickelodeon? We have to market sexuality to kids now(at least Nick hasn't been showing that atrocious Burger King commercial). And her competence and intelligence couldn't be highlighted without the obligatory objectification.
I had higher hopes for the movie, and I am still going to see it with my Mum, but I can't deny that I am disappointed that the movie didn't push the groundbreaking aspects of the crew, that made the first so amazing.
The comments! They burn!
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, I notice a theme that interests me... Several of the commenters say that you need to "get over yourself," that "it's not all about you," or some variation on the theme that a feminist critique is somehow narcissistic... I am interested in what they are trying to say, because I recently had a guy say a similar thing to me when I made a feminist critique of something he liked.
I'm beginning to smell an anti-feminist trope that I hadn't particularly noticed before. Theories?
I wasn't as horribly disappointed with Uhura as I thought I would be. And the movie was pretty sweet. And that Smart Girl hooks up with Smart Boy, rather than with ASSHOLE HERO is a definite plus in my book. The pairing is growing on me.
ReplyDeleteBut yes, HOW HOW HOW DID KIRK GET TO BE CAPTAIN? SERIOUSLY WTF. Fuck Hollywood and its obsession with Goldenboy Straight White Male Asshole Hero Types.
I remember having a moment where I thought the scene with ... uh, the two female non-mothers was actually going to be worthwhile. Yeah, we've got the Orion woman being sexy, but she seems to actually have a personality, so they were maybe sort of subverting how Star Trek was leering at green women as recently as 2005 (the end of Enterprise).
ReplyDeleteBut then we get to watch our hero watch a woman take off her clothes, without her knowledge. UGH.
I liked the movie, but that was such a low point.
I mean really, do you Have to be a 12 year old wannabe rapist boy to comment freely at Comment Is Free? Holy cow...
ReplyDeleteBut, Sady! Bromance! I'm an old lady yet have a penchant for skate dude vernacular - I'm lovin' it!
Thanks for all you do.
Shatner's Captain Kirk was always kind of a pig, but can you imagine the old Star Trek having him hiding under a bed and spying on another crew member undressing? I don't think it would ever have crossed their minds to do something like that. So the New Captain is a peeping tom, breast grabbing, horndog. That's Progress! Or, perhaps just an accurate mirror of today's Man.
ReplyDelete@Ashley: BRILLZ! I think I have to write an entire blog post about this, because it stood out to me, too.
ReplyDelete@Phio Gisttic & Ertchin: Yeah, that annoyed me too. I mean, I get that a lot of people's nostalgia for the old series was Kirk being a horndog, and the fact that its politics are so pre-feminist or anti-feminist as to be honestly laughable now - and, for the record, there's nothing wrong with folks sleeping around - but the pseudo-irony of appreciating the series' sexism has the potential to be a really grating part of the rebooted franchise. (I could get into "Casino Royale" here, and how the funny-ha-ha, played-for-laughs misogyny of, say, Connery's Bond was actually presented as ugly and gross and borderline sociopathic in the Daniel Craig reboot: like, you had Dame Judi Dench showing Bond the body of a woman he'd screwed/over and just being like, "I seriously believe you to be a fucked-up individual in ways I cannot accept; work on that," which, while still revolving around a dead lady, also didn't normalize it quite so much as the "oh, whoops, the lady I slept with is dead, again" tone of the original.) I kind of hope that Abrams can get beyond the whole, "Kirk! He's a frat boy! With a spaceship! HILARITY" thing next time around. Instead of, you know, playing it up for the fandudes.
Sady: you wrote (and implicitly asked):
ReplyDeleteI can't know how bold and challenging it felt to see a central, friendly Russian character on TV at the height of the cold war, or a central, friendly Asian character at the height of the Vietnam war ... I can't feel, on a visceral level, how many boundaries Nyota Uhura crossed simply by being there, on the bridge, let alone by kissing Kirk.They were *huge*. Just as shocking was having an *alien*, right there, with devilish ears, being one of the good guys.
Most/all of the later parts of the franchise (except DS9) never even came close to facing how in-your-face shockingly progressive ST:TOS was. By comparison, this movie is posivitely reactionary.
Abrams could have gotten some of the same shock effect by putting in, not just people of color or visible aliens, but Arabs, Pakistanis, Guatemalans. It has to be not just "all kinds of people" but "people the viewers reflexively assume will be the bad guys".
Another part of the original series that seems to have been completely lost is that it was anti-war. Not just "don't get into stupid wars", but "war in general is a bad idea".
Americans in the 60s were actively *afraid* of war in a way that most people don't seem to be today. A lot of it has got to be the Draft, which could strike anyone. Another part was the Bomb, which was really mo-fo SCARY in a way that the younger generation (and most Republicans) don't seem to get.
The world of the Original Series was post-nuclear war, post-social collapse. The world of Vulcan in TOS was even more so. Vulcans were pacifists not because they were too intellectual to be bothered with the dirty work, but because they had learned the hard way that war isn't worth it.
I don't think that lesson is even thinkable to most Americans, or at least most Hollywoodans, right now.
http://www.heroinecontent.net/archives/2009/05/star_trek.html
ReplyDeleteI talk about the same things. And it's not just the women that get the short end of the stick. Star Trek is still so white washed!!! I think JJ Abrams played it incredibly, and disappointingly safe, and that really is a crying shame.
The whole premise of Star Trek was to boldly go where no one has gone before. I think he failed miserably at that. So the parallel universe that was created, is going to be exactly the same one?? Does that mean the misogyny and racism are inevitable? If so, what the hell are we fighting for?
Now everyone has stopped reading these comments I can cowardly-confess the Josh Weedon misspelling thing was my fault. Sorry Sady.
ReplyDeleteSady, here's an alternative take worth reading:
ReplyDeletehttp://the-panopticon.blogspot.com/2009/05/do-gay-martians-have-right-to-marry.html
The thesis?
"I’ve been hearing for years that Star Trek, unlike a lot of other space epics, used futuristic situations at metaphors for contemporary issues. And so it is with this movie, which I interpret as a roman a clef exploration of the twinks vs. bears conflict within the gay community."
If being an escapist scifi fan is wrong, I don't want to be right.
ReplyDeleteThe first season of TNG wasn't great but at least it had equal opportunity miniskirt uniforms.