Okay, so maybe Star Trek Enterprise is just continuing the tradition...

[sepdet]

Good heavens. I expect sexism in classic Trek, but rewatching TNG for the first time in nearly 20 years is a little startling.

I propose a new first-season TNG drinking game: take a shot every time one of the female cast members is in a scene referring to sex, their looks, optional clothing, or relationships.

Surprisingly, the episode introducing Lwaxana Troi passes the Bechdel Test, but you'd have passed out before you got to the qualifying conversation.

Ah well. It's Star Trek. With all its warts. I'm still a Trekkie, but ... sigh.

What's so sad is that Gene Roddenberry was trying to explode stereotypes. He really was!

Comments

[heavenscalyx]

The fact that Roddenberry was trying and was miles ahead of his time with what he was trying to do is what keeps me a Trekkie.

As affectionate as I feel toward Babylon 5, JMS wasn't trying at all, and his work is rife with sexism, racism, and homophobia. Similarly, Joss Whedon, though I think he honestly tried to do something feminist, failed in so many ways and fails MUCH more for me because Whedon has the resources to correct or address many of his issues if only he cared to do so (and he's much more interested in sharing the depths of his id with us than figuring out what's wrong with it) -- which Roddenberry didn't really have unless he went seriously digging into scary feminist and anti-racist literature of the 60s and 70s.

Roddenberry gets SO MUCH MORE of a pass from me than any of the current creators simply because he really WAS ahead of his time. His vision of utopia was lovely, if uneducated, and still appeals to me on a really visceral level.