This is my first post here, so just a quick intro: I’m the daughter of the user known as madrone on this site, and I use British spelling. Hi.
I was born in 1988, and grew up in the liberal area of Santa Cruz, California. It never occurred to me that other places were any different. Though I read about the injustices of the past, I assumed that they had been defeated long ago. I believed that we had achieved the ideals of freedom and equality for all.
I ignored even the obvious things that were wrong. I was so convinced that people were all as enlightened as the ones I knew, and that the struggles were over, that I didn’t notice the warning signs telling me that this was not true. One of my blind spots was when I fell for the propaganda declaring modern feminists to be anti-male extremists who wanted supremacy and not equality. I reasoned that men and women must be equal, because that issue looked settled in the history books.
My mother tried to prepare me for life in the outside world, but I admit that I didn’t take her seriously. Her stories about marching against the school board on a weekly basis were interesting, but not important. Her warnings about rape, sexual harassment, and sex discrimination I dismissed as carried over from an unenlightened past.
Imagine, then, my shock when I first saw Star Trek. It shows some amusing ideas about scientific progress and contains some dated behaviour, but despite these failings it is progressive even by modern standards. I had believed that forty-year-old TV shows would be far behind modern media, but to my astonishment I saw the reverse.
In the original pilot for the series, the second-in-command on the starship was a woman known as Number One. The studio rejected her as too progressive, and the character was replaced by Mr. Spock, but this is nevertheless a clear sign of Gene Roddenberry’s efforts to break down cultural barriers.
This effort continues in later episodes. In the first season, for example, the character of Janice Rand plays a significant role. She is curvy, pretty, and wears a beehive on her head, but what struck me immediately about her was that she is a strong and independent character. She defines her boundaries and keeps them: coolly slapping a supernatural being who refuses to take “no” for an answer and fighting off a rape attempt by an evil clone of Captain Kirk. Also, despite the mutual attraction between Kirk and herself, she avoids being solely or primarily a romantic interest for him. She is a person first and a woman second.
When I first saw this, I admired Rand for her independence without actually being able to determine why I found her so remarkable. Later, though, when I discovered that her disappearance upset me, I realised what made her special: In my experience with modern media, I had never seen a young, attractive, female character who was equal in every way to the male characters.
There are strong female characters in modern films, but most ultimately exist for some man. Whether she saves the world or merely refuses to tolerate Mr. Generic Creep, the modern female character ends up surrendering her power to some nice-looking guy. A modern female lead must have a male.
This may be because, after the first strong, independent female characters were accepted, there was no apparent need to keep them single. Without the strong push for independence, romance and strength could co-exist. I am glad of this; however, I am troubled by my generation’s lack of single female role models. I worry that this gives girls the impression that they cannot be complete without boyfriends.
Watching more Trek now, I see a number of women as token love interests, but I also see a lot of positive things. I see a black woman playing a role that the studio wanted given to a white man. I see Dr. McCoy re-educating a woman on a backwards planet to believe that the child she’s pregnant with is as much hers as her husband’s. I see Captain Kirk using his sexual appeal for selfish reasons while still respecting the women involved. It’s mind-bogglingly alien.
Perhaps my view of the modern media is skewed because I don’t watch as much television or as many movies as others my age. If so, this entry may be overly pessimistic. If not… I wonder how many other kids think the way I did?
