opisrussianonmain:

macpye:

somefuckinmanswers:

cryptobotanical:

vocifersaurus:

queertilly:

nerdyfacts:

Nerdy Fact #1501: The producers of Star Trek included scenes of overt sexuality to deflect the focus of NBC’s Broadcast Standards Office censors from other controversial aspects in certain episodes, like blatant allegories of the Vietnam war and racism.

(Source.)

a little tasteful sideboob and no one will notice we’re telling the government to go fuck itself

Nichelle Nichols flashing some thigh to distract the censors from the five minute pro-choice monologue. 👌

Okay so, I fucking love Star Trek, I’m watching through the original series rn cuz it’s awesome and was ahead of it’s time for the 60’s, but I always kinda just roll my eyes at all the male gaze-y stuff because hey it was the 60’s and Star Trek has progressed since then and their most recent series, Discovery, has almost no male gaze-y shit and it’s so awesome and all the female characters wear awesome practical uniforms that are just as practical and unsexual as the male uniforms, unlike in the original series, pictured and discussed above, where all the female characters wear little mini dresses with their asses just about hanging out and pantyhose, while the male characters wear practical and unsexual uniforms. And that’s exactly what it was, male gaze-y shit, and I’m honestly disturbed that thousands of people in the notes are hailing objectifying women and exploiting their bodies to be able to get a message across for the male writers. There’s literally hundreds of other ways they could have distracted the Network besides objectifying and exploiting the show’s actresses, but that’s what they went with and look there’s thousands of people on Tumblr hailing and praising that choice as so progressive and positive, that was made by the *male* writers and producers, not the actresses. They could have used vulgar language, they could have had the male uniforms be speedo bottoms with their asses hanging out and visible dick outlines, but they went with sexually objectifying women.

And really, there was so much misogyny against the women in the show behind the scenes, do you think those male writers/producers/executives really gave a fuck about the women on the show who they were exploiting just to be able to say what they want? Take the accounts of Grace Lee Whitney, who played Kirk’s Yeoman but only for the first few episodes. She was sexually assaulted by one of the executives while she was on the show, developed disordered eating and took diet pills and amphetamines out of pressure from the executives to stay skinny and sexy for her roll (according to her autobiography
The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy) and the reason she was kicked off the show was a combination of because having two women on the show with with the same hair color was too much (never mind the cast having like a dozen dudes all with brunette hair) and also wanting Kirk to be a playboy with a new love interest every episode.  But yes please let’s talk about how great and progressive it was that they objectified and exploited the actresses on the show for their own gains.

I mean can we talk about how fucked up it is that everyone in the notes is quick to throw women under the bus by praising sexually objectifying women and exploiting women’s bodies so long as it’s “for a good cause?” The misogyny is real. I see so much of this in “progressive” spaces, throwing women under the bus and being cool with misogyny so long as it can help progress other causes.

Don’t get me wrong, I won’t hold problematic things about the show from the 60’s against the show because again, their modern uniforms are practical and unisex and not male gaze-y, and the show in the 60’s regardless of problematic aspects was still way ahead of it’s time. But let’s praise the original series for the parts of it that really were progressive.

Still, this is my biggest problem with mainstream Tumblr feminism is how it loves to hail and praise sexually objectifying women as progressive and positive. There’s a reason the 60’s original series sexually objectified women but the modern series coming out right now, Discovery, doesn’t, and that’s because sexually objectifying women actually isn’t progressive. The current series, discovery, even manages to portray women with *real* sexual agency who actively express desire and want instead of just being an object to be desired and wanted and manages to do it without objectifying them.

Reblogging for
“I see so much of this in “progressive” spaces, throwing women under the
bus and being cool with misogyny so long as it can help progress other
causes” cus that’s some true shit.

Nichelle Nichols did say that, at the time, they experienced the mini skirts differently from how they are perceived today; but they did have a lot of shit happen to them behind the scenes, unfortunately.

So did Grace Lee Whitney. Your point?

Because this isn’t just about what they wear, it’s about how they’re shot too. Not to mention the damn scripts. Because both were extremely male gazey, sexualized, not to mention hinting subtly and not so subtly at rape a lot of the time. 

We don’t need to go any further than Andrea in the picture above, but I could give you a list if you want. Should I make it alphabetically by episode title or chronological, and in the case of the latter would you prefer it in the chronological order of air dates, or stardates?

Because yes women can show a lot of skin and not be sexualized, both Wonder Woman and Black Panther shows that to great effect. It’s surprising to realize how much skin many of the women in those movies show exactly because it’s not sexualized. The shooting in TOS was, very much so. The reason why the person above describes the mini skirts the way they do is because that’s how TOS shows them to us. Not to mention the ton of other extremely skimpy costumes that women always wore. 

Was there ever a fully dressed woman on TOS? Gem, maybe. But then her point was that she was very naive and fluttery mentally in a non-sexual way. Funny how that came out in her costuming.

I assure you that even if they had chosen to dress the female cast in very little they could have made the shots in a non-sexualized way. Later cinematic efforts proves as much.

But then, all those shots were meant to be sexual. It was meant to be a distraction for the censors so they didn’t interfere with Gene’s and the script writers’ political messages.

But heralding that, using the sexualizing of women on screen – and I’d add sexualized violence against women – to get past the censors, as progressive is exactly what the commentators here are criticizing. That shit? That’s just bad writing

This is like “what’s wrong with leftist dudes” in a nutshell.