Uhura/Chapel

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Pairing
Pairing: Uhura/Chapel
Alternative name(s): Chuhura
Gender category: Femslash
Fandom: Star Trek: The Original Series
Canonical?: No
Prevalence: Rare
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Uhura/Chapel is the femslash pairing of Uhura and Christine Chapel in Star Trek: The Original Series fandom.

The Kiss

Fans of this pairing sometimes half-jokingly say that them kissing in the episode What Are Little Girls Made Of was the "first interracial kiss in the TV history" rather than Kirk/Uhura kiss in Plato's Stepchildren.

David Gerrold once referred to this kiss in the same light, and Geoff Allshorn expanded upon this idea by deconstructing this kiss far more favourably (and in greater historical/contextual context) than the kiss from Plato's Stepchildren.

History

Kismet by Dani Morin in Obsc'zine #2 is a story some fans consider one of the very earliest examples of femslash in a media zine. In "Kismet", Uhura and Chapel, lovers, speculate on the gossip that Kirk and Spock are, too. Obsc'zine #2 was published in August 1977.

Another early Uhura/Chapel story is A Time Out Of Fragment by Paula Smith, a short non-explicit parody of the famous A Fragment Out of Time. It describes Chapel waiting for a mysterious lover and ends with the lines: "The door glided open; Christine's heart sped. She could never mistake that body; it was her love. The slender form approached as Christine reached out for the dusky hands and said lovingly, 'Uhura.'" It was published in Warped Space #20 in October 1976.

Fan Comments Regarding the Uphill Battle

1999

I did toy with the idea of writing something about a really odd couple, like Chapel/Uhura, in the hope that somebody would say, "well, nice try, kid, at least you show some IDIC spirit." I actually started on that story. I quickly tore it up, and the world is a better place for it. [1]

1980

I just got INTERSTAT #29. What have we here? Yet another re-hash of the "I'm more Feminist than you" argument, only with Trekkish overtones, . Leslie complains that we don't write "feminist" because we're writing Kirk/Spock stories instead of Uhura/Chapel stuff. Aside from the fact that Star Trek was originally a male-oriented show, there's no reason that a writer, male OR female, couldn't use the Chapel/Uhura stuff in fanlit — except that it's not particularly exciting! (Of course, there are a couple of stories in he Obsc'zine, and Guardian…). [2]

2007

There wasn't much discussion about femmeslash because, until Blake’s 7, there just wasn’t much of it (the occasional Chapel/Uhura or Uhura/Rand story aside). [3]

Example Fanworks

Fanfiction

Fanart

Art Gallery

Archives and Links