Commentary (1978 essay)
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| Title: | Commentary |
| Creator: | Charles Weekes |
| Date(s): | 1978 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Star Trek: TOS, Space:1999, Lost in Space, Star Wars |
| Topic: | |
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Commentary is a 1978 essay by Charles Weekes.
It was printed in Tetrumbriant #14.
It contains two parts. 1) commentary on females on media science fiction shows, 2) science fiction writer Ben Bova's dismissal of Star Wars and Bova's desire for gloom and doom in science fiction shows and books.
Excerpts
Anyone who has watched Lost In Space, Space: 1999 or even Star Trek will know that [...] women of the future Earth's only qualification for an important assignment might be bust size or how many stars are next to their names in the Admiral's little black r book. Let me bite the bullet. HOW MANY TIMES ON THE THREE AFOREMENTIONED PROGRAMS HAVE THE WOMEN SHOWN BEEN GIVEN RESPONSIBILITY ENOUGH TO JUSTIFY THEIR BEING THERE? Remove the women from the Enterprise, and the only result would be that Kirk would be short a few lays and interstellar telephone operators. Them mam exception to this pattern is the Star Trek episode Paradise Syndrome, where a woman was shown functioning in the Helmsman position.
Remove the women from Space: 1999 and the floors would be a bit drier and (in general) things would be a bit more calm without the fainting at the first hyper sonic. With Lost In Space you would wind up with a gay family in space. But since it is set the 2980's, who knows...
Maybe I am crazy, but I would suppose the women of the future (because they had to fight against discrimination for so many years) would be equally capable if not superior at the call-of-duty. If this were not so, then I would be the first to ban women from active duty in space. There is no time to deal with emotional females in space. Exploration requires reasonable action. Of course you are scared as you enter a new situation. [1] That's natural. The man or woman who does not realize this will be a dead duck or is a fool. The trick is to say "yes', I am scared, but I'm not going to let my fear stop me. This is something which future earth-women seem not to have learned, if the programs I've mentioned are any indication.
I mean, it's awfully sad when Romulan women are allowed to command whole space fleets, Klingon females are allowed to be first officers (though they may have to marry the captain first), Dione (The Last Enemy, Space: 1999) was in command of an all female warship that could (conceivably) wreck a planet, and almost totaled Alpha. Emma Peel (The Avengers) can toss and stomp the biggest males like children, while Uhura must run behind all of the Enterprise men (despite her Star Fleet training with its fighting styles from various planets) for protection.
But not all television science fiction follows the stereotype. Two programs stand out, in my mind, for their portrayal of women. The first is a drama while the other is a comedy. They are UFO and Quark.
Remember Moonbase on UFO? Think about who was in command of Earth's first line of defense against aliens? Women. Because they were able to function better under stress according to the books (a fact intimated in the program) than men in such situations. Then there is Quark... particularly the way Buck Henry will be able to get away with much more by doing a comedy than Roddenberry could doing an action-adventure drama). Quark gives the viewers not only a female first officer, but identical twins caused by cloning. If it becomes a regular series (possibly as a mid-season replacement) I hope Henry follows that line more closely. He will then give the women of the seventies something to think about rather than: "Captain, look at my legs". [2]
Now, if you don't mind, I am going to talk about constipation. Not the physical kind you get after eating too much cheese, but the mental constipation that comes from thinking you are God's chosen representative on Earth. I do not mean David Gerrold. In fact, I kind of like his style even when I disagree with him. The one who needs a mental Exlax is Ben Bova.
Recently, I read Bova's strong disapproval of the movie Star Wars. Fine and good. It is a free country. Some people like Lost In Space. The issue which urkked [sic] me (to use a girl friend's word) was his reason. "I look for more in my science fiction than Saturday morning shoot-em-ups.'! My sweet aunt!
From what I can tell, all he wants in his science fiction is gloom and doom where the computer conquers all, Russia conquers America, capitalism is a great evil, where man will never colonize the planets because we have destroyed ourselves long before then or some super-race has done it for. us, where faster than light travel, anti-gravity and blasters are in the realm of nonsense. Sorry, Mr. Bova. I, personally, am tired of the doom of science fiction, the cold impersonality (which is what caused Space: 1999 to fail to draw large audiences by the end of its first season) exemplified by 2001.
I am tired of the good guy getting his reproduction organs blown off while the villain rides off into the sunset after breaking every law in the book. You want to know, Mr. Bova, why the critics have almost unanimously given Star Wars their highest praise, why lines go around the block any day you care to look? Because these are the late 1970's. We have accomplished most of our goals. Man has walked on the moon. Machines have driven on Mars. Satellite have sailed past Jupiter and beyond. Men and women now live together ail live as equals with one another. The world situation is quieter. There are no wars in which America actively participate. We have nothing to do. The year 2000 is around the corner. With all these accomplishments behind us, nothing can stop us now...
The people do not need a lecture on how bad things really are. We want to set our minds free. We need to wander through the far off galaxy along time ago. We need to see good triumph over evil for once. That's why New Yorkers applauded the "Human Fly" who triumphed over the side of the World Trade Center.
It is the reason NASA is swamped with job applications for the Space Shuttle Enterprise. Perhaps the gloom is all your magazine wants to print. I hope it's doing well. But smell the wind, my man, else you
may find yourself a man from the sixties in the worlds of the eighties discovering that you have missed something along the way.
References
- ^ This is a reference to Uhura's line in the episode, "City on the Edge of Forever," which was, "Captain, I'm frightened."
- ^ From the episode, "Miri" where Janice Rand says: "Back on the ship, I used to try to get you to look at my legs. Captain, look at my legs!"