It seems inconceivable to imagine a world with no borders, no discrimination regarding skin color, gender, or sexual orientation, where individuals are judged solely on their merits. Gene Roddenberry envisioned this idea when he created the influential television series, Star Trek in 1966.
Since the original television series, there has been many other shows based on the original and they all share this same theme and idea, one in particular sticks out. Star Trek: Voyager not only shares Roddenberry's legendary vision of the future, but exceeds it with the way in which it represents women, generating an ideal template for other television shows to follow.
In 1966 Gene Roddenberry put his vision of the future into the most influential of television shows, Star Trek. From the beginning, Star Trek reflected the social and economic events that were happening at the time. Race segregation, and the Vietnam war were the major events among others. Roddenberry used his show to criticize these events and show not only alternatives, but the potential implications of our actions if we continue the self destructive behavior. John F. Kennedy's “moonshot speech” to congress in May of 1961 brought about a huge interest in space exploration and no doubt influenced Gene Roddenberry's vision.
While the entire film industry was dominated by white males, Gene Roddenberry enlightened the world to a different approach in the way a show could be cast. The original series featured a multicultural cast, which included a Russian man and a Black woman. Multicultural casting was unprecedented at that time. Russians were unpopular in the states with the cold war at its peak, and race segregation headlining the news daily. The character Lieutenant ...
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After some research, I found out that women have a large part in writing and producing the show. I believe this is why the show does such a good job of addressing gender roles and sexism.
The classic network era is one of the most easily recognizable and distinct eras in television history. Both Bewitched and I Love Lucy were huge sitcoms that took up issues of gender representation and patriarchy in their programs through the representations of the main male and female characters of their respective series. While both of these series pushed boundaries when it came to the representation of women, in the end, the costuming of these men and women, how the main characters are introduced, and the domestic environment that the atmosphere takes place in, all serve to reinforce traditional gender norms and reveals that patriarchy is dependent on maintaining dominant ideas about masculinity and femininity.
Saari, Peggy, ed. Prominent Women of the 20th Century. Volume 4. New York: International Thompson Publishing Company, 1996.
In American culture today, women continue the struggle of identifying what their roles in society are supposed to be. Our culture has been sending mixed messages to the modern day female, creating a sense of uneasiness to an already confusing and stressful world. Although women today are encouraged more than ever to be independent, educated, and successful, they are often times shamed for having done just that. Career driven females are frequently at risk of being labeled as bossy, unfeminine, or selfish for competing in many career paths that were once dominated by men. A popular medium in our culture such as television continues to have significant influences as to how people should aspire to live their lives. Viewers develop connections with relatable characters and to relationship dynamics displayed within their favorite shows. Fictional characters and relationships can ultimately influence a viewer’s fashion sense, social and political opinion, and attitude towards gender norms. Since the days of Bewitched and I Dream of Jeanie, where women were commonly portrayed as being the endearing mischievous housewife, television shows have evolved in order to reflect real life women who were becoming increasingly more independent, educated, and career oriented throughout the subsequent decades. New genres of television are introduced, such as the workplace comedy, where women are not only career oriented, but eventually transition into positions of power.
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America got its first look of a program that would later become legendary on September 8, 1966 at 8:30 PM on NBC. America was never the same after Star Trek made its debut that night. The series did not receive the recognition it deserved until it was canceled after only three years and later returning in syndication. However, Star Trek was never an ordinary science fiction program to begin with. Comparison to other programs in this genre is difficult because Star Trek is certainly not an unconventional science fiction program- it is a science fiction program that displays America during 1960's. In fact, Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, during an interview said, "I have no belief that Star Trek depicts the actual future, it depicts us, now, things we need to understand about that". Even David Gerrold, a writer for the series, writes in his book that "[t]he stories are about twentieth century man's attitudes in a future universe. The stories are about us". Naturally each episode does not make a social commentary, but all through the program, characters, themes, and it goes without saying, individual episodes make powerful reflections on sexism, feminism, as well as racism and improving race relations, all crucial social affairs during the late 1960's, and to a certain extent, social affairs of today.
Miss Representation. Dir. Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Perf. Condoleezza Rice, Lisa Ling, Nancy Pelosi, Katie Couric, Rachel Maddow. Girls Club Entertainment, 2011. DVD.
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...e. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernatics, Literature and Informatics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999.
This episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation begins with a performance from Data and his quartet. Data tells Captain Picard and Dr. Crusher they may want to wait for the next performance, since his peers in the group believes he lacks “soul” in his playing. Picard sends a valuable message to Data and the viewers; never advertise your shortcomings. Picard insists on hearing Data play, and of course, as the concert starts, the Enterpirse is hailed by the Sheliak. They, by treaty, with the Federation have ownership of Tau Cygna V, however, there are human inhabitants colonized there. They demand the removal of this “infestation” immediately, and Picard is reluctantly happy to oblige. Upon arrival, it is discovered that the radiation levels in the planet’s atmosphere are so
Iversen, Torben and Frances Rosenbluth. Women, Work, and Power: The Political Economy of Gender Inequality. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. Kindle E-Book.
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Haraway, Donna J. "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century". Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. The Reinvention of Nature. London: Free Association Books, 1991.
Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek’s creator, originally pitched the series as what he called “Wagon Train to the stars” (Wagon Train was a popular television programme in the late 1950s that depicted the westward colonisation of the United States). Roddenberry had written extensively for television programmes that featured adventures in the American west, elements of which he incorporated into Star Trek, most notably the structure of a self-contained episode each week that featured an adventure plot. In Roddenberry’s vision of the future, humanity would go beyond the limits of the solar system to explore the universe, but this exploration would occur in the context of a society that was no longer dominated by capitalist imperatives. Roddenberry’s