In the thirteenth episode of the third season of Star Trek, Kirk decides to take a spoiled princess under his wing, and lord, it’s just as weird and terrible as it sounds. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.
Trigger Warning: For talk of nonconsensual drugging, and racialized misogyny.
Oh no, oh no.
I think there are essentially two entirely full episodes within this ship: the story of Elaan and the Klingon attack. While there are some neat surprises along the way, this is a huge, huge mess, particularly because it’s so appallingly sexist and racist. Discussion time!
I think that even if you didn’t cast a woman of color as Elaan, you’d still have a huge problem with this episode. How is this not violating the Prime Directive? Isn’t this a huge interference of another culture? Okay, that’s a completely separate issue, since I can never quite tell what the parameters of the Prime Directive are. So let’s just accept that France Nuyen – who is surprisingly entertaining even if her character isn’t written that well – is Elaan of Troyius. The premise that we’re supposed to buy is that the Federation is facilitating the marriage between Elaan and one of the Troyian elite. It’s important because it’s an imperialistic gesture on the part of the Federation, at least in the sense that it’ll benefit the Federation if the area doesn’t fall into Klingon hands.
Okay, I’m with you. I can even accept that since Elaan is from a different culture, she and Petri were bound to clash. I’m totally behind you, Star Trek. But once this basically turned into Pygmalion meets The Taming of the Shrew, I was really only interested in Nuyen’s acting. The framing device is fine, but the execution of it? It’s a disaster. There’s absolutely no awareness of the implications of casting a woman of color as someone who is not only depicted as but called a savage by Captain Kirk. There’s no respect of her culture at all, and this whole story is about getting her to assimilate into one that’s… well, I’m not sure. Are we just supposed to accept that the Troyians are “civilized†in the same way that humanity is? Because everything that Kirk “teaches†Elaan is his own culture, not the Troyians’, you know? And it’s so glaring that none of this was thought through, because watching a white man criticize a woman of color for being uncivilized and savage is just… it’s painfully terrible.
And lord… the “logic of women.†Who wrote this? Who puts that in this show when there are clearly people like Nurse Chapel and Lt. Uhura around? Are they illogical? How does that even make sense? How could an entire GENDER be illogical? But that’s the basis for this episode that we’re expected to accept. Kirk knows what he’s doing because he knows women. But even if there was some way to ignore these aspects of the story, the story itself does a disservice to Elaan. After building her up to be a demanding and ruthless, she turns – in the span of a single scene – into a docile creature who literally affects the plot by standing around. That’s it! That’s her sole role! And I was genuinely convinced that her tears were a weapon, that she was trying to trick Kirk into loving her, and then I find out she was serious the whole time? This doesn’t make sense! If she was so opposed to marrying outside her culture, why would she suddenly “love†Captain Kirk? There’s no basis for this change of heart! It just happens, and it’s frustrating to watch because this character is not given any closure at all. It’s like she matters to the plot right up until there’s a Klingon threat that they need to deal with, and then she stands there and is distracting to Kirk and then she’s sent on her way to go get married even though she still doesn’t want to and Kirk DIDN’T help her at all and WHY IS THIS PLOT OVER. I’M SO CONFUSED. Plus, even saying she “chose†Kirk is not entirely true, since she drugged him into being attracted to her. So… what????
And look, I do understand what this story means for Kirk, and as ridiculous as William Shatner can be in this show, I actually found this portrayal to be kind of muted here. He’s stuck between duty and desire, and he ultimately chooses the loyalty of his job over the emotions he feels for Elaan. But this story – which would totally be interesting in another context – is all at Elaan’s expense. She’s off to go be unhappy in a political marriage, and Kirk gets his ship and his job and his friends and nobody seems to care what happens to her.
There’s so much potential here, I’ll admit that. It was fun to see Kirk so openly amused by the prospect of the mission at hand, and if there hadn’t been a Klingon threat, I think this episode wouldn’t have felt like anything else the show had done. But I can’t ignore just how egregious most of this is, y’all. I know this was made over forty years again, but that doesn’t mean we can’t examine why it’s still fucked up. Plus, it’s not like these same stereotypes and implications don’t exist anymore. I just wanted more from this episode because I really expected it to be a lot of fun instead of horribly distracting.
The video for “Elaan of Troyius†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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