In the thirteenth episode of the third season of\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek<\/i>, Kirk decides to take a spoiled princess under his wing, and lord, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just as weird and terrible as it sounds. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For talk of nonconsensual drugging, and racialized misogyny<\/b>.<\/p>\n
Oh no,\u00c2\u00a0oh no<\/i>.<\/p>\n
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,\u00c2\u00a0huge<\/i> mess, particularly because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so appallingly sexist and racist. Discussion time!<\/p>\n
I think that even if you didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t cast a woman of color as Elaan, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d still have a huge problem with this episode. How is this\u00c2\u00a0not<\/i> violating the Prime Directive? Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t this a huge interference of another culture? Okay, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a completely separate issue, since I can never quite tell what the parameters of the Prime Directive are. So let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just accept that France Nuyen \u00e2\u20ac\u201c who is surprisingly entertaining even if her character isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t written that well \u00e2\u20ac\u201c is Elaan of Troyius. The premise that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re supposed to buy is that the Federation is facilitating the marriage between Elaan and one of the Troyian elite. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an imperialistic gesture on the part of the Federation, at least in the sense that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll benefit the Federation if the area doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fall into Klingon hands.<\/p>\n
Okay, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m with you. I can even accept that since Elaan is from a different culture, she and Petri were bound to clash. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m totally behind you,\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek<\/i>. But once this basically turned into\u00c2\u00a0Pygmalion<\/i> meets\u00c2\u00a0The Taming of the Shrew<\/i>, I was really only interested in Nuyen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s acting. The framing device is fine, but the execution of it? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a disaster. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s absolutely no awareness of the implications of casting a woman of color as someone who is not only depicted as but\u00c2\u00a0called<\/i> a savage by Captain Kirk. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no respect of her culture at all, and this whole story is about getting her to assimilate into one that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure. Are we just supposed to accept that the Troyians are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153civilized\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the same way that humanity is? Because everything that Kirk \u00e2\u20ac\u0153teaches\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Elaan is his own culture, not the Troyians\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, you know? And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s painfully terrible.<\/p>\n
And lord\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153logic of women.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Who wrote this? Who puts that in this show when there are clearly people like Nurse Chapel and Lt. Uhura around? Are\u00c2\u00a0they<\/i> illogical? How does that even make\u00c2\u00a0sense<\/i>? How could an entire GENDER be illogical? But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the basis for this episode that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re expected to accept. Kirk knows what he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing because\u00c2\u00a0he knows women<\/i>. 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\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u201c in the span of a single scene \u00e2\u20ac\u201c into a docile creature who literally affects the plot by\u00c2\u00a0standing around<\/i>. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it! That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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\u00c2\u00a0she was serious the whole time?\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>This doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make sense! If she was so opposed to marrying outside her culture, why would she suddenly \u00e2\u20ac\u0153love\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Captain Kirk? There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no basis\u00c2\u00a0for this change of heart! It just\u00c2\u00a0happens<\/i>, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s frustrating to watch because this character is not given any closure at all. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like she matters to the plot right up until there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a Klingon threat that they need to deal with, and then she stands there and is distracting to Kirk and then she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sent on her way to go get married even though she still doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to and Kirk DIDN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T help her at all and WHY IS THIS PLOT OVER. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M SO CONFUSED. Plus, even saying she \u00e2\u20ac\u0153chose\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kirk is not entirely true, since she drugged him into being attracted to her. So\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 what????<\/p>\n
And look, I\u00c2\u00a0do<\/i> 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stuck between duty and desire, and he ultimately chooses the loyalty of his job over the emotions he feels for Elaan. But this story \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which would totally be interesting in another context \u00e2\u20ac\u201c is all at Elaan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s expense. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n
There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much potential here, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll admit that. It\u00c2\u00a0was<\/i> fun to see Kirk so openly amused by the prospect of the mission at hand, and if there hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been a Klingon threat, I think this episode wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have felt like anything else the show had done. But I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ignore just how egregious most of this is, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. I know this was made over forty years again, but that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t examine why it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still fucked up. Plus, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like these same stereotypes and implications don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exist anymore. I just wanted more from this episode because I really expected it to be a lot of fun instead of horribly distracting.<\/p>\n
The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Elaan of Troyius\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – Mark Does Stuff is now on Facebook<\/a>! Feel free to Like the page, which I’m running myself, for updates and SILLINESS. In the thirteenth episode of the third season of\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek, Kirk decides to take a spoiled princess under his wing, and lord, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just as weird and terrible as it sounds. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[614,616],"tags":[615],"class_list":["post-4322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-star-trek","category-the-original-series","tag-mark-watches-star-trek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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