Contextual Analysis
Rachel Engle Collections Project
CONTEXTUAL:
Lee Stringer, Serenity Bridge, September 14, 2013, http://summerglauwiki.com.
Photo by EMP Staff, T-800 skull used in Terminator 2: Judgement day, 1991, http://emppmuseum.org.
Empire Magazine, Star Trek Into Darkness Cast, March 28, 2013, http://www.mrmovie-review.com.
This image is a cast photograph of the 2013 movie Star Trek Into Darkness, directed by J.J. Abrams. The image shows cast members in costume, posed around the J.J. Abrams. The image shows both male and female characters in their Starfleet uniforms.
All of the male members of Starfleet wear long sleeved shirts, and their rank is displayed with rings around their sleeves. Chekov is an ensign and therefore has no rings. Sulu is a lieutenant and has one ring. Scott and Spock both have two rings as commanders, and Kirk has three, as the captain. However, the women in the picture, Lt. Uhura and Lt. Marcus, both have capped sleeves on their uniforms, and therefore no place to display their rank. In fact, "There is literally no mechanism for crewmembers to immediately assess the rank of the women serving in Starfleet" ("The Reboot's Uniforms"). There is no other place on their uniform for their rank to be displayed, thereby effectively stripping them of their rank in Starfleet's chain of command. This costume decision was made for the new movies. In all previous Star Trek series and movies, women on the ship displayed rank on their uniforms.
This invites questions as to how women are portrayed in the new movies (the reboot) in comparison with previous Star Trek series, and especially the original series that ran from 1964-1969. Since the movies are a retelling of the original series, it can be viewed in context with that. By today's standards the original Star Trek was not particularly progressive, but when it aired in the 60s it was incredibly progressive, and would have been more progressive had creator Gene
Roddenberry had his way. In his original pilot for Star Trek, the first officer of the Enterprise was a woman name Number One, but the network rejected this character. But Roddenberry insisted on having many women crew members: "I remember when NBC said to me, 'How many women do you have on the ship?' They thought that we certainly couldn’t have a ship’s complement that was half men and half women. NBC commented that I should consider the amount of hanky-panky that would be going on if the ship were equally divided among the sexes. We argued, and finally I agreed with NBC that I would make the ship one- third women" (Alexander). At the time, the idea of women serving on a military ship was nearly unthinkable, but Roddenberry insisted that in the future it would be possible, and just the inclusion of so many women crew members and officers was groundbreaking. As Mary Henderson says, "In creating the character of Number One, and including female crew members on the Enterprise, Roddenberry had pushed TV a bit ahead of its time" (Henderson 49).
However, with the new movies, the idea of progress has not been continued. In a time when many women serve in the military, fly planes, and have careers that were reserved for men in 1964, the new Star Trek's version of the future does not include any more women or people of color than in the 60's. And, in an attempt to keep the film "sexy" the women officers were stripped of their identifying ranks. "Star Trek is supposed to be about progress," Alison Baumgartner writes. "That is its sexiest attribute ... What [Abrams'] thoughts on Star Trek and sex mean to me is that he doesn’t really care about making the movies any more progressive than the original series, much less trying to match or exceed the caliber of the series that came after" (Baumgartner).
Bibliography
Alexander, David, "Interview with Gene Roddenberry," The Humanist, March/April, 1991, accessed November 2, 2013.
http://www.stjohns- chs.org/english/STAR_TREK/humanistinterview/humanist.html
Baumgartner, Alison, "The Sexiest Thing is 'Star Trek' Is Progress," ScienceFiction.com, May 2, 2013, accessed November 2, 2013.
http://sciencefiction.com/2013/04/30/the-sexiest-thing-in-star-trek-is-progress/
Henderson, Mary, "Professional Women in Star Trek, 1964 to 1969," Film & History vol. XXIV (1994): 47-59. Accessed November 2, 2013.
"The Reboot Uniforms & Why They Are Sexist," The Trekkie Has The Phone Box, accessed on November 2, 2013.
http://thetrekkiehasthephonebox.tumblr.com/post/62378141299/the-reboots- uniforms-why-they-are-sexist-why