“That’s just the way it is…” those are words that “trap you like a bug.”
Nana Visitor was dropped from her agency because the heads said that he had to feel she was “f-able.” Who says that to a 60 year old woman? But she didn’t say anything because her manager told her she would be blackballed if she fired that guy. She got dropped a few weeks later anyway.
Fortunately things have gotten a lot better thanks to the me too movement. It may have gone too far in some cases but for the most part it flushed out a lot of the pigs.
Star Trek, “roddenberry’s values”, are the frequency, the bandwidth, the common ground that can make all the difference in discussing these tough issues.
“Nineteen sixty-six was a time of ideas.” I hope every damn year is a time of ideas! But as for a great proliferation of ideas, I think in some ways we simply can’t sort it all out now. But the 60s counterculture was a big part of that first step to really, as she says, “learning to apply intellectualism, philosophy, and history to the problems of the day.”
This is a great point: in the 60s and before “most of the TV shows revealed where we had been.” Star Trek showed a possible future that was, unlike much of the silly stuff that came before it, was a lot more plausible.
This isn’t a perspective I considered before. “The colonialism of the Vietnam war was evident in the messaging of the Prime Directive, which insisted that while we were exploring new worlds, we should do them no intentional harm.” Of course, since the original series, trek bungled around with that directive like crazy. Funny enough, freaking Orville explained it better! Never underestimate Seth McFarlane!
Yes, miniskirts were a statement for women back then. Not sexist at all. What’s screwed up is we still have strict dress codes in churches and schools today that don’t even allow pants or miniskirts! In 2024! (Probably still true in 2026…)
Another point I should mention is that after World War Two, most women were forced out of the jobs that were left vacant by war. Wives were expected to hand over anything they earned to the “man of the house.” But a lot of these guys coming back were mentally and emotionally scarred and really many of them weren’t fit to return to their jobs. But who did they take their problems out on? Their girlfriends and wives! That last sentence isn’t mentioned here… but I know it to be the case.
Anyway that whole “man of the house” thing is massively toxic…
The next big thing I want to comment on is how women were handled in the 60s iteration of trek. Even McCoy in the Apollo episode says of Lt Palamas, “she’s a woman. All woman… One day she’ll find the right man and off she’ll go, out of the service.” People today may be mad at the good doctor but really, that was the cultural expectation of the day and writers were short sighted. Why would a LIEUTENANT give up here commission? Yeah, no common sense about gender roles back then… and while it’s better today, it’s not as better as it should be. Fortunately, TNG fixed that issue from then on in Trek.
Unfortunately 60s trek is a product of its time, for better and worse. Turnabout intruder, particularly, was a travesty.
I never realized that DC Fontana left the Trek writing staff after the Enterprise incident in which the producer played up the Romulan commander’s romantic interest in Spock. That interest just always made sense to me. I mean he’s Spock, goddamn it! But in principle I agree with her. (She’d return to TNG for a bit.)
Mudd’s Women is yet another travesty. It could have been a good story, but nope, it would inevitably reinforce that women’s place is as a homemaker. Nothing wrong with homemaking of course, but geez! Although that pill was only ever a placebo to begin with, so you can see what Gene Roddenberry was on about. It just comes off really badly.
Hurray for Lucy Ball! One of my all time heroes. Without her we would have no Star Trek. That’s a world far worse off.
I hadn’t realized this. What NBC paid for each Star Trek episode didn’t even cover the cost of making it. This makes sense in hindsight, but the fact Lucy kept it going is awesome. No wonder she had to sell the studio to Paramount.
Something else I hadn’t considered. Major Kira was literally the first officer that Majel Barrett got to be. Poor Shelby got hated out of ever returning to TNG; I really liked her, and it’s sad what they inevitably did with her character on Picard… But apparently Majel herself talked to Nana about that.
And the genesis of Una on Strange New Worlds now makes a lot more sense. (Gah, Rebecca Romjin is a goddess.) Majel decided that in number one’s back story that she was genetically engineered to be smart. Literally she was the best her people had to offer. They convolute that a lot in the new show but unlike most things in NuTrek they made it work.
I hadn’t realized Yeoman Rand was intended to be one of the leads on Star Trek. Huh, that’s pretty cool. Of course that got effed up royally… and the costume designer forced her into an eating disorder because she was “too heavy.” WOW.
…
I never knew that Nichelle Nichols had a child at 18!
“…Nichelle was only inclusive and encouraging and I saw that her interactions with the fans were purposeful and kind. I believe a lot of us that came after her learned about the social responsibility that comes with being part of the franchise from her.”
I think this is important for any well known character in any media. The media has a responsibility to use their platform wisely.
We also never really think about how Uhura was actually fourth in command of the enterprise behind Scotty and Sulu. People don’t appreciate the chain of command as much as they should.
I never thought of Dorothy Fontana as being somebody who was exceptional at writing westerns, but that might explain why she was able to get into the industry at such a young age. After all those were the big shows at the time.
I knew that DC was mad about changes to the enterprise incident but I hadn’t realized her intent with that episode was to paint the Romulans as a matriarchal society. Makes sense to me. The series would’ve been better for it!
Lucie Salhany is now a hero to me too. It was HER idea to put TNG on first run syndication, the first of its kind. I know that’s how the show happened but not that she was the one who made it so. It’s only one of the most important shows in tv history.
If I were to reboot TNG I’d bring back Leslie Crusher and Macha Hernandez. Yeah, the show would be a bit differently made today. Then we could have Wil Wheaton as Wesley show up and be like, huh, this is different?
My TNG reboot would be a lot more documentary style, literally following the perspectives of key crew members on their “city amongst the stars” but I digress
So apparently during the development of TNG, Gene Roddenberry actually wrote a memo saying “all of us have accumulated by now during our 20th century lives a staggering burden of soon to be outmoded values and political ideas.” Sadly most of these have persisted nearly a generation later.
Hollywood had “boxes” to check back in the 80s and 90s before that evolved somewhat over the past thirty years. But unintentionally we are drifting back into assigning people to boxes again… performative femininity is alive and well… and feminism is as fractured into camps as ever!
So I should’ve known this but Denise Crosby’s grandfather was Bing Crosby! No freaking way. I also didn’t know she was in Playboy — though it doesn’t surprise me.
When Nana Visitor interviewed Gates McFadden, she asked her what she would want young people to learn from her. I absolutely love McFadden’s response: “To find the strength to be the best of themselves, to not be held back by society, and to really look at themselves like a scientist. Why do I feel that way? Why does this upset me? always remain curious always, wanting to learn.” Brilliant!
Imagine if Troi had actually been a four breasted hypersexual hermaphrodite. That would be hard to do even now! What even is that? Also I’ve always been annoyed at how not alien the Betazoids are. They’ve always seemed like their ancestors were aquatic creatures. I get budget and all that but they’re just humans with black eyes and telepathic abilities more akin to magic than anything else.
I didn’t realize that Sirtis was literally about to have her visa expire when she got the role. And she had maxed out credit cards. Yeah, that really was winning the lottery. But think about all the actors that are forced to give up and go home. We never hear about them.
I find it crazy that even Gene Roddenberry thought there were “too many women” on the show. So Denise Crosby leaving actually saved Marina Sirtis’s career on Trek. Bizarre as hell to think of now… also Marina didn’t have a uniform because she carried “extra weight”. Um what? Now I’m perfectly well aware she was the “sexy” one and that crusher was the GND but come on! Today we have Tilly and thank god for Mary Wiseman!
…
I’m only a third of the way through the book, on the chapter about DS9. I could power through it, but I’m taking my time to really absorb it. There’s no hurry obviously. I’m just going to note specific things that really catch my attention, as usual.
Interesting fact: DS9 had the most male dominated writing staff of all the shows. Ira Steven Behr was just so much of a visionary that clearly that didn’t matter.
I love Michelle Forbes but thank the lord almighty that she decided to go into movies (smart financially for sure) and gave Major Kira the step up to first officer. 😉
It still baffles me that the producers have Voyager the flagship status. I know why of course, because ds9 was under the radar at that point. Behr was right though. Being the “lesser” show is why it became the best ever Trek series. It took chances that neither TNG, voyager, or even enterprise never could.
Nana mentioned this in an interview about the book and I want to make sure I note about it here. Nana played Kira as someone with PTS. Yes, not PTSD, because it’s not really a disorder, but rather, as a former navy seal told her once, “proof that you had a human response to inhuman treatment.” I still call it PTSD, and I really shouldn’t. I’m now much more mindful of this.
Interesting note about how DP Marvin Rush gave Kira “hero shots” which you only ever saw for male characters to this point. I hadn’t thought about this before.
“Duet” isn’t only the best Kira episode, it may be one of the top Trek episodes ever! It puts confirmation bias on full display, something we need to deal with now in our society more than ever.
Nana Visitor opens up about how “truthful storytelling” took a major toll on her mental health over seven years. Interestingly she mentions her approach would’ve worked better in the theater, where the lines between the stage and real life are much clearer. I never thought about that… a television show is much more like a “regular” job than the theater, isn’t it?
An interesting observation by Michael Piller (RIP): “you mine a character’s makeup by taking away things they value to see how they react…” Well, Kira got that treatment often.
It turns out that Nana Visitor had a horrible episode around season three of the show, in which she was kidnapped and bad things happened. She’s lucky to have survived it is all I’ll say beyond that. She could never go back to that home again. Fortunately the men were caught and given multiple life sentences.
This whole quote is worth noting: “There is such a thing as post-traumatic growth, and I feel that is what happened for me. I became more compassionate toward myself and others, and more aware of being purposeful in my life. Looking out toward other people became more important than focusing inward.” – Nana Visitor.
Nana also mentions Kitsugi, the art of mending broken pottery with gold. Also, the Leonard Cohen lyric: “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”
I never realized just how much influence Ira Behr’s wife Laura had on DS9. An unsung hero before now for sure!
There’s great irony in the fact the shuttle craft accident was used to write Nana’s pregnancy (with Siddig no less) into the show. The same thing was offered as a threat anytime she tried to negotiate a better deal for herself, but with her character ending up dead…
If there was any woman born to fit in the Hollywood “Beautiful” box it would be and still is Terry Farrell, for sure! But with that comes a lot more pressure.
“There was the assumption that her thoughts and feelings didn’t matter; it was just her profit-making exterior that made her valuable.” We of course discover, in later DS9 and Becker afterwards, she is wholly valuable and ends up marrying Spock’s son (well, Adam Nimoy, technically).
The rest of the chapter is all stuff I knew about previously, so we’re on to the cutie pie Ezri! (AKA Nikki DeBoer)
Back to the shuttlecraft, it turns out we only got Ezri because she was on the shuttle to Trill to save the Dax symbiont. What a wonderful coincidence! It also doesn’t surprise me that Piller (again RIP my good fellow) wished they started Jadzia with that premise. So in some ways, Ezri was a chance to reboot the character properly, and somehow they succeeded!
Even more coincidentally, Nikki deBoer was 28 at the time, which is the exact same age Terry Farrell was when she first became Jadzia. Okay, maybe it was on purpose.
I was right! She was with Kids in the Hall! That’s why she looked and sounded so familiar in some of those sketches!
I can’t believe Nikki was ever told she had “zero sexual energy” she’s freaking adorable! But again I’m not a guy… I’ve never understood the male gaze.
Fortunately the “cute girl” was exactly what the show needed. Yes, Ezri is an avatar for queer people. She certainly was for me! (Which is odd, considering she is completely heterosexual. Having short hair does that I guess…it still does in 2026. See Gracie Abrams.)
So the next chapter is about Penny Johnson Jerald, who not only was Kassidy Yates on DS9, but also the doctor on Orville!
Funny enough, her husband Mr. Jerald said she’s going to do it. We’re all glad she did!
Apparently the producers wanted Rosalind Chao – Keiko – to be a series regular! But she didn’t because she wanted to be present for her kids. I respect the hell of out that, although from a storytelling perspective it’s a shame.
However unintentionally, the writers struggles with Keiko actually proved a different point. Women in the 80s and 90s had to choose career or family, not both. You couldn’t have both without insane levels of struggle. It worked out for Rosalind in the end, but think of how many women’s careers were crushed or families behind the scenes crumbled because of these impossible choices actresses were forced to make! This isn’t true in film now, thankfully, but in some industries it’s still very much the case.
…
Today’s reading begins with the lovely Chase Masterson… She only has one page though before we get into Voyager and two Jeris (Taylor and Ryan.)
Leeta was a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Mary Tyler Moore. I read her performance that way too.
“… she chose a partner because of his character instead of how he presented to the world.” Rom is a character alright!
Those Dabo girl outfits apparently were created during sweeps week. Why am I not surprised?
Speaking of Jeri Ryan, there was another Jeri on voyager from the beginning: that would be Jeri Taylor who had quite the effect on later seasons of TNG as a writer and eventually showrunner.
Why is it strange to me that Dumbo was Jeri Taylor’s inspiration to become a writer? That for me was Charlotte’s Web. Dumbo is an emotional movie, sure. But I don’t see it.
I didn’t realize how much older she was… she graduated from college in 1959! Learning!
Nana writes of Taylor: “She says her best friends were fear and ignorance: fear she would end up making minimum wage at a job she was unqualified for, and ignorance of what it actually took to make a living as a writer.”
When she came in to rewrite a script for the fourth season, her “heart sank” because she knew nothing about Star Trek but needed the work. Well guess what? Knowing nothing can actually be a good thing! Look at Nick Meyer!
Nana actually worked on shows where Jeri Taylor was on the staff interestingly enough. The whole “double competency” thing comes up again.
Jeri gave Troi her uniform in the latter seasons of TNG! Hallelujah! I knew that, but it deserves praise here.
Apparently Taylor went right from TNG to Voyager, which makes sense. And for as much shit as I give Berman, he and Piller (who I have incredible respect for, again RIP), gave Jeri a chance to co create. She wasn’t sure they needed her. Well, they kind of did.
Ironically enough, when Jeri Taylor retired in the fourth season of Voyager, staying on as a consultant she had zero input on the character played by one Jeri Ryan. That is, actually, very ironic. Credit to Brannon Braga for somehow doing quite well on that front, although maybe not so much on others; he’s not a bad writer but some of his scripts needed some help. [Braga would actually do well on other shows after this, and writes for shows to this day, I believe. He helped with the Orville!]
I remember Kate Mulgrew giving an interview about the time that Hilary Clinton invited her to the White House. Kate had a speech but when she got there, she threw it up in the air and turned the floor over to the audience. One of them told her “…I was going into research, and then I was introduced to Kathryn Janeway. And I turned to my father and I said, ‘I’m not going into the office. I’m going to go up.’”
Nana writes: “The passionate example of Kate Mulgrew’s captain removed glass ceilings from their minds and allowed them to imagine themselves in positions of authority, in science, and in space.”
It absolutely blows my mind that Bujold was their pick for Janeway. I’m so glad that she quit. That show would’ve lasted maybe a season. It would’ve been a disaster. I was familiar with Kate Mulgrew even then and I knew right away they had the right choice… and she wasn’t even the second option! What were they thinking?
I can totally see this: Nana Visitor went right to Rick Berman when Bujold left and said she’d do it! I mean I’m glad that Berman said they needed her on ds9 – he was right of course – but imagine that? That would’ve just been weird for everybody. Yes, Nana would’ve been an amazing Captain, but yeah, it would’ve been quite a shock if they killed off Kira just for her to suddenly be the lead of a new Star Trek show. (Still, would’ve been cool. I always liked her.)
I’m so glad that Mulgrew stood up for herself. The ever changing wigs and gel inserts were totally unnecessary. She was perfect the way she was, and it really helped the show for her to just be captain and not eye candy.
“In a flow state, you do something not for gain or because someone told you to, but because the joy of simply doing it is enough to make you forget to eat lunch. Janeway is an instructional video for what this powerful brain state looks like.”
(Yes, Janeway was inconsistently written, but given the material she had, she did an exceptional job.)
…
Of course the next chapter is about the girl in the catsuit who increased viewership by 60 percent. She lit the “Sexy” box on fire! Of course I mean my biggest crush in Star Trek history…
So apparently, Jeri Ryan was at the top of their lists from the beginning. But her agents and manager wouldn’t have it. Only weeks of persistence got her an audition. We all know that went!
Ok this blew me away! Jeri had a three year old at the time and he was diagnosed with autism. Also she apparently saw a previous episode of Voyager and hated it so much that it took convincing for her to go through with it. Of course we’re all glad she did!
This shouldn’t surprise me: both Jeri Ryan and Nana Visitor were national merit scholars.
I’ve always very much wanted to meet Jeri. She is apparently so wildly different in real life, very relaxed and always looking to crack a joke. What a beautiful dichotomy! Also Seven was always supposed to be queer, apparently, but for the benefit of the “male gaze” it wasn’t explored until Picard, where it made complete sense to me.
Jennifer Lien is a really sad story. I think the idea of Kes was great but just didn’t really work in television. I’m glad that the character finally got a chance to sort of live out her life in later seasons after being booted to make room for Seven. (That wasn’t the plan by the way, Harry Kim was going to be killed off but offset issues made Lien expendable. But this doesn’t come up in the book.)
Apparently, Kes was going to be written out after the fourth season anyway. Her mental health issues were making her role untenable.
By the fourth season, each episode of voyager cost THREE million bucks to produce. I never realized they had that kind of budget! That’s insane!
For all of the things that didn’t work on Voyager, B’lanna Torres was one of the bright spots right away. Roxann Dawson nailed that role.
Pretty weird for Roxann’s daughter when she was at UCLA to have her mom brought up in class, specifically the episode “lineage” where b’lanna wants to remove Klingon dna from her daughter. She’s a scientist at MIT now!
…
Yeah, enterprise took two steps back. There are good moments on that show, but I’ve never liked it. It’s too much like a western and it’s what almost killed Star Trek, even though season four was generally good. It was extremely hit or miss during the rest of its run, and fortunately, I happened to miss the Orion episode. My favorite episode of that show is actually the mirror universe two parter. Empress Hoshi!
This chapter with Jolene Blaylock starts showing why Rick Berman was a problem as time went on. Apparently Berman said her first audition wasn’t good because she wasn’t wearing makeup. Um, wtf? So he asks the supervising director to tell her to come in with full makeup for the next one. When she did, she got the part. Ugg.
What is cool is all the humanitarian work that Jolene Blaylock has done since then. I feel like they never really let her character grow properly and the relationship with trip seemed forced to me up until the fourth season. I like the cast but none of the characters really stuck with me. Except for Hoshi. She got to be empress, even if it was the “bad” version of her!
“In enterprise, the boys embrace the adventure, while Hoshi worries and T’Pol disapproves.”
Yeah that’s pretty much the problem. Hoshi struggling with anxiety and claustrophobia aren’t the issue. It’s that the writers didn’t do anything good with it until much later. By that point she was an after thought. Although she does have some key moments.
I agree that Archer is way too hard on her, and all the shaking and yelling he does with her is overkill.
I feel like if Hoshi had been allowed to be the audience POV character, playing off of the unemotional T’Pol, the show would’ve worked for me, and the cowboy attitude of the guys would’ve been seen for what it is. You know, a show done this way for irony and satire not played for the straight crap that it is. The show does go somewhere eventually, and just as I liked where it was going, it was canceled. Like Picard it’s a show I have no interest in rewatching. Except the mirror universe episode. I love that show.
However I think the MACO’s were a good idea. I know why they exist, and yet, I actually think they make a lot of sense in-universe and we should’ve had them all along.
Back to Linda Park (who played Hoshi) I never knew she had lupus or went to Notre Dame. She did a lot with what she was given in Trek and it’s a shame it really was nowhere enough.
…
Next, we get into Discovery. NuTrek is becoming a sore subject for me. The more I watch it, the less I enjoy it. Strange new worlds may one day be the only NuTrek I can tolerate but I know one day I will rewatch Discovery to figure out where I really stand with it. Imagine if Burnham got the show that discovery should have been, the 31st century version I imagined recently?
So, let’s put in perspective when Discovery came out. I’m actually going to have a lot of good things to say about the show, even if the plot is convoluted and a total travesty in season three… I’m fine with the plots in two, four, and five, by the way.
There was a 12 year gap between the end of enterprise and the debut of discovery. 2005 to 2017. This is kind of a funny time frame because that’s when I graduated high school and just had my second child on the way.
But in the world we had the “me too” movement, which pulverized all the jerk offs from not just Hollywood but across the board. Nana writes, “in 2017, Forbes stated that women controlled or influenced 70 to 80 percent of all the purchase decisions in the USA.” I think the number has always been that high, it just wasn’t measured that way. The idea of the “female economy” though, well, let’s just say that’s a loaded term.
But yes it was time for a young black woman to have a lead role on trek. I’m a huge fan of Sonequa Martin-Green. But as will come out in these notes, the real hero of this show for me is Mary Wiseman. I thought about it a lot last night.
This is one of the upsides of streaming services; “Freed from the pressure to appeal to everyone and offend no one, Star Trek was ready to double down on ideals of diversity and inclusion.”
And oh boy did they offend a lot of people! Not me, though. What offended me was how convoluted and trash the writing was. Interestingly enough, the character writing is great. It’s the plot that suffers.
It is true you don’t have “The Suits” anymore. That mentality doesn’t work these days anyway. You can’t play anything safe.
Yes having a loving gay couple that’s married on discovery; they did this so well I was blown away. Yes discovery had a transgender character and a nonbinary character. I did feel like this was pandering a bit, but they really wanted to do the Trill justice and they just didn’t handle it quite delicately enough. They really shoved it in your face.
What they got right: the hero being the disgraced officer on a redemption arc! Yes that worked!
Bryan fuller made a lot of questionable choices in my opinion on the direction the show would take, but Michael Burnham wasn’t one of them. He saw her character as a mix of Mae Jemison, Ruby Bridges, and Holly Hunter.
Like hunter’s character, fuller gave Burnham the “quality of always being the smartest person in the room, which would lay on her shoulders the heavy burden of always coming up with the answers.” Very relatable to me, and perfect for SMG.
“[Fuller] felt that the biggest movie released in the 1970s told us that the most important person in the story was the princess, because she was the most humane and altruistic.” Interesting that this wasn’t intended in Star Wars, but for a man to see that, I’m impressed.
A facilitator of “nurture culture” — I like that!
Of Mary Wiseman, Nana writes: “Assessing the actor herself, I think Mary is our best example of why AI will never be able to perform to the levels a human can. Her humanity is too complex, and it’s beautiful to see.”
Again while I absolutely love and adore Sonequa, Mary Wiseman brought something to Discovery we never saw before… someone who is undeniably real.
I’ll never forget when Tilly dropped that F bomb. That’s progress folks, showing a real person, not an “evolved human”
Like I need more to write about, I probably should get that book The End of Bias by Jessica Nordell. I talk about the subject enough myself as it is! May as well be an expert on it. Confirmation Bias studies phd?
Ahh that’s who Mary Chieffo is! She played L’Rell, who is an awesome character btw but the new Klingon makeup… yeah I have issues with it…
But this is an excellent point. L’Rell is a classic example of powerful women being written out of history by patriarchs who saw them as a threat to their power.
It’s like the Matilda effect in science. There’s a name for it in history too but the term escapes me at the moment.
Anyway it sounds to me like Mary Chieffo has a lot in common with another Mary, that being Mary Wiseman. She didn’t ever fit the boxes. Fortunately it seems we’ve finally moved on from those.
Unlike Mrs. Wiseman though, Ms Chieffo was given male roles in school plays. The stage is a very interesting place and so much different than television or film… it really allows you to explore a lot of space that I don’t think anywhere else does.
When it comes to apologizing, yeah that’s a problem I’ve had too. “Laugh too loud, apologize” or “say something intelligent, but follow up with, ‘but what do I know?’” And this shouldn’t be a thing? But I don’t think this is just a thing for women. It’s for anyone who’s underserved and marginalized.
…
For all the issues I’ve had with lower decks, the premise is fantastic. Beckett Mariner as a protagonist is a breath of fresh air; she still needs to figure stuff out. Beimler is the perfect foil for her. Hell, even the crossover with strange new worlds was handled far better than I anticipated. Putting voice actors on screen so rarely works. But it did. Also Tendi has become absurdly popular. For good reason, she’s so loveable!
I had no idea that Tawny Newsome was in her forties. I never would’ve guessed seeing her in Strange New Worlds. She looks like just Beckett Mariner to me!
Well, I now have even more respect for her with this line: “All Starfleet is competency porn…” you think!?
Next is about strange new worlds. The new trek show I actually like! Mostly… [season two ended badly and season three got delayed into late last year and I never got around to watching it. So I don’t know if it got better as of this note…]
Shame Nana didn’t get to talk to Rebecca Romjin (Una), whose character is responsible for one of the best trek episodes of all time!
Nana did however get to speak with Emily’s favorite on the show, Christina Chong, the one character I fear they’re going to kill off because she’s the only one not in the original series at this point.
I was right; Chrissy Chong is indeed a singer, which is why her performances on the musical episode were so strong. Apparently she recently wrote the lyrics: “I get to choose ‘I’ / This is my life.” Good advice for literally anyone.
Melissa Navia’s Erica Ortegas has gotten a lot of hate. I’m waiting to see if that comes up. By the way the hate is stupid bigotry that needs to go crawl in a hole and die. It does come up actually. It’s funny that even I assumed her character might be gay; she’s not. But she gets comments that are quite “so homophobic, so bigoted, so bizarre.” Yeah I know all about that!
For me, Erica is something that trek has been direly missing. We haven’t had much Latinx representation. I know Gene had Jose Ortega in his original notes for the Cage. But her character is wildly different. This is one passionate free spirit, and we haven’t really gotten that yet.
Jess Bush (who plays Nurse Chapel) says, “Patriarchy’s mission is to separate women from their power by making them afraid of it.” Beautiful and badass!
It really bugs me that even in our “evolved” times because Jess prefers to wear her hair short, she got typecast as “gay” or “troubled”. I know plenty of women with super short hair that are so straight they would make a line graph jealous.
In the conclusion, Nana has some powerful insights:
“When I started defrosting how the 1980s and 90s had formed me, I realized for the first time the degree to which I had been groomed and educated to shape-shift into someone the culture could be okay with. I saw how that took energy from my goals and dreams.”
Same with me from the late 90s through the 2010s. Queer people have gotten a lot of help through representation and people generally being a lot less shitty. But we’re not there yet. Even I have biases that disgust me when I recognize them for what they are.
“I have given myself license to emanate from the inside out, instead of the other way around.”
This is massively important.
Equally important: “that’s just the way it was” isn’t a lazy choice; it’s having no other options you can fathom.
Story of my life. It’s also what Walter Cronkite is famous for saying.
Another important point: “using everyone’s talents and points of view will lead to stories that are more truthful to our world and our interests. We all suffer with the stamp of stereotypes.”
I didn’t know this and apparently science didn’t catch up to this until recently; the 3000 mile journey of the monarch butterfly from Vancouver Canada to Mexico is not one generation. It’s more like three or four. What a beautiful metaphor to change in human society.
…
Totally unrelated to the book, but this quote is from an article by Jess Bush…
“With space exploration, we’re at a monumental inflection point that could go one of two ways for humanity. Towards conflict, which is our dominant societal model, or towards cooperation, which is what we need to survive. How we think and act now in this delicate beginning will impact everyone’s future on Earth and beyond.”
Great note to end on there.
