Star Trekking
by Catherine Redfern // 22 February 2009, 22:05
After watching the trailer for new Star Trek movie, my partner commented:
"There's no women in that trailer apart from a woman taking her top off."
Good point.
Whilst I enjoyed pondering what the Kirk/Spock slash fanfiction writers might make of these young, thrusting versions of their beloved characters, I also wonder how a film about the early days of the original Star Trek cast, which as we know featured only two female characters (Uhura and Nurse Chapel), could be updated to include any additonal strong, interesting women.
Will they go the Enterprise route and make it a big macho romp? Will the female characters simply be love/sex interests for Kirk (a macho character if there ever was one)?
Or will they resurrect the original strong, powerful female character in Gene Roddenberry's pilot episode; Number One, played by Majel Barrett. Her character was reportedly rejected by the Network as they claimed the audience wouldn't accept such a strong female in a command position. In the original series.Majel Barrett ended up playing Nurse Chapel, a total waste of a great talent if you ask me.
For more geeky feminist debate, check out the Feminist SF blog, or for the more academically inclinded, there's http://feministsf.org/. Personally, I miss Babylon 5 (sighs wistfully).
p.s. Did you know that in the first series of Star Trek: The Next Generation, some of the male extras in the corridor scenes wore uniforms with skirts? A nod towards a more unisex, equal imagined future, apparently.
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Founder of The F-Word, Catherine Redfern, has co-authored a new book with Kristin Aune. Find out more at the 
Mark // Posted 23 February 2009 at 10:50
"Her character was reportedly rejected by the Network as they claimed the audience wouldn’t accept such a strong female in a command position."
I'm not pouring cold water on this claim, but adding some nuance. Maybe the network was averse to a strong female lead. But, maybe not. This is from the Wiki entry you gave a link to.
"The prominence of a woman among the crew of a starship was one of the reasons that the original Star Trek pilot was rejected by NBC ..... according to Roddenberry .... However, producer Herbert Solow suggested that the network was fine with the character but was infuriated that the relatively unknown actress was cast simply because she was having an affair with Roddenbery."
Anna // Posted 24 February 2009 at 09:54
They need to make more Janeway movies. That woman was a god.