So in light of the news regarding the sequel(s) (link) - and the fact that we're pretty much guaranteed a third movie - woohoo! - I wanted to address a particular issue I keep stumbling across. Like most people who saw the new Star Trek movie, I absolutely loved it. But I keep running across quotes from JJ Abrams, Robert Orci, and others from the film, claiming that they were encouraged to make this movie by their wives "because of the strong women" and the like. (link) To which, I have to ask: what strong women?
To which I then add: other than Uhura, what women?
So let's do a run-down of what women we have in this movie.
Women Who Have Names:
Uhura - Obviously, the most important one. True, she does get a bit of fleshing out when we first meet her and it's established that she's really talented in alien languages, etc. But in the latter half of the movie, once it's established she's in a romantic relationship with Spock, her character devolves to: expressing the emotions Spock can't, and displaying a tendency to chase Spock around the ship. You know what was extraordinary about the original Uhura? She wasn't hooked up with any guy. The cast and producers talk about how unusual it is for the "hero" (Kirk) not to get the girl, but his best friend (Spock) rather, instead. You know what would've been even more extraordinary? For the one, signature female to end up with no one at all! For the definition of her character to be something other than "well, see, she's dating this guy..."
Gaila - We see her in her underwear and making out with Kirk. Do we even remember anything else about her?
Women Who Have Names That Are Not Spoken In The Movie:
Winona Kirk (Kirk's mother)
Amanda Grayson (Spock's mother) - And so the only other two significant women in the movie are both Mothers. Yes, that shows real awareness of trying to move forward with more interesting women in the genre - women whose role in the story is defined by whether or not you ever pushed a human being out of your vagina, and whether or not you lived up with the accompanying duties expected thereof. Shall we give the same judgment to the male characters in the movie/franchise - how many women they have impregnated, and how well they live up to their Fatherly duties. I don't think Kirk would come off too well...
So we have four women - one of whom is in a relationship with a male character, one of whom we see in her underwear, and two of whom are Mothers. There are also a couple of women on the bridge of the Enterprise...and one female Admiral in the academy to about ten males.
Could someone direct me to the strong women again? In all the times I saw this movie, I must not have been paying very good attention.
And let us also not forget that the women in this movie are wearing mini-skirts!!
The original uniforms for the women are outdated and blatantly sexist. And I have a hard time grasping the credibility of a "egalitarian" military future where the women are wearing clothing so short as to practically be showing off their underwear. Really, Abrams? You claim that this movie has strong women - and put them all in mini-skirts?? You changed so many other things to the franchise - but you couldn't be convinced to lose the mini-skirts?
Here's the thing: I wasn't watching this movie expecting or hoping for an excess of strong women. The point of this movie was to reboot the original series, and make the franchise accessible to people beyond the fanbase. And of both those goals, it did extraordinarily well. But there was only one female character in the original series, and she didn't even really have a personality. Adhering to the original story and its characters doesn't allow much for strong women. And that's fine - your movie doesn't have to be cited as a Pioneer for Women's Rights in Science Fiction. But please don't pretend or claim that it is.
The only explanation I can think of is that some of the men involved in the process looked at the overall picture, realized what a dearth of women they are, knew what a risk that could be, and so decided to start spreading the rumor that there are a lot of strong women - as if that will somehow start to convince people of the existence of something that it so clearly not there. As if saying that there are strong women will somehow compensate for the lack.
It's like if someone started talking about how fantastic this movie was because of what a clear ensemble it was. Which, of course, it wasn't. I mean, each of the individual characters gets their moment in the spotlight - Scotty does amazing technical things and makes people laugh, Chekhov is a 17 year-old genius, Sulu is a pilot that fences (albeit shirted), and McCoy is snarky and sardonic - but ultimately, the movie belongs to Spock and Kirk. And that's exactly how it should be. I don't hear anyone claiming that this movie is "such a great ensemble" to try to distract people from the fact that it clearly isn't.
Claims like this from Abrams is like two steps backwards in the struggle to get more and interesting women depicted in pop culture; it kind of makes things worse. So Abrams and co. officially go into the category of: Men Who Don't Try Very Hard...But Think That They Do.
And if you really care about depicting strong and interesting women in sci-fi, I would recommend looking to the likes of Joss Whedon, Ron Moore, and David Eick for inspiration.