to think gene roddenberry either supported or at least sympathised with feminism ?

[MissBubbles]

what do u think ? i say this because while watching star trek the other day i thought this could be the case based on the klingon women ? has anyone noticed just how agressive and strong they are ? and bearing in mind star trek was created many years ago, i think he was trying to say that women can be just as strong & important in society :)

Yes definitely.
The society in STNG is portrayed as having no discernible gender bias. The episode Angel One is set on a planet with a female oriented society, and it is remarked upon as being unusual for social standing to be based on gender.
Also in the first series of STNG Tasha Yar is head of Security, and many Starfleet ships captains are female.

im glad im not the only one who thinks so arsesandoldlace i asked my dp what he thought and he didnt get it lol

Roddenberry was not necessarily responsible for the uniforms, was he

It was gutting to see those miniskirts back in the latest film, though. I hope the film creates a better alternative society without those skirts. Unless it brings kilts in for the boys. I'm sure Spock's legs are quite fine!

im a bum girl myself, so a nice pair of tight jeans for the 'new spock' would be good lol

The thing about the short skirts is that they were supposed to be men's uniform too. They were known as skants, but were scrapped after season 1 of TNG.

Roddenberry was firmly on the humanist/atheist side of things and definitely envisaged the future as a place where religion/race/nationality/species/gender was unimportant. The Enterprise crew was deliberately multi-everything and things like the famous kissing scene between the Kirk (white) and Uhura (black) characters caused unimaginable shock and outrage at the time. Not sure if being a serial philanderer strengthened or weakened his wannabee feminist status but he was certainly ahead of his time.

His wife was the 2nd-in-command in the original 1960s pilot episode -- TV Network insisted that a woman as 2nd-in-command was totally unbelievable and she got demoted to the Nurse.

Network also told Roddenbury to "get rid of the guy with the ears" !

he deliberately put in the black, russian and female characters to show a future where we had transcended gender and race bias.

of all the characters, at the time, the russian was the most controversial.

Having Uhuru as a competent crew member was also pretty advanced for US TV at the time.

It is a society with no discrimiation as imagined by someone in the 1960's. So it still carries cultural baggage from then, but that was certainly the intention.

First interracial kiss on TV, wasn't it?
And he was warned off doing it.
Apparently many African-American families used to watch ST on TV, even if they had to share a neighbour's, because there was a black female bridge officer. Unlike real life at the time.

Think same.He had vision but had to make it acceptable to both audience and tv execs.Gotta love his vision though wish more people had it

Star Trek inspired the first black woman in space to go for the career she did.Can't get better than that I think.
Apparently they either tried or wanted can't remember which to get the kiss cut out when showing it in parts of America.They said it would cause riots apparently and give the coloured people ideas....,think thats what it was meant to do as in show that not everyone was racist

Wasn't that episode with the interracial kiss (Plato's Stepchildren???) one of the - what was it? - seven never shown on UK TV, banned by the BBC for being unacceptable?

[ sad trekker emoticon ]

Come on, who can name them and remember why they were banned?

There were 7 banned Didn't think any were in britain they only talk about America on the documentaries etc.

I think one was "Miri" which was banned because children attacked adults and that was too shocking.

I have just googled and forum where someone says that some episodes were banned by the BBC for being rubbish . That can't be a reason for not showing episodes, I have definitely seen "Spock's Brain" on the BBC!

I expect it's an urban myth.

Though lots of things get censored without us realising, of course. Did you know that the film "Airplane" was only called that in the UK? Its real name was "Flying High" but that was not allowed here because it sounded like a joke relating to drug use. Which it errrr was.

should have said "found a forum"

I think they had to continue with the miniskirts for the latest film as they needed continuity with TOS. Otherwise someone would have to retcon a reason why Starfleet had gone all saucy a few years later.

ROFL at retconning all of Starfleet! Would one single procedure work on all the aliens represented? Or would aliens with more integrated cortices be harder to retcon than pathetically primitive humans?

Well, 'retcon' just means adjusting the plot to explain earlier inconsistencies... Torchwood took the name for their memory wiping drug.

I realise how geeky this makes me sound.

Yanbu

However in TNG after Tasha Yar died, the only two women with leading roles were Dr Crusher and Counsellor Troi.

Do you remember Troi's outfits and hair? She looked like a cheerleader.

Both women with leading roles were in the caring professions.

It wasn't until STVOY that they had women in leading roles: the captain, the chief engineer, Seven of Nine later on.

FGS you lot.....get a life.