Uhura
I realize that my tirade against the portrayal of women in the original series overlooks Uhura, a very obvious woman character who has yet to be the love interest for anyone.
But here’s the totality of her character so far: she’s a black woman who operates the radio. Occasionally she remarks that she’s frightened. She also sings.
Now, I don’t want to go overboard on this: Uhura as part of the cast was truly a giant leap in many ways. Featuring a black woman as an important member of the crew was a progressive and ballsy thing to do. But it’s kind of sad that she’s given so little to work with.
And the fact that she was sleeping with Roddenberry doesn’t put all this in the best light, either.
Let me also be clear that the meagerness of the role is in no way Nichelle Nichols’ fault; it’s the writers and the network, who didn’t like her so much that they withheld her fanmail in an attempt to smoke her out of the production. She only stayed around for season two because Martin Luther King, Jr told her that his kids enjoyed watching her.
But if you compare the original Uhura with the one in the 2009 Star Trek movie, you can see how far things have come: the ‘new’ Uhura is an incredibly adept communications officer adept in multiple languages and signals intelligence. They give her things to do and make those things important to the plot. And here’s the thing; these things should be important to the plot; this is a show about wandering around space and communicating with people over the radio.
Which is just to say that, had the production staff been a little more incredibly progressive than they already were, the show would look slightly less dated than it does.
