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I may have mentioned that I watched the third season of Star Trek this week and then having actually finished watching the show bought the movies. I noticed something about Star Trek while watching. Fully half the women in the federation are either doctors or have important jobs. The other half are relegated to the “Lieutenant Upskirt” position, but then NBC had executives and guys in suits can only understand things on so many levels. It was 1968 after all and if they didn’t get to look up girl’s skirts the guys in suits got terribly depressed and threatened to cancel the show, which they did anyway.

My point was though that there are a lot of women who were intelligent on that show. Not only were they smart, but they had short skirts to show of their simply smashing legs. Hot babes with brains! The Avengers was quite popular when Mrs. Peel was around too for some strange reason that I can’t manage to put my finger on at the moment. Something about brains and boots I think.

I also noticed that Star Trek had a boat load of women writers. This even included Sheri Lewis, yes that Sheri Lewis of Lamb Chop fame. As a side note the episode she wrote is where I actually coined “Lieutenant Upskirt” comment while trying to explain to Holly what had happened in the first 40 minutes and why the camera seemed to be aimed directly up her skirt (she was laying down on a sickbay bed). Phrases like “Well, Lieutenant Upskirt here is beset by the naughty photo element of the week” came all too easily. Despite the unfortunate camera angles, it’s actually a pretty good episode.

I don’t have enough TV shows from the sixties to compare, but it seems like there were a lot of women working on Star Trek. Since the rest of entertainment was pretty dominated by men I assume that writing generally was as well. It does make me wonder about how other shows, more modern shows to be precise, compare in terms of their writing staff. Highlander had a few women writing, but it’s really hard to get numbers down because of how credited writing works within a TV show.
Feeling: sleepy
What am I listening to?: Firm - Star Trekkin'
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From:[info]jadecat
Date: May 8th, 2008 03:31 pm (UTC)
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Looking at that Emma Peel photo- the episode they got the head/neck from... Wasn't that episode initially barred from being shown in the US?

The other thing I like... look at those thighs! They're a woman's thighs, not all skinny minnie! Emma Peel was hot!
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From:[info]sdaisyk
Date: May 8th, 2008 03:53 pm (UTC)
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From:[info]amanda_lodden
Date: May 8th, 2008 08:29 pm (UTC)
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Star Trek was actually amazingly progressive for its time. I once watched a documentary (sorry, I have no idea the name of it nor when/where I watched it; it was something I walked into the room midway through John watching it) in which Majel Roddenberry talked about Gene wrote scripts with political messages in them-- they couldn't put anything in about the class struggle between blacks and whites, so instead they had an episode where the crew visits a world where everyone's face is half-black and half-white... only one person has the colors reversed, and is persecuted mercilessly.

Whoopi Goldberg is said to have been inspired to become an actress because of Star Trek, because there "was a black woman on TV, and she wasn't a maid."

The true genius of Star Trek was not that they had women and minorities in the crew, but that the entire crew treated it as if it were completely and utterly normal.
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