More Women on the Bridge, Less Women in the Fridge
Just days before the latest entry into the Star Trek canon debuted in theatres, trouble was brewing at Montreal Comic-Con.
Kate Mulgrew, famous for playing Captain Janeway in Star Trek Voyager, was on the receiving end of several off-color jokes from William Shatner. When she spoke about crying as her show wrapped, Shatner commented that her weeping “was so female. I can’t imagine the captain of a starship weeping.” Perhaps even worse was his response to a fan cheering that “a woman’s place is on the bridge.”
“A woman’s place is in the fridge,” he joked. Twice.
Setting aside the fact that weeping is “so female” and not something a captain would do (though Shatner’s Jim Kirk has definitely shed more than a few tears throughout his tenure on the bridge), the idea that a woman’s place is in the fridge is more than a little unsettling. While I doubt Shatner is aware of the trope “women in refrigerators”, it’s still hard to separate his joke from the recent rush of female characters being fridged.
Shatner’s own franchise is guilty of putting more than its fair share of women in refrigerators. The original Star Trek fridged many a female crew member during the show’s heyday, and the JJ Abrams helmed reboot in 2009 saw the fridging of Spock’s mother Amanda (a deleted scene also implied that Kirk’s Orion girlfriend Gaila was killed offscreen). And — spoilers for Star Trek Beyond — two of the three major onscreen deaths in the latest installment are women who exist for either the sole purpose of manipulated the heroes or to die as a show of force by Krall (Idris Elba). There’s also the absence of Alice Eve’s Carol Marcus, who was unceremoniously written off in between Star Trek Into Darkness and Beyond.
The dismissal of Carol Marcus also points to a very troubling Trek trend. Outside of the unsettling implications in Shatner’s comments, it seems as though any Star Trek movie cannot have more than two or three women on the bridge.
The Original Series had Uhura as the only major female character, with Majel Bennet’s Christine Chapel and Grace Lee Whitney’s Janice Rand appearing as recurring episodes. More often than not, women were introduced then disposed of within a single episode. Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Enterprise all only had two major female characters; the Mulgrew-helmed Voyager has three. Beyond introduces new character Jaylah (Sofia Boutella), who has been well-received across the board which hopefully will ensure her transition into Star Trek 4. Still, that’s two women against the five male leads on the USS Enterprise.
Even as Hollywood begins to diversify it’s leads, there is still a striking gender imbalance when it comes to onscreen action teams. Marvel’s two biggest teams, the Avengers and the Defenders, each only feature one woman; DC might be ahead of the game by giving Wonder Woman her own solo feature and making her the center of most Justice League posters but she is still the only woman on the team. Even Star Trek’s gargantuan cousin Star Wars continues to have a gender imbalance — Daisy Ridley’s Rey and Felicity Jones’s Jyn Erso are the only women on their respective teams. (Note: this will hopefully change in the upcoming Star Wars Episode VIII with the addition of Kelly Marie Tran in a major role.)
Star Trek has long been groundbreaking in terms of representation. Beyond took the series to a bold new frontier by revealing Hikaru Sulu (John Cho) was gay, with a husband and child. Still, there is more unexplored territory for the franchise to cover, and one way to do so is to work out a better gender balance for upcoming crews.
When it was announced that Bryan Fuller would be bringing Star Trek back to television, Fuller excitedly said that his dream captain would be played by Angela Bassett, with first mate Rosario Dawson. Though Bassett has since shot down those rumors, the fact that Fuller’s vision of the future looks like that holds true to Gene Roddenberry’s original spirit of inclusion and unity. We can only hope that Fuller and company will boldly move forward with a more balanced and inclusive starship. After all, that fan was right. A woman’s place is on the bridge. And there’s definitely room for more than just one.
