Great Bird of the Galaxy

Nichelle Nichols (Uhura on the original series):”Whoopi Goldberg, she’s just marvellous. I had no way of knowing that she was a Star Trek fan. When I finally met her it was her first year on the Next Generation.

She loved the show so much and she told her agent she wants a role on Star Trek. Well agents go ‘Big screen, little screen, no, you can’t do that’. Well you can’t tell Whoopi ‘You can’t do that’.

And so they finally asked, and they had the same reaction at Star Trek office, specifically Gene. And she said, ‘I want to meet him and I want him to tell me to my face. If he tells me he doesn’t want me and why, I’ll be fine.’

Knowing Gene he had to take that challenge, and so he met with her. She said, ‘I just wanted you to tell me why you don’t want me in Star Trek.’

Gene said, ‘Well, I’ll just ask you one question and I’ll make my decision on that. You’re a big screen star, why do you want to be on a little screen, why do you want to be in Star Trek?’

And she looked at him and she said, ‘Well, it’s all Nichelle Nichols’ fault.’

That threw him, he said, ‘What do you mean?’

She said, ‘Well when I was nine years old Star Trek came on,’ and she said, ‘I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, “Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there’s a black lady on television and she ain’t no maid!”’ And she said, ‘I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be, and I want to be on Star Trek.’

And he said, ‘I’ll write you a role.’

The sex kitten aliens (The Caitians) in Star Trek: Into Darkness that indulge so many patriarchal fantasies are… Asian. I don’t know why I didn’t catch it the first time I watched this, but I’m pretty annoyed now.

Let me tell you a story that explains why this outrages me.

I had the honor of attending the Asian American panel at Dragon*Con with Garett Wang (Ensign Kim from Star Trek: Voyager), Peter Shinkoda (Dai from Falling Skies), and Justin Lin (Director of oh so many Fast and the Furious movies). It was a fascinating panel about the struggles Asian American actors face, even if it was peppered with racial slurs from a lady in the audience who felt she had the right to say them because she had married and Asian man.

But there were something wrong with that panel, and it was because it was only about Asian American actors. Actors. Never once did the subject of actresses come up, nor were there were any other actresses on the panel.

Firstly, I will never say that Asian American actors don’t have a tough time getting representation, but in comparison to the representation that Asian actresses gets, they have it significantly easier.

After all, compared to Sulu, who becomes a bad ass Captain that everyone initially underestimates, the representation of Asian women is low; their only appearance being that of the Caitains.

Asian men are never relegated to sexualized male power fantasies, or pornographically-driven subplots where their existence depends on the white male pleasing them.

And this is exactly why this scene bothers me. Those two sex kitten aliens could have literally been anyone, but they chose Asian twins.

Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (born Majel Leigh Hudec; February 23, 1932 – December 18, 2008) was an American actress and producer. She is best known for her role as Nurse Christine Chapel in the original Star Trek series, Lwaxana Troi on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and for being the voice of most onboard computer interfaces throughout the series. She was also the wife of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. As the wife of Roddenberry and given her ongoing relationship with Star Trek - participating in some way in every series during her lifetime - she was sometimes referred to as “the First Lady of Star Trek".