After looking at the character introductions for Margaret Houlihan, Kira Nerys and Sam Carter, I decided to look up the character intro for Deanna Troi on Star Trek: the Next Generation.
Considering how Margaret, Kira and Carter are generally represented (military figures, occasionally sexualised in specific circumstances but not sexualised constantly within their roles as military officers in military uniforms), all of their introductions unnecessarily mentioned their appearances. Make no mistake-- these three women ARE sexualised. But not constantly so. In fact, by large – especially thanks to the women playing with them — the vast majority of the time, we see them represented as SOLDIERS, not women.
This is how the three of them are generally dressed in most episodes:
Okay, now let's talk about Deanna Troi. She is CONSTANTLY sexualised. Like... CONSTANTLY. Her character is yes, in the military, but I guess because she plays a therapist she's just allowed to walk around in lowcut jumpsuits.
We see her in far more revealing clothes, far more often than any of these other women.
The actor herself, Marina Sirtis, has talked about how limited the character was, and how she had to see the role as something like ‘beautiful women can be competent’. They had action women (Tasha, Ro), and they had intelligent women (Crusher).
But this character was one of the most intentionally limited and suffocated within Trek ( in my opinion). Because her purpose was from the beginning cheesecake.
Marina did what she could with the character. Like these other three actors, she was given a very limited role, and slowly had to ask them to expand it. Unlike these women, the expanding that she had to talk to them about was that this character could do anything more then tell the captain that the angry screaming alien on the screen is angry, whilst looking gorgeous. That’s it. That was her job.
She DOES become less sexualised as the series goes on-- mostly at the pleading of Sirtis herself. late in the series she's even allowed to wear shirt that goes all the way up to her collar bone when Jellico yells at her for dressing inappropriately (an episode, quite frankly, I really liked. Specifically for this reason.) I mean she still had to sit there in a seductive fashion telling people that other people were angry, but she was finally allowed to start growing beyond the cheesecake she was given.
So considering how constantly Deanna is sexualised within the show--beautiful, seductive, cheesecake to look at as the important men do all the action on the screen— … in comparison, her character intro must be talking constantly about her boobs and her hair and her eyes and whatever else, no? because that’s all her character was conceived for, especially by Roddenberry. So surely, the script will be over the top compared to the descriptions for these other three women characters. Show the description should list her various attributes, no?
That's it. No, that is literally it. That is Troi's introduction.
Mind blown, lads. Mind. Blown.
It’s worth noting that none of the characters in the TNG pilot have descriptions. This is likely because there was a Bible which included complete character descriptions. I am curious whether or not that Bible would have gone into explicit description about Troi and her body.
But I do not have that Bible. I only have access to that pilot. And in that pilot, they don’t even mention Troi’s gender.
Considering the first three women are the action orientated type of military figures, one would expect no mention – or need to mention – their appearances. And yet, obviously, they did it anyway.
And yet Troi, the more emotional character within the military, clearly there for sex appeal and not action orientated, just literally a name in the script. Four letters. No description whatsoever. Fascinating stuff. not what I expected to find.
If anyone happens to have a copy of Roddenberry’s old TNG Bible, I would be very interested to see it. Especially with regards to the character descriptions of the women. Very interested.
Without that however all we have to go on is the description within the script. And curiously for the cheesecake character, it is literally a name – not even a gender listed. And I find that fascinating.
Tuttle digs through (non M*A*S*H) scripts
