How Many Star Trek Episodes Pass the Bechdel Test? (TOS to ENT) | The Mary Sue ( www.themarysue.com )

teft , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

Not even one episode of season 1 TOS passed it. For shame. What were the 60s thinking?

Edit: /s by the way. I’m aware of the culture in the 60s.

maegul OP , 10 months ago

I mean, it was another time. Their first pilot had number one, and that didn’t fly. But that’s the point, it was another time, and staying stuck in that time will always have drawbacks. As the article points out, the TOS Kelvin timeline reboots don’t do well on the bechdel at all, and it’s not a coincidence. If SNW heads toward more TOS prequel/reboot territory, you’ll probably see it in bechdel data like this.

pjhenry1216 , 10 months ago

The first pilot literally had them talking about how weird it is to have a woman on the bridge.

StillPaisleyCat , 10 months ago

That was likely added to quell reactions to a woman as a first officer. But the Network had notes even so on how negatively test audiences reacted to Majel Barrett’s Number One.

Roddenberry tried another tack with blonde, beehived, Whitney in a miniskirt as Yeoman Janice Rand. She was supposed to be a woman main character but even that was too much for the executives and she was written out by the end of the first season.

someguy3 , 10 months ago

A yeoman is an odd position to write into a series.

StillPaisleyCat , 10 months ago

It’s one of the most senior NCO roles, and one that interacts regularly with a captain. It shouldn’t have been portrayed as a secretary.

Roddenberry was told he couldn’t have both an alien (Spock) and a woman as a first officer.

someguy3 , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

A petty officer performing chiefly clerical duties in the US Navy.

Clerical duties don’t make for exciting tv. It may be important in real life, but doesn’t work for tv. [Insert joke about TPS report.]

teft , 10 months ago

It shouldn’t have been portrayed as a secretary.

That’s exactly what a yeoman does on a modern naval ship.

From wikipedia:

In the modern Navy, a yeoman is an enlisted service member who performs administrative and clerical work.

StillPaisleyCat , 10 months ago

That’s understating the role.

Administration does not equal secretary, except in the old British usage where the Secretary to the Prime Minister is what’s now called a Chief of Staff.

A yeoman is one of the most senior NCOs, responsible for communication with command and the admiralty, also responsible for performance assessments of all the enlisted ranks and more junior NCOs.

teft , 10 months ago

Yeoman can rate from E-1 to E-9 so I’m not sure why you think they are only senior NCOs.

This is directly from a naval site:

General Description

Yeoman perform administrative and clerical work. They receive visitors, answer telephone calls and sort incoming mail. They type, organize files and operate modern office equipment such as word processing computers and copying machines.

What They Do

The duties performed by YNs include:

<span style="color:#323232;">Preparing, typing and routing correspondence and reports
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Organizing and maintaining files
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Receiving office visits and handling telephone communications
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Operating personal computers, word processing, duplicating, audio-recording and other office machines
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Performing office personnel administration
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Maintaining records and official publications
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Performing administrative functions for legal proceedings
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Serving as office managers
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Performing other various clerical and administrative duties
</span>

That’s a secretary, or more properly today an administrative assistant.

StillPaisleyCat , 10 months ago

The level would be relative to the officer they are supporting. On a ship with a captain who was a full captain, they would be a senior NCO.

Not to mention that the ranks in the 1960s were a bit different.

teft , 10 months ago

Their position would increase as they increased in rank but they are still just secretaries, even at the highest level.

On a ship with a captain who was a full captain, they would be a senior NCO.

This is false. In the documentary Carrier (2008) which follows the USS Nimitz on a deployment in the gulf they follow a yeoman, Shaneka McReed for some of it. She is promoted during the episode to E-4, Yeoman Petty Officer 3rd Class. She was a yeoman who served on the bridge of the carrier. (I just recently watched this which is why I thought you were incorrect on your description).

I don’t know about rank changing since the 60s other than in 2016 they no longer referred to sailors by their ratings, only their rank.

StillPaisleyCat , 10 months ago

It’s tricky to know because technology has changed the nature of these jobs significantly, and Star Trek has tended to map to roles as they are, despite projecting further technology.

In the 60s, 70s & 80s, a Yeoman would have held the encryption keys and would have been responsible for interactions with command. (The Comms officer would have had communications engineering and codes, but not necessarily access to the highest command codes.)

Likewise, responsibility for personnel assessment and promotion recommendations among ratings was a senior NCO responsibility that interlinked with the responsibilities of the XO.

It’s easy to portray a lot of these jobs as ‘merely clerical’ and it can be a kind of erasure of the people of colour and women who were in these ratings.

It brings to mind the work of the WW2 Wrens who did all the naval gaming in the UK and in Halifax, modeling, innovating and teaching tactics to UK and allied navies, but who got no credit. Or the women ‘computers’ and code breakers at Bletchley. Their commanding officers got all the credit and they were erased.

teft , 10 months ago

Oh I’m not trying to diminish them, I actually think the administrative assistants and secretaries of the world do a million times more than the executives they support. Yeoman Rand probably does a ton of behind the scenes shit that keeps the ship running but on paper yeomen are assistants. They aren’t the decision makers even when they are assigned to a captain or XO. The decision maker would be the Command Master Chief. He works hand in hand with the command team and does a lot of administrative stuff too but he is more of a leader whereas a yeoman is more of a supporter. There are many quirks about the military like this so I don’t think it’s weird she’s on the bridge at all.

StillPaisleyCat , 10 months ago

Understood. I suspect that Roddenberry was just trying to find a role for another woman after having such pushback on a Lieutenant Commander.

someguy3 , 10 months ago

Kirk: “Rand, tell Scotty we need more power!”

vs

Kirk: “Scotty, we need more power!”

I know which one is more compelling.

SunriseParabellum , 10 months ago

TOS is peak “product of its time”

teft , 10 months ago

Oh absolutely. I should put a bold /s up there.

letsgocrazy , 10 months ago

That’s a bit of a low-resolution phrase.

Of course it obviously was a product of it’s time - but it did push the boundaries as far as it could, and had to fight for some basic scenes.

Unlike many other “products of their time” that didn’t even try and move the needle for positive representation.