Aheh. I've spent the last two years of my life participating in fandom for the 2009 movie, actually.
There are actually at least three African American men with speaking roles in it, though two don't have names. There's Admiral Barnett, the pilot of Winona's shuttle, and one of the officers in the Kobayashi Maru. I'm only mentioning them because someone else may as a reason to invalidate your analysis.
I do agree with your criticisms (not least of Enterprise, gah), and yet I also love the 2009 movie. It's weird, I know, but one of my ways of reconciling these is that I and others in the fandom, at communities like where_no_woman, have been thinking about and telling the stories of the female characters we can see around the edges and with only one or two lines. There should have been more (I would have loved if, like Battlestar Galactica, they had genderswapped and or chromaticised some of the characters) but these are things we've been thinking about.
Would you like if I posted a link to your blog post at my fannish journal?
I'll edit the post. I meant to check that fact before posting, but I forgot. Thank you, and definitely, yes. I'm trying to make a living at this blogging thing, if it's possible.
ETA: oh, and I completely understand loving a movie that fundamentally fails all feminist and/or anti-racist/classist analysis. But the movie has to be fun, and I found this movie just plain depressing and joyless and rah rah cowboy Jim. There were things I liked about it -- both Zachary Quinto and Zoe Saldana were excellent -- but Uhura was an independent unattached woman in the series, and by golly, that's the way I liked her. I attached a feminist subtext to that (a woman doesn't need a man) vs. a race subtext (black women are 'undesireable), so your mileage may vary.
Concerning women in the movie: http://community.livejournal.com/where_no_woman/53958.html This isn't at all enough -- they should be front and center, and as a friend of mine put it, the movie should not have given itself points for merely approaching to 1960's liberalism (and not even fully living up to that) -- but I was glad those ladies were there.
Concerning the movie being fun... well, de gustibus non disputandum. One of the things I've been enjoying about the fandom are indeed these "What-ifs"; it's a place where I can write Captain [Female Character] or Admiral [non-Western Name] and know people will notice and be pleased.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2011-03-03 05:40 pm (UTC)There are actually at least three African American men with speaking roles in it, though two don't have names. There's Admiral Barnett, the pilot of Winona's shuttle, and one of the officers in the Kobayashi Maru. I'm only mentioning them because someone else may as a reason to invalidate your analysis.
I do agree with your criticisms (not least of Enterprise, gah), and yet I also love the 2009 movie. It's weird, I know, but one of my ways of reconciling these is that I and others in the fandom, at communities like
Would you like if I posted a link to your blog post at my fannish journal?
no subject
Date: 2011-03-03 06:29 pm (UTC)ETA: oh, and I completely understand loving a movie that fundamentally fails all feminist and/or anti-racist/classist analysis. But the movie has to be fun, and I found this movie just plain depressing and joyless and rah rah cowboy Jim. There were things I liked about it -- both Zachary Quinto and Zoe Saldana were excellent -- but Uhura was an independent unattached woman in the series, and by golly, that's the way I liked her. I attached a feminist subtext to that (a woman doesn't need a man) vs. a race subtext (black women are 'undesireable), so your mileage may vary.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-03 07:30 pm (UTC)Concerning Uhura and Spock,
http://rawles.livejournal.com/340736.html
http://rawles.livejournal.com/330851.html
Concerning women in the movie:
http://community.livejournal.com/where_no_woman/53958.html
This isn't at all enough -- they should be front and center, and as a friend of mine put it, the movie should not have given itself points for merely approaching to 1960's liberalism (and not even fully living up to that) -- but I was glad those ladies were there.
Concerning the movie being fun... well, de gustibus non disputandum. One of the things I've been enjoying about the fandom are indeed these "What-ifs"; it's a place where I can write Captain [Female Character] or Admiral [non-Western Name] and know people will notice and be pleased.