Between the convoluted plot and J.J.
Abrams & co.’s reluctance to deviate from canon despite the fact that the
franchise’s recent incarnation was set up as a reboot, not a remake, Star Trek
Into Darkness isn’t quite the soul-crushing masterpiece I was hoping for.
Basically, it’s more The Dark Knight
Rises than The Dark Knight:
enjoyable and well-acted with some great moments but undeniably messy. For all
its flaws, though, the movie deserves to be remembered for more than a brief
shot of Alice Eve in lingerie, which is apparently the
biggest conversation surrounding the film, eclipsing Zachary Quinto's touching performance as Spock or, on the negative side, the blatant 9/11 parallels, numerous plot holes and even the troubling white-washing of Khan.
That’s
not to say the aforementioned shot isn’t worth talking about. Co-writer Damon
Lindelof (who seems to attract outrage the way metal attracts electricity)
and even Abrams
himself have admitted that it was at best poorly executed and at worst
misogynistic. Regardless of the filmmakers’ actual intentions, it’s easy to see
how people would interpret the scene as blatant, gratuitous pandering to
fanboys, since it had only the most tenuous connection to the ongoing action
and apparently, all sci-fi movies should be marketed exclusively to dumb, horny
teenage boys. As a whole, the film’s treatment of its female characters, while
not necessarily outright misogynistic, is less than ideal. I’m all for a
Spock-Uhura romance, but it would be nice if she got a storyline that didn’t directly
involve her relationship with him, or if the character of Dr. Carol Marcus
served a purpose beyond being a potential love interest for Kirk; I was disappointed
that the movie never developed the budding rivalry between Dr. Marcus and Spock
that was implied in her first scene (besides, if she ends up with anyone, it
should totally be Bones, not Kirk, but maybe that’s just me).
Even
so, I can’t get worked up about The Scene. First of all, it could be argued
that all the supporting characters, with the exception of Khan, were basically
defined by their relationship to Kirk and/or Spock, and I was glad that Uhura
actually got to utilize her language and fighting skills (hell, she got to
rescue Spock at the end). Also, contrary to what
one blogger says, unless my memory is mistaken, Uhura was not the only
woman aboard the Starship Enterprise; like what Joss Whedon did in The Avengers, Abrams included some women
and non-white people (!) in the background of the crew, which isn’t exactly
progressive or worthy of applause but doesn’t erase the fact that they were present
nonetheless. As for Dr. Marcus, it makes sense that Kirk would view her
primarily as a sexual object and express little interest in her supposed
intellectual capabilities, since Abrams’s version of the character has always
been portrayed as something of a serial philanderer.
None of
that is to justify The Scene or the movie’s marginalization of its minority
characters, but truth be told, as much as I sometimes enjoy ranting, I find
myself getting increasingly exasperated by the impassioned, holier-than-thou
tirades that seem to dominate opinion articles and blogs nowadays; they feel
not only simplistic but also incredibly lazy, not bothering to put in the
thought and research needed to form a nuanced, well-rounded discussion.
Now this is a good debate.
Make no mistake: this is the norm, not an exception. Just a
couple weeks ago, Gwyneth Paltrow spent at least a third of her scenes in Iron Man 3 in a training bra and yoga
pants for no reason other than that Hollywood can’t resist another opportunity
to show that women are sexy – even when they’re kicking ass! In fact, the first
thing Tony says to Pepper after she kills the villain isn’t “Thanks for saving
my ass”; it’s “Why don’t you wear that more often?” I get that Tony is a snarky
womanizer and all, but the whole point of his “arc” was that he realizes that
his relationship with Pepper is more important than his relationship with his
suit or something like that (it wasn’t all that clear). Where was the outcry
over that? It certainly seems like more blatant eye-candy than the single shot
in Star Trek Into Darkness, yet if
anything, many people have treated Iron
Man 3 as progressive.
As
someone who’s rarely insulted by onscreen nudity, outside of the occasional
Michael Bay flick or lowbrow comedy, I find it rather bemusing and even
troubling that this is such a touchy subject, even in the 21st
century, when magazines regularly
feature images of suggestively dressed women on their covers and catchy, explicit songs about sex
are staples on Top 40s radio. You’d think that with the ubiquity of dick and
masturbation jokes in comedy, from talk shows to stand-up routines, people
would be more open about issues surrounding sexuality. But it’s telling that the
three elements in film usually described as “gratuitous” are violence,
profanity and nudity, as if seeing a woman’s breasts or a man’s penis could be
just as traumatizing and distasteful as seeing someone’s head get blown off by
a shotgun. According to the MPAA, sex is more objectionable than violence, given
that evidently, a film containing both a three-way sex scene and a woman being
killed brutally by a chainsaw will be slapped with an NC-17 rating for the former (FYI, the offending scene is
like something from Disney compared to the novel, and in Game of Thrones, it would be exposition).
Many
people consider nudity a matter of morality (or lack thereof). Indeed, most
world cultures and religions view public nudity as a sign of sexual immodesty,
hence why Victorian era women dressed in long, layered gowns and bonnets and
why conservative Muslim women wear abayahs. Notice any similarities? If you
said, “In both cases, women are being held to strict standards of morality,”
you would be right. Although in theory, Victorian men were supposed to remain
chaste and faithful, they were able to conduct extramarital affairs and have
numerous sexual partners without major social repercussions, and the Koran
permits men to legally take up to four wives. Today, especially in Western
society, people like to believe that times have changed and those attitudes are
outdated, but in reality, ideas concerning nudity and sexuality are still rife
with double standards. The concept of slut-shaming
was a buzzy subject just earlier this year, when two high school boys in
Steubenville, Ohio, were
charged with raping a young girl at a party and the ensuing guilty verdict
was met with not relief but outrage.
It’s disheartening to know that even in our allegedly post-feminist era, women
are still constantly degraded and punished for displaying sexual desire or
simply wearing tight or revealing clothing (hey, men: sometimes, the weather in
summer can be really hot, so lots of women don’t want to walk around in
long-sleeves and jeans, and even if a woman is dressed in “provocative”
clothing, it isn’t an open invitation for you to rape her).
On the other hand, if you “get ugly” for a role,
you’ll probably win an Oscar because voters won’t be distracted by your
blinding beauty and there’s no way you actually earned the damn thing with your
performance(s).
In all
the hullabaloo, no one bothered to wonder what Alice Eve herself thinks of The
Scene. She’s probably supposed to feel violated because how could any strong,
intelligent woman not object to the sight of her barely clothed body being
projected on 40-foot screens across the world? Never mind that she most likely consented
to do the scene because as far as I know, actresses have free will, even in
mega-budget Hollywood blockbusters, or that maybe – just maybe – she had no
problem at all with it. If it did make her uncomfortable, that’s an entirely
different story, but the fact that it never even occurred to most people to say
anything other than “poor her” reveals both the insidious impact of Hollywood’s
treatment of female nudity (we’re so used to seeing the female body objectified
that it’s hard not to be suspicious
of images of women) and the inadvertently paradoxical nature of critics’
treatment of female nudity. Even as feminists advocate for women to take pride
in their bodies and condemn slut-shaming, actresses are continually praised for
being “brave” when they dare to appear naked in an indie
drama or Oscar
contender (never a blockbuster or genre flick), whereas their male
counterparts have to delve into some sort of harrowing physical, emotional or
psychological territory to receive the same label, and “feminist”
clothing is synonymous with “appropriate” (aka not at all sensual) clothing.
That’s not empowering; that’s implying that women should feel insecure, even
ashamed, of their femaleness because it makes some people men uncomfortable.
At what point does the Theory of the Male Gaze say less about the movie itself
than the people watching it? Because the thing about assigning blame is that it
often allows the accuser to escape scotch-free without having to reflect on
his/her own potential guilt.
When
you really think about it (or if you just think about it at all, really),
modern society’s stance on sex isn’t all that progressive. For me, it’s
essentially embodied by Will Gluck’s surprise 2011 hit Easy A: even as the movie claims to support women’s right to fuck
whoever they want, its heroine only comes to accept herself once she enters a
(presumably) chaste, monogamous relationship with the most blandly attractive
high school jock in the history of blandly attractive high school jocks.
Furthermore, the protagonist, Olive, doesn’t choose sexual liberation in the
first place; not only is the role forced upon her in a predictably contrived,
far-fetched way, but it’s also a complete and utter lie, so at the end of the
movie, she can retain her innocent, good-girl reputation, having been properly
punished for her (false) promiscuity. Even Judd Apatow, famed for his risqué brand
of comedy, takes a weirdly conservative approach to love and marriage in his
films, which are technically little more than male-centric rom-coms. For all
the advances made by the feminist and gay rights movements in the past century,
we still treat sex of the non-heterosexual male variety with infuriating narrow-mindedness,
clinging to Victorian ideas about nudity, sexual deviance and women’s desire
(hint: according to this view, the latter doesn’t exist). Joke about penises
and vaginas and (male) orgasms all you want, but serious, honest conversation
about sex? Oh, heavens no.
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