In the episode of Star Trek: The Original Series that I watched, crew members of The Enterprise were being killed left and right. They were all being killed by an alien that fed by killing people for the salt in their body. The way interesting part was how the creature hunted it’s prey. It could transform into any person it wanted. The intelligent part was that the creature knew the best way to draw in its victims. It disguised itself as man’s biggest weakness, a woman. The killer would take the form of an attractive woman and lure men to secluded area and quietly killed them.
I think there were a few hidden messages in this episode. It seemed to me like the writer, Gene Roddenberry, was not very fond of women, and it showed men as being weak and stupid. The creature was usually a woman that sucked the salt out of men. I believe that what the writer was trying to show was that women are evil. Why else would the creature take the form of a woman? A man could have killed the crew members just as easily as a woman. However, the writer had the monster take the form of a woman for most of the episode. The writer didn’t seem like he was trying to hide his view of women either. He just showed women literally sucking the life out of men. Also, the men in the episode were so mesmerized by women, that after seeing the creature’s woman form, they were completely unable to function.
Roddenberry's approach to the female gender in his shows is quite interesting. While this is more apparent in later works, he generally explores the interaction between the sexes more than making statements about either one in general (in Star Trek Voyager the captain is female, etc).
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure he wants to brand women in general as evil, but maybe wants to say things about how shallow, seduction-driven interactions between the sexes can blind people from seeing important points?
You should look at his later shows and compare.
That is a good point, looking back, I can definately see that he could be exploring the interaction between the sexes, not just making statements about them. I guess i will have to look at his later work and compare it to the original star trek.
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