I found this after reading and responding to this post here about early Trek fans’ prejudicial negative reaction to TNG. One of my responses (see here) was to point out that any fans of the progressiveness of Trek ought to have been mindful of the room for improvement over TOS, with female representation being an obvious issue. I posed the question “when did Trek start consistently passing the Bechdel test”, thinking that it didn’t start happening until Voyager, which those hard-line TOS fans would never have allowed to be made (along with TNG and DS9).

And of course, someone’s done the analysis with graphs and everything! Awesome! (though note the links to tumblr posts at the bottom that are now behind a sign-in wall … fun).

The results aren’t surprising to me, generally. I expected TNG to do worse, but also thought it did a pretty good job with female guest characters so it might score higher than I thought. DS9, I expected to do better than TNG, which, to my surprise is only marginally true. But I didn’t expect, from memory, how much of that is attributable to so many characters breaking off into (hetero, yes even Odo) couples. Voyager obviously does very well. And Enterprise … well we shouldn’t expect much of that … honestly, for me, this cements the show’s status as a blight on this era to lean so masculine straight after voyager.

And of course TOS shows its age, which, surely by 1987, good Trek fans should have been aware of?

Beyond that, I can’t help but think of SNW here, which, IMO has a wonderful cast/crew that’s well balanced and which I’d expect to be doing well on the Bechdel (as low and superficial bar as it is). But, as it starts to transition into a TOS prequel/reboot (as it is trending from S2 and as the show runners are indicating), all of those TOS characters are going to carry that 60s baggage with them. They’ll all be men (Uhura is already there!) and all be special miracle workers. La’an’s story has already been sidelined into a Kirk romance. Pelia the engineer was already somewhat substituted by Scotty the engineer. As it goes on (presuming it does), I think it could begin to look awkward once you squint.


EDIT: For those asking about new seasons/series … I found this page/blog by the author of the parent blog post … which provides data for some new Trek (Disco and Picard S3 and SNW S1 it seems).

Somewhat notably to me (though only one data point) … the one episode of SNW S1 that (clearly) fails the test is the one with Kirk in it.

In a similar vein though, while Disco generally does well (best of all Trek so far it seems), the author notes that Season two had the most episodes that were close to the line, because Michael’s arc was so intertwined with her search for her brother, Spock. That is, the more new Trek leans into TOS nostalgia, the worse this gets.

  • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.mlOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    23
    arrow-down
    9
    ·
    1 year ago

    Sorry my friend … that’s a downvote from me.

    Measure of a man doesn’t pass, and thats the best episode imo.

    This isn’t about single episodes or even whether an episode that fails can be good by other standards. Flipping this, would the episode have been worse if two women had a conversation about something other than a man? I’d imagine not at all, so why didn’t it happen?

    And imo, the test is mainly good for rage bait and not much more than that.

    I haven’t seen any rage here … unfortunately, your post is the most angsty I’ve seen, which, I have to say, implies that you’re uncomfortable with something like Trek or TOS being critiqued or diversity issues in general.

    Beyond that, it’s a simple “test” that anyone who actually uses or talks about will acknowledge is simple and flawed, but is also relevant in talking and thinking about gender diversity in how much it if failed. Just look at the graph of pass rates for Trek over time … basically a steady increase (until ENT). That more or less shows that it’s not a meaningless hollow test but actually measures something real.

    If you don’t care about gender diversity or don’t think it’s that important, would you care to explain why?

    • Throwaway@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      10
      ·
      1 year ago

      I think the story comes first. A diversity first approach just leads to a terrible story. Something like the Shawshank Redemption, thats a good story but it has no women. And when you have diversity first, you (generally speaking) don’t get good stories. Its not impossible, to be sure, but it usually turns into gimmicks and token characters.

      • Value Subtracted@startrek.websiteM
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        ·
        1 year ago

        Something like the Shawshank Redemption

        In the original Stephen King novella, Morgan Freeman’s character is a white Irish guy. I look forward to hearing all about your newfound hatred of this forced diversity.

        • Throwaway@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          6
          ·
          1 year ago

          But it wasn’t a gimmick. No one pointed to him and said “Look at our token! Hes black! Isn’t that impressive?”

            • Throwaway@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              5
              ·
              1 year ago

              A diversity approach makes characters into gimmicks. A story first approach doesn’t. How is that moving goalposts?

      • USSBurritoTruck@startrek.websiteM
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        You’re commenting this on a Star Trek discussion forum. A show that was founded on the idea that diversity is a strength. Gene Roddenberry specifically cast women in positions of authority, and non-white actors to be the crew of the Enterprise because he wanted to portray a future where humanity had moved beyond such petty bigotries.

        A franchise which has persisted for 57 years, and is recognized the world over, founded on the “diversity first” approach you’re lamenting.

        • Throwaway@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          But it wasn’t. No one looked at Worf or Guinan and made their race part of the marketing.

            • Throwaway@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              1 year ago

              Easiest example is 2016 ghostbusters. The whole gimmick was that they gender flipped the original.

              • USSBurritoTruck@startrek.websiteM
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                7
                ·
                1 year ago

                That’s not how that movie was marketed though; it was marketed with a bunch of bad CGI and half-assed adlib because Paul Feig couldn’t write an actually funny script even if he had Mel Brooks and Mike Judge puppeting him like marionette.

                What you’re talking about is the same thing I was talking about, the very conception of the idea. Star Trek from the very beginning in 1966 has been about pushing the boundaries of diversity on television.

      • astronaut_sloth@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I agree with you…to a point. Story should come first, but if a story fails the Blechdel Test, there should be a good, defensible reason for it, and there are good reasons to fail the test, e.g. a story takes place exclusively on a Royal Navy ship circa 1800; there were no women there, so it wouldn’t make sense to pass. I’ll buy it.

        In Star Trek though, there are fewer defensible reasons because of the nature of the show. Off the top of my head, “Measure of a Man” could have Capt. Louvois discussing Android rights with Dr. Pulaski (without mentioning Data) or Troi expressing to Guinan how upsetting it is that these trials are necessary. Does the lack of a scene like that make the episode bad? No. It starts a discussion, though, which is the primary purpose of the test to begin with. In the case of “Measure of a Man,” a scene like that would have probably been left on the cutting room floor to make way for a tighter story that just happened to not have women at the center of it.

        Also, reasonable people can disagree on how important a particular scene could be, but the discussion of female representation is still an important one. The goal isn’t to “pass” the test for everything, but there shouldn’t be an overwhelming amount of failures of the test.

        • Throwaway@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yeah? Ive seen all of TNG and DS9, and Voy. Ive seen most of Enterprise too. I gave Picard 3 episodes before before I wrote off nutrek.

          (My favorite episode is outrageaos okana, and I love quarks episodes)