Star Trek: The Motion Picture - The Sexual Analysis
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- Опубліковано 5 гру 2019
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture is all about sex. From V'Ger's orifice to Captain Kirk's chest hair, we need to talk about all the sexual undertones of the first big budget trip to the final frontier.
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I've been looking at Star Trek: The Motion Picture all wrong for decades now! It's not the most boring sci fi movie ever. It's the most boring PORN movie ever. Huge difference...
It's also worth noting that many fans see a homoerotic subtext to the scene in sickbay after Spock is brought back to the Enterprise and talks with Kirk in sickbay. That scene in the novel has Spock contemplate the term th'y'la: a Vulcan word that means friend, brother and lover, when thinking about Kirk in the aftermath of his reconnection with his emotional side. A footnote is quick to state that Spock clearly doesn't mean lover in this context, but that certainly feels Roddenberry trying to stave off slash fans more than anything else.
100%, the subtext of that scene, intentional or no, is palpable.
It seems so clear now how Ilia and Decker were prototypes for Troy and Riker.
rudylikestowatch they were! :D
TNG started off as nothing but a collection of leftover ideas from Phase Two and TMP.
I just thought this should’ve been called Star Trek : The Motion Picture “Let’s talk about sex baby”
And now I have Pitch Perfect's Pool Mash Up stuck in my head again. Appreciated. 😁👌
I saw salt and Pepa at Woodstock 2. I am old. I'm proud to have gotten this far.
A movie written by Gene? What else would it be about ?
I think that's to more unnerving part is imagining the writing room and gene roddenberry talking the room through each scene and its symbolism.
Previously I’d seen this movie as aspiring to be 2001, but this is definitely a great new lens to view it through. I don’t think you’re stretching it at all. It’s a very legitimate interpretation.
ive actually argued for a long time that rather than 'aspiring to be' 2001, tmp is, intentionally or not, a response to 2001. i think 2001 is incredibly pessimistic about humanity, about its inherent violence and its inability to accept new life, and tmp is the complete opposite. if v'ger is analogous to hal, than it says a lot how both are dealt with in their respective films. and that 2001 ends with the starchild, the next step in our evolution being created in sterile environment, after the murder of hal, humanitys child, which echoes the way the apes immediately use technology for violence in the first segment of the film, contrasts incredibly with how tmp ends, with us accepting v'ger as our child, and forming emotional connections, valuing those over violence, and that leading to the next step in human evolution, a new form of life, a starchild.
I don't think I will ever be able to see the original film the same way again.
the parallel between spock refusing the kolinar and v'ger returning to earth is that they are both incomplete without their humanity. spock senses v'ger when the other vulcans don't because none of the other vulcans can relate to her. spock is the only one who knows what it means to need his humanity. neither of them understand that in the moment of connection, but is it what is common to them both. they need to return to us to know who they are.
OMG! Long term Trek fan here, and this analysis is so interesting and spot on! I recently took my boyfriend (who's new to Trek) to the 40th anniversary showing of this movie so it's been on my mind lately. I love your work here and I'm looking forward to checking out more of your channel.
I have watched this with equal parts fascination and frustration! I feel you said interesting things but massively missed an opportunity to not-straightwash readings of this film; one of the biggest reasons why people don't understand it and disparage it. The apology at the beginning for the heterocentricity could have been averted completely if you hadn't - rather impressively - sideswerved the enormous, obvious, massive subplot/parallel plot of the entire thing, that is how this film completes the arc of the love story of the entire original series...and it's not about a man and his ship...
Superficially, there is as much homocentric imagery as hetero - 'canals'/wormholes could also be anal; the 'orifice' is much more like a sphincter than anything vaginal - which would make sense in the case of Spock who enters it, since his emotional struggle is unsubtly communicated via the staggeringly obvious parallel between Kirk & himself and Decker & Ilia/V'Ger. You outlined Decker/Ilia's relationship and came so close to this parallel, but then went back on about Kirk and the Enterprise again!!! Kirk's 'real emotional connection' is decidedly NOT the Enterprise, come on; it's Spock. x1000. The film, and the series preceeding it, and heck, CERTAINLY following it make this staggeringly obvious. These (Kirk/Spock, Decker/Ilia-V'Ger) are two parallel love stories/journeys with a sensual undertone of completion, practically lit up in neon letters - actually, LITERALLY in rainbow colours. The 'this simple feeling' scene where they *join hands*; and how after that, Spock talks about 'needing', gazing at Kirk; and saying his task on vulcan is completed *looking at Kirk*. You'll find in the novel, it's Kirk he is also hearing calling to him, and why he fails kolinahr; and the dialogue on Vulcan in the film leaves this 'calling' voice suitably ambiguous. Though there is nothing ambigous about the TENSION between them while Spock is still clearly trying to figure out why he can't purge all emotion, when the man before him is staring at him with pain filled heart-eyes. He can't give an inch to Kirk, or even sit down for him; he is controlling his response to him so much. THIS is what is telling you the biggest story. It is so obvious that this is Spock's finally facing his feelings in one extremely obvious context.
'The Enterprise represents Kirk's only true satisfactory relationship' - what, really??????? Kirk is completely off kilter, and the Enterprise does NOT fix it. Quite the contrary. It's when SPOCK comes back that he acts less broken/depressed/dysfunctional. And all the stuff about being married to the Enterprise is something a lot of people typically project onto it all, forgetting he blows it up for Spock in TSFS. Also, Kirk is not a ‘ladies man’ or a horndog, according to what is actually on screen in the original series; let's not feed all these tired projections. He’s conveyed with a lot of gender and sexual fluidity. It certainly never is/was about the Enterprise. It always was a kind of a facade, a decoy. All the times in the series romantic love is defined or alluded to, are answered solely in Kirk and Spock's behaviour and relationship at some future point.
I feel you've made a lot of interesting interpretations but missed the glaring connecting thread. This is the completion of Spock's arc from the series, regarding his relationship with Kirk. In terms of our familiar characters, this is the story. It's the story of the two reuniting. With a ton of innuendo, and obvious romantic parallels. One of the grounding tenets of the TOS universe - those two having to be together. Rescuing each other. Coming back together. Connecting. Calling each other their soul, their friend/brother/love (citable). I can't believe you managed this analysis and avoided it while coming so, SO close!!! I mean, are you ok???? When you started to say "Kirk realises that what he has actually been missing is the most important part of the ship [as you show him holding Spock's hand]....[dramatic pause]...........its crew'. Its CREW???!! NOOOOOOOOO! You had the scene. RIGHT THERE. How did it escape you???! You end on the 'bonding of Decker/Ilia-V'Ger' - omg! Just...look to Kirk and Spock. No reaching to be had. Makes everything make sense. AND C'MON. THE HUGE RAINBOW ON THE POSTER. **flails and dies**
Omg I love this post. I will say, I am going to be doing a whole video at some point on queer and gay subtext, using Kirk and Spock specifically, so your points will be addressed! I didn’t do it here because to do so opens up a whole avenue into queer theory, which I would love to do but would have made this video endlessly long, and I know I’m going to come back to it later! Though I should probably have made it less 100% heterosexually focused.
@@JessieGender1 Ta! I think what also bothers me is that people seem to separate ‘queer readings’ from ‘general readings’ and it’s that thing of ‘it’s straight by default and anything else is a ‘lens’’ - whereas I have found, proven over and over again if you lay it all out, it is impossible to make a complete analysis of TOS or its movies without non-straight elements. A good, ‘general’ reading of this series/movies HAS to include non-straight elements or one is omitting huge chunks of data that explain episodes, main and subplots, and character arcs. Right from the very first scene of the very first episode (where no man has gone before). It’s not a special queer lens; it’s just the lens of accuracy; or rather, accounting for all data rather omitting it. Yes, there is interpretation of many things in everything, but straightwashing Trek is like taking a black marker to a literary masterwork and scribbling out great chunks of it. I read over and over again people not understanding things because they are aggressively ‘straight’-lensing the series, and, like life, non-hetcis people and truths are not separate and selective realities that only exist if you acknowledge them. What some call a queer reading, is actually, invariably, simply a ‘good’ reading.
So I feel very weird when people review TMP and do acrobatics in avoiding its core character arc because it’s non-straight and therefore doesn't exist to them (not necessarily you, but definitely others). Trek suffers this awful cognitive dissonance in popular culture because aggressively heterocentric ‘fans’ call all queerness in the text ‘slash’ (i.e. in their mind, fan fantasy) even if it is canonically staring them in the face. The reboot movies did not help this, providing for that demographic by ironically inventing its own het-slash plot lines and literally writing a different character for Kirk altogether in line with the inaccurate stereotype these dudes love, to yell at us ‘they’re straiiiight’ when, 50 years on, we might have expected something wholly more progressive and accurate to the “love relationship” Roddenberry described it as. Consequently, the original series suffers in culture with misinterpretations, and is actively disparaged by many who simply have no idea what story it truly tells. I’d go as far as to say its one of the greatest love stories ever told. And it’s queer. I mean that’s BIG. And it’s accurate; that’s the ultimate, most complete reading. And I think it is more a credit to Star Trek as a whole than the original series being constantly misrepresented as a dated romp about captain bangs-all-the-girls Kirk and his penis ship that he’s married to…
(and misrepresentation of Kirk and his sexuality is another essay)
yes, I was a touch disappointed in another ‘straight’/omissive analysis. I hope a pt 2 does redress the balance!
So T'Pring was . . . Spock's beard.
i love this video! it managed to express so much about what i love about tmp and also frames it in a way i never considered. i think youre 100% correct that the film uses sexual coding and language in order to express notions of emotional connection, although obv saying its 'about sex' is obfuscating the point that its not actually about sex, but uses sexual coding and language to talk about something a lot more abstract
Or, from a tantric perspective, maybe it uses sex as an abstract way to talk about _everything._
"and then bone them!" made me laugh HARD at the end of a very smart, mature, and well reasoned analysis. Well done, Jessie.
This is why you're one of the best trektubers out there right now. Loved it
I really enjoyed this! I've always liked the motion picture but this definitely made me think about this movie in a different way, thank you!
Including the parts of your analysis that are a little reaching was a great decision. It helped with pacing, humor, and overall flow.
Very well written, front to back. 10/10
18:33 This reminds me of the novel Frankenstein, in that creature’s search for his creator and finding a mate.
Jessie, congratulations for the video. Incredible, as usual
Great video. I've always loved TMP and never noticed all the sexual imagery. Makes you wonder how much was intentional?
I noticed you never mentioned the one really obvious piece of sexual imagery (although you did show it), which is Decker's unfortunate choice of tight clothing for his meeting with Kirk (you all know what I mean).
The overall design and putty-grey color don't appeal to me, but the form-fitting nature of these uniforms I like. Including Decker's!
"... to forge bonds of emotion, caring, and love with those we meet... and then bone them"
That was... well played.
the more of your videos that i watch the more i fall in love with your content and the person presenting it ^_^ bless you for another wonderful video!!! truly made my day! onto the next!
Hey Jessie
You made me blush!
I love this film - it’s not just a unique Star Trek film but a unique movie along the lines of 2001 and Blade Runner
This is the only Star Trek film that literally presents the Enterprise itself as a ‘character -
I believe that long scene of Kirk seeing the Enterprise again is literally a character introduction
At the beginning of the movie we have V’gers introduction
Followed by Spock
Than Kirk
And than the Enterprise
A major theme in this film is mans relationships to our machines - that is why the Enterprise encounters Voyager 6 itself and not the machines that found it
V’ger considers the Enterprise a living being
The Enterprise is presented to the audience as Kirks romantic passion - ‘They gave HER back to me Scotty!’
Just as Decker and Ilia join with a machine at the end
Symbolically so does Kirk
‘You wanted the Enterprise, I want this!’
Excellent video, the humor was well dosed and the theme of not being to connect with others moved me.
Don't you mean 'The Motionless Picture'? :P
I think "The Slow-motion Picture" is more appropriate.
Beautiful analysis! Bravo!
"The Enterprise represents Kirk's one true satisfactory relationship." I am only seven minutes in but if this video doesn't lead to Spock/Kirk confirmation I will be disappointed.
Edit: I am vaguely disappointed.
This is a great video. But, Jessie, I can't help but feel slightly disappointed that you didn't use my Trek By Candlelight idea. 😂For this theme, it's a bit on the nose.
David Majors haha well sadly, I shot this video weeks ago haha
This is a great analysis. Why can't other UA-cam channels be so insightful and... what is the opposite of "vapid"? Jessie's videos are the opposite of "vapid".
"And then bone them" 😂
Awesome film analysis; anyone how enjoys films, even if they are not a Treki, can learn a lot from this video. Thanks.
😁👍 Very much enjoyed this video! It was funny, interesting, and also touching.
Kerry Christensen thanks so much! I’m glad you liked it 🖖
This is such a good video. I have to rewatch that movie now.
I didn't think this was a fringe opinion. For decades, I just assumed this movie was about sex. Certainly, being a hetero man, I wasn't attentive to the "suggestive" male attire. And I didn't really get the "Kirk is in love with his ship" subtext. However, I always thought Decker and Iliya's relationship was blatantly sexual, and that the ending was a cosmic orgasm. Also, regarding Iliya, Memory Alpha says it best: "[Deltan's] strong sexual attraction could be a distraction for members of other species, which is why Deltans swore an oath of celibacy upon entering service in Starfleet." There's no way sex isn't a factor in TMP's plot.
The "search for connection". Brilliant analysis, alot to digest.
Your sexual analysis is prolly the best thing about this movie. I hadn't really enjoyed "The Motion Picture" cuz its pacing is soooo slow. Still all the sexual tension culminating in huge space orgasm is about as on the nose as one can get.
One thing though. In Buddhism I view their goal of reducing suffering more as a quest to eliminate "cravings" and the false belief that there are things in the world you "must" possess in the future.. Without them you are not whole.
Imho, that's the point of meditation practice. To bring balance back so that our thoughts align more closely with emotions in the moment. In fact, my experience of Tantric practice is all about prolonging the sexual desire in the moment to the point where you have multiple inner orgasms.
Two points. First there is the fact that Jessie is only a voice through most the video and mostly talks in a more professional distant manner. Only to show her face at the climax and say "and then bone them". Second the quote "Do you think I'm stretching some areas? Do you think I didn't go far enough?" I can't help but think these relate somehow to the theme of the video.
omg, Jessie you're killing me: v + g = VoyaGer = capt GainwaY
lolz, I'd like to make a 'point' about how funny that was
Only up to 1:47 but I must say: “glad you’re talking about this.” Also, do you think Admiral Kirk’s eagerness to take the Enterprise again could be linked to that sexual metaphor?
Geoffrey Linehan haha keep watch cause I get to that
Beautiful episode!
Disclaimers! I understand why. It just gets complicated. The words you use sound like biological words. So, we can say it is about reproductive sex?
The 1970s were a hairy time! It was the Disco style. The adults seemed to celebrate their gender traits, and appreciate the traits of others. There was a lot of clashing politically, but a lot smashing otherwise.
He asserted dominance and Mounted Decker. Always felt that way. Decker seemed to act without ego. When he belayed the order, it did hurt Kirk. However Decker put him in his place with the explanation why he belayed the order.
When Decker and ileya (sp?) finally get to hook up, it transcends everything.
The probe is a sexual outsider. What could that mean?
I believe that sex is a biological function as important as hunger and breathing. I personally cannot rise above or ignore my desire. I have to see the cycle through. I don't understand why people would want to hold on to that tension? It tends to overflow into other parts of life. So, just fap already! Hook up with that friend without benefits. Just be safe.
V'ger is a child (on the eve of its 18th birthday), behavior shouldn't be thinking about those things, yet. We we got to see v'ger come to age.
The movies also almost about evolution.
Spock has one hell of an Afterglow.
You make the best Trek videos. I've become quite tired of rumor videos.
I remember this movie vaguely. However the idea of Voyager becoming sentient and returning stayed with me because it is a great premise for a story.
All the sex stuff, hidden or blatant, flew a little over my head when I was younger. But even so, I do recognize some moments and that I felt weird seeing them. Some of that sex imagery managed to come across even with my limited knowledge. But what is sex if not connection and our way to be eternal?
Anyway, I still digg that Voyager becomes alive. Makes me think of the real one. Where is it? What will it see?
Were Decker and Ilia the proto Riker and Troi?
Showing up late to praise this fascinating and persuasive analysis. And also to add a tangential note:
Gene Roddenberry was famously interested in sex, sex in the future, sex in space. Nowadays (with the pendulum having swung from sexual liberation to sexual caution) many find this interest creepy or sexist, and Roddenberry certainly held some inconsistent and problematic attitudes. But I think it's obvious that his vision of utopia included a high degree of sexual freedom and openness, along with (or because of) post-scarcity economics and enlightened values.
No movie or series gives an entirely unobstructed view of the Federation as a free-love utopia, but I think the clearest hints come in The Motion Picture and the first few seasons of The Next Generation. The character of Ilia is part of it, though she's marked as hypersexual by human standards. Even so, the sybaritic recreation facilities and lounges of both Enterprises bespeak an easy sensuality. So, too, do the tight or revealing (and unisex) uniforms worn by Starfleet personnel and the often diaphanous or revealing clothing worn by civilians. One might expect the future equivalent of naval officers to leave their bodies at the door, so to speak, when they go to work, but these are clearly people who wholly enjoy their own embodiment as a simple matter of course. What is more, there's little indication that they think being visibly sexual precludes capability or seriousness, for either women or men. Further examples could be multiplied: I've forgotten the context, but in one early episode of TNG, Picard comments that sexual jealousy, like property, is unknown in the 24th century, that "we no longer feel the need to possess others" (or something to that effect) -- which likely indicates that non-monogamy has become the norm.
Obviously this utopia -- sexual liberation achieved -- is not one we would build today. Despite supposed equality of the sexes, it's still a very heteronormative vision, and it entirely leaves out asexual people. But it's not without a certain charm. It's a very 1970s attitude, and it becomes harder to articulate the further we get from that decade, but I think it was not uncommon in futuristic imaginings of the era. Seventies sex futurism, whatever it was, clings to certain artifacts and leaves an emotional signature I can't really define except by certain idiosyncratic impressions: Omni magazine, NASA renderings of orbital colonies, vacuum formed plastic and beige upholstery, jumpsuits and casual nakedness, physicists and mystics (and maybe science fiction writers) sharing a joint in a hot tub at Esalen while looking at the stars.
Great video! Guess I will never see the Enterprice with the same eyes again! :O
About "interpretation". Here's a quote by Jaques Lacan (the guy who famously said "Desire is the desire of the other."):
"[...] everyone acknowledges in his own way that to confirm that an interpretation is well founded, it is not the conviction with which it is received by the subject that counts, it's well-foundedness instead being gauged by the material that emerges afterward."
L.l.a.p. everybody!
Love your retrospektive, it's interesting, that you mentoid that some Objects are looking like male genitalia and that you notice that flight over V'Ger resembles a mainly a female genitalia. Maybe you've also noticed that the ship V'Ger is also formed like a phallus too
Of course, and it fires a lot of white things at the earth, which, like an egg cell, is round.
V'Ger's exterior is an ovipositor!
V(a)G(in)ER?
cant believe you didnt mention decker could been named pecker - as his uniform was so tight, you would be able to tell what religion he was - and iliahs outfit was so short, you could tell she was as bald as her head!
and i always thought iliahs immediate declaration of celibacy were her "shields" to kirks reputation proceeding him
Jess, at first I was smiling at the notion of TMP all about sex. i thought some of your analyst was a bit of stretch--at first. I stuck around. I you really opened a new look at the movie for me. Great job. I originally saw the film in '79 when I was 14, and I've been and off n on fan of the film. Written by Leigh Brackett--one of the great female screenwriters in H'wood and Harold Livingston, although I loved seeing them on the big screen--after a ninth viewing (it returned to theaters in '80) I saw what my fellow ST fan friends saw--one long and boring piece of SF cinema. Decades later, reading many papers devoted to study of Trek and it's companion movies, and when Paramount released the extended cut to tv (early to mid 90's I think--ABC TV) is when I formed a new respect and admiration of TMP. UA-cam has a ton of ST fans who produced excellent and deep analyst of the film...but Jess you really directed me to theme that I thought was absent from this film. Maybe, being a woman, Ms Brackett lent "something" to it that wasn't as obvious in the 70's (or maybe it was Mr Livington--I have to re-read my old copy of the Making of Star Trek the Motion Picture). Thank you once again for reminding me why Star Trek is more than just a simply silly Sci Fi tv/film franchise. I really appreciate it.
Great analysis
I never saw this movie in the sexy sex way but now that you point out all the imagery I can see it.
Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Vagoyer?
I think she and The Senate should have appeared in a crossover story.
"Think of the Enterprise as Kirk's penis, if you will"
"Weird" or not...that's stuck in my head now... LOL
You're the only other person I have ever seen draw the Voyager/vagina connection. Yes, I believe that's the reason it's called Voyager. There's an old theory in media and advertising that the letter "V" reminds people of vaginas. That's why you rarely see it in branding outside of women's products like Victoria's Secret, Vera Wang, and Versace or vegetable-related products also targeted at women like V-8. There's a handful of exceptions like Volvo or Vans but for the most part advertisers avoid the letter "V." They also avoid words like crease, moist, and crevice for the most part. So I have always believed that connection is there and I always will.
Interesting. Could the shape of the letter 'V' have something to do with it as well? I'm also reminded of the 1980s miniseries "V" with its matriarchal aliens led by Diana, namesake of the virgin goddess of the hunt.
If I follow the logic of this video, V'Ger is a girl whose puberty starts and who feels attracted to her father, or to men similar to her father?
And the men in the Enterprise crew don't mind to "penetrate" her.
This seems similar to the relationship between very young Kes and notable older Neelix: The people in charge of Star Trek are perverted men.
Ambar Craft oh you aren’t wrong about that...
Bit Freudian, that. In a now-discredited but probably still considered accurate in 1979 sort of way.
After this all I can hear is Leonard Nimoy saying “I am directly beneath the enemies’ scrotum.”
I adore this film. Specifically the Director's Cut
"Have you ever sexed a human?" WOW ! Really glad that was removed.
CJ sent me here from stream
Futurama pointed all of this out years ago!
It bears repeating.
@@Seal0626 Yes it does! I stand corrected!
This is interesting, informative, and makes me feel very reassured about my own readings into the sexual imagery and coding of various Star Trek bits and pieces.
Also, wow, I don't think I had seen how clearly Riker and Troi were slightly rewritten Decker and Ilea before.
I wonder, would you take a look at Worf being perhaps the closest to male queer representation in the TNG era? I went off on one a bit about a couple of moments in "The Outrageous Okona"(which everybody seems to hate and I get it, Data's subplot in it is truly awful, but the A plot is honestly really solid and the title character is a bit Jessica Rabbit - he's not bad, he's just drawn that way). If you or anyone else would like to take a look: wildishmazz.tumblr.com/post/189193202385/uuuuh-fellas-im-sure-this-was-intended-to
First of all, let me just say that I am glad that I’m not the only one who thought this😅. The soundtrack to this movie is phenomenal, but it could have ran with Isley Brothers or Al Green. This has given me an idea to re-record the movie with funky sex music in the background 😈.
On a tangent about this film and soundtracks. Someone mixed it up with the Tron Legacy soundtrack and put it on Vimeo. Condensed down to 23 minutes and it still works really well.
So, how do you know about that Star Trek porn?
Lorcan Nagle absolutely no reason at all 😅
Well, I'll be damned. I suppose I sensed this on some level, but I'd never heard it put to me like this. Wait...should I rephrase that?
A thought: When Spock entered the orifice and touched the nubby little "sensor" on the recording of Ilia, was he actually sent reeling from a mind-roasting space-orgasm?
And not one mention of McCoy's Sex Guru meets lumberjack beard? Nor the dozen porn'staches?
jokes aside, when I first watched this film as a kid I noticed the first phases of the v'ger fly over in the original and (when later when older) remastering appeared to be like a camera being flown over the surface of a woman's body, as if it was foreplay between the enterprise and v'ger.
and finally, if we take this film as an exploration of sexuality.... then what about the klingons in the beginning?
Klingon foreplay was too violent for V'ger.
@@discobear5752 Or, possibly, the other way round.
And another definition of "ilia" is hips.. When I first saw this film and reprogrammed Ilia came back, my first thought was, what happened to her pants?
I think there's a decent kernel in this analysis, but I would rather say the movie is about interpersonal connection in general - which absolutely includes sex, but not everything is sex. I understand there's a certain amount of algorithm-appeal in the titling, but I do think a couple of your link-backs to the topic of sex verged on spurious for this reason.
I feel like the intro part became a bit redundant, since you had a later section discussing the suggestive language anyway. I generally find bundling things works much better as opposed to spreading them out.
Overall, the biggest issue I had was structural, I think. I didn't get much of a sense of an overarching thesis, so it felt like a string of points about specific pieces of dialogue or imagery. For what it's worth, I think your essay about women in Star Trek did wonderfully in that respect.
This video has a section where you did discuss the themes more widely; emotional connection and estrangement, relationships, beauty, power. I think the video would have benefited from being cast more in this mould. Branching off from there and continually revisiting the central structure would have helped tie everything together I think.
And lastly, I'm generally of the mind that using terms like "male-coded" is usually a better arrangement than the disclaimer at the start of the video. One of my intersex friends actually felt kind of uncomfortable about the disclaimer, which I'm sure was the opposite of the intended effect.
I think it might have served better to simply warn that the language and imagery the movie uses is very het and binary, which results in more limited avenues of analysis. A few more phrases scattered in the script such as "in the movie's value system," or "in line with contemporary gender politics" could also have helped here in my opinion.
I know this is a lot of criticism, but hopefully it's clear that this comes from a place of appreciating your work? I know I've commented on other videos, but I don't want to assume I'm memorable. Anyway, yeah. I think I spent longer writing this than the video ran for.
Kit Vitae I really appreciate this criticism, and I have a few questions/responses because I love the convo. So I would agree that my larger point was more about interpersonal relationships, but I do think the movie codes it all through sexual imagery and coding, probably did a lot to Gene Roddenberrys influence (he’s known to always shoehorning sex into his work, for good or, more often, ill). Perhaps it would have been better to start at the larger thematic point and get to sex from there, but I started with sex as it was, as you say, more clickbaity. Maybe not the best reason haha, and I could have prob better used it as a hook them come back to it, but alas, I didn’t, so I appreciate your point highly.
One thing I want to ask about is the disclaimer issue. Not that you or your friend have to respond to this, but as someone who wants to make sure I’m accurately trying to be welcoming to everyone, I guess I want to know more about what the disclaimer didn’t work for you or your intersex friend. The reason I put it at the top instead of throughout the video, is because in a video format I tend to find that a bit cumbersome and distracting, and figure it’s easier to just put it at the top so everyone knows where we are starting at and are on a common understanding. When I do more academic articles that aren’t video It works better imo to do more, “in this value system” ect... asides, but here on UA-cam, where sadly watch time and direct analytics are much more in play, I find doing that ends up hurting the video and it’s performance. Again, not necessarily the best reason and I can perhaps find a better middle ground, but that’s my thought process behind it. But I guess the biggest question I have is going back to what most specifically made you and your friend uncomfortable (again, you don’t have to answer that if youre not comfortable), as I want to make sure I’m not inaccurately representing or making them feel unwelcome/uncomfortable.
Anyways, thanks so much for the critique! I really appreciate it, even if it means you feel this video didn’t live up to what it could have been for you.
@@JessieGender1 i think it would be more accurate to say that TMP utilizes sexual imagery, coding, and language to talk about the real themes of emotional connection, which are more abstract and hard to express visually. i have no problem with the title being 'Star Trek TMP is about sex' because i think its funny and eyecatching and is great hook to start the analysis on.
@Jessie Gender @ 1:20 McCoy says, "Why is any object we don't understand always called a thing." The two words preceding that quote are "intersex community." I'm not intersex so this is just my conjecture but as soon as I heard McCoy's quote, I thought it was awkward to put it there.
As for my own view, I don't think a disclaimer is even needed. The title of the video is all the disclaimer you need - "Star Trek: The Motion Picture is All About Sex."
Disco Bear good point. I put that there as it seemed like a good example of how people treat the lgbtq and intersex community in general and I wanted to use it but the fact that it’s not explained and then put in that context is awkward. Really fair point.
@@JessieGender1 hey, sorry for the late reply! I've had a lot going on in my life. Getting evicted isn't fun, especially a no-fault eviction just to sell/price-hike.
So, basically, because you've spoken so eloquently about nonbinary identities, we had hoped you might talk a little bit about how biological sex is reductive, even if you were going to then acknowledge that the movie was written through a binary lens, and primarily talk about the intended metaphor that way. And in the same vein, the presumed-straightness of a lot of the metaphor analysis (except perhaps with regard to the Kirk/Spock mention) was a little jarring, even if that was what the writers were going for, we'd just kind of hoped you could've softened that a little bit, or inserted (hee) a few more alternate readings of certain parts.
I'm sure part of this is that phenomenon where queer and trans people hold each other to a higher standard than we hold cis and straight people, because things that hurt a little can be amplified when the person saying it is closer to you in the cluster-property-graph kind of way. Just to try to give a bit more context to our discomfort. When I showed her your channel before, it was like, hey, another nonbinary autistic trans person like us talking about Star Trek, instead of some straight guy (even though plenty of them are nice enough). It's that ol' representation thing.
But, for some extra context, we've both been burnt a lot by random TERFs online alternately saying we're even worse than non-intersex trans people, or that we're not trans at all and should actually be on their side of it all. When I try to point out things like certain intersex conditions being about as common as red hair, and that we're a normal part of the human condition, they always just assert that being intersex is merely an aberration and needn't be considered in the wider world when discussing binary sex.
So we were probably also a little more tender to feeling like people conveniently ignore intersex people than we might've been at some other times of year. Ironically, the brief acknowledgement at the start almost felt more uncomfortable, because it's one thing being used to people forgetting we exist and just getting on with the video anyway, and it's another to hear them say they know we exist but they're just not going to talk about it, if that makes sense? I know it wasn't malicious on your part of course, but what felt at first to be gearing up to say you would be inclusive in your analysis quickly felt like cold water instead. Even though it's true that the writers of TMP wouldn't have considered anything other than binary sex (like the dialogue about "male and female being universal constants" with Cochrane and his fuckbuddy cloud thing in TOS), I think we were hoping you'd draw a little more attention to that limitation, but it ended up coming across, to us, as tacitly accepting it for expediency's sake.
I hope that makes sense, I don't have as much time to proof read this as I did last time! I appreciate your replying to me, as well, and everything. If you want to talk about this further, please feel free to, though I understand if your time is already taken up with other more recent projects (I've not really had free time to keep up with people's stuff!). I wish UA-cam DMs were still a thing, as that's more suitable for a granular back and forth.. this is more like exchanging mini essays about things where we both have to try not to forget certain key points. But, anyway.
For instance, perhaps a slightly more complex disclaimer at the start could've worked out fine for us, or perhaps a little more soft pedalling with some of the examples? Like it was just a bit jarring to hear you say, about the Ilia in V'Ger part, that obviously women=fertility, even if that was probably the writers' intentions? Again, that was something we had random TERFs telling us, so there's a certain element of that aforementioned heightened sensitivity and heightened standards for other trans people. But just a little extra thing about how fertility symbols are usually women, or just explicitly drawing attention to how it's a cultural association instead of taking it as writ, could've helped that line a lot I think. And I believe that cross-applies to a lot of your other examples.
As another example, the mentions of Kirk saying he's married to the Enterprise could've done with acknowledgment of how it's a kind of asexual monogamy he has. And how he does have sex with other women sometimes, but always with an emotional distance due to his deeper spiritual connection to the ship interfering somewhat. It's not like he acts like the Enterprise is going to be waiting in her robe in the living room when he gets home late one night; he just has these internal emotional barriers to connecting, with other people, on a level that might make him second-guess dedicating his life to jetting off to the stars. At least that's how I always read it. Obviously, it's expressed through 60s and 70s language about marriage and dedication and relationships, which is somewhat limited. But that's part of why I feel like making the wider theme to be interpersonal connection, with a focus on the sexual aspects, could've tied the essay together a bit better. Of course the title wouldn't necessarily have changed, hyperbole is common, but then you could've dripped in these "all about sex, and connection between others in general" lines now and then.
I respect the click bait choices, heck knows I had to put a bunch of adjectives I wasn't super comfortable with to get clicks in my title in my webcamming days... I just personally struggled with the "...and x is ALSO related to sex!” structure after the first few times. Which could've also been helped by bundling them together, as I already said I believe.
I suppose I should add here that I've not rewatched this video since initially commenting, just ruminating as I go through my life and intending to get back to you at some point!
Thanks for reading, and thanks for your time.
Is this over interpretation?
I always felt this is the most unerotic film made
....... I just now realised that Illia, when she's assimilated by V'ger, wears that costume that looks.... Suspiciously.... Suspicious. Christ, Roddenberry had sex on the brain.
In some shots I think that Persis Khambatta is thinking, "Really? I shaved my entire head Bic bald for months just for this nerd bullshit?"
It's a really good movie though.
this video EATS
how is prosper sexual?
I guess because Live Long and Prosper could be seen as a kind of 'go forth and multiply' .
Yes!!
Adam Patrick Murray haha I debated sending you this directly because I figured you’d enjoy it haha
@@JessieGender1 I shared it with Alaina too! "Speaking of birth and penetration..." 😂😂😂
Haha perfect! I hope you both enjoyed! The Motion Picture is an under appreciated gem.... as long as you don’t fall asleep haha
Our girl ilia was so hot in this movie. ❤
Haven't watch the video yet but Kirk was a god, his 5 year mission was to seek out new life... and fuck it!
For the last time, SJWs. The miniskirt was considered a sign of liberation back then. By women!
The Bronze Age of DC Comics which i mention in the video haha
I am an SJW, and I love miniskirts. But I doubt that time is linear.
The Interpretation is always strong with this one...
Ok it was FUNNY and interesting until you compared the ENTERPRISE to Kirks "Ding Dong"!
Enough is enough
JAG - the Panzer - GEMINI haha well, it was a fun interpretation.
@@JessieGender1 yeah but a tad to much ..
But anything else was really.. Spot on!? I guess
Ah, no wonder I hated it. Sex and sports are way more fun to do than to watch. Now than I know it's porn.. it all becomes clear. ;) BTW. I stood in line to watch this movie on the first day. I also went the first day to Star Trek 5. Facepalm!
Sad world we live in where you have to make disclaimers before talking about ANYTHING. My advise ... flush the disclaimers, if people get offended .... ignore them. They can watch something else.
I hate that videos have to constantly apologize for talking about a normal biological function.
Every movie\TV show is about sex... same thing with pop music. Your point?
Except for sex itself, which is really about power.
...which is itself really about sex.
Dislike.
I find that hard to baleve, I always saw Star Trek TMP as a poor mans 2001 A Space Odesy. I don't know what drugs youre having, but you should see a doctor.
Ok, troll
@@einosig I was being sarcastic, sir.
Space Odyssey ends with a child too, so that movie has sexual innuendo too
#David Dyster That's a bit rude.
@@henryburby6077 I wasn't meening to be rude, is sex the only thing she talks about?
At the time of the movie, the Voyager space probes 1 & 2 were the most distant space probes sent out into the solar system by NASA. The use of the word Voyager, to make V'ger, made sense at the time. It wasn't just picking a word with a V and a G in it. The Voyager probes were launched in 1977, 2 years before the movie.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NASA_missions#Jupiter