Honesty by Dwimordene

[dwimordene_2011]

Title: Honesty
Summary: All that glitters isn’t gold. After the Vengeance goes down, Uhura and Spock have a necessary conversation

Comments

[huinare]

yes, cultural differences can be fascinating to explore, and by all means, let’s explore them, but when race and culture are used in such a way that everyone is reduced to a token of their cultural-racial type, and the script plays off a biologistic conception of race half the time to let characters score points on each other - I get twitchy.

YES THIS.

Thanks for addressing their little spat in a more realistic way. I also rather like that you don't describe what occurs during the mind meld--very appropriate in light of the theme of the inadequacy of words for some things.

[dwimordene_2011]

Thanks, Huin!

YES THIS.

Glad you liked that. I swear, it's not that I can't enjoy a film that plays on stereotypical tropes that privilege the usual people. I totally can. However, there's a point at which really, truly - c'mon, Trek, you couldn't think of *anything* else to do to bump up Uhura's screen time than make her The Girlfriend? You couldn't be a little more self-conscious about the varieties of racism embedded in the ideology, here?

I also rather like that you don't describe what occurs during the mind meld--very appropriate in light of the theme of the inadequacy of words for some things.Thanks. I wavered over this, but ultimately decided it was best to leave the mind-meld's content between them. Would've been clunky, Spock had said he didn't have the words (and so why would Uhura necessarily have them, either?), and there is something to making that moment private for them even though they're having this moment in a mess hall in full view of everyone. It's a different kind of intimacy than what they've already shared

[huinare]

... c'mon, Trek, you couldn't think of *anything* else to do to bump up Uhura's screen time than make her The Girlfriend?

No kidding! I have to say I had almost zero emotional investment in the characters and action of this particular film (enjoyed the first one rather more), largely because the way much of it was handled seemed to be rather unoriginal and just falling back on tropes. For a moment there I thought they were going to do something cool when Uhura was began attempting speech with the Klingons, but nooo. Uhura in linguist and/or diplomat mode is something I would love to see played up more, but I guess that just doesn't have the same appeal as The Girlfriend. ;[