This is not an essay!

[ineptshieldmaid]

So my decision to write a Spock/Uhura drabble-turned-into-fic in order to avoid writing an essay on my SRS Gender Thoughts About Star Trek FAILED MISERABLY (the avoiding the essay part, not the fic), and I just left a thousand words or so in the comment field discussing the fact that Spock's Vulcan characterisation means he can function as an

Comments

[ineptshieldmaid]

My logic frightens me. I DON'T KNOW WHEN I LEARNT TO THINK LIKE THIS. One minute I was happily translatin' dead law codes and then suddenly...

And the fact that I can pull this together in an hour or so just reminds me *how little I actually know* in the grand field of genderwank.

[meiou_set]

Stranger here, hope you don't mind my dropping in. You have some good meta here, I really enjoyed it. I've been thinking quite a bit about gender issues in the reboot too. I read some other meta which looked at the Spock/Kirk dynamic with Spock embodying rational masculinity and Kirk, the chaotic creative feminine and it troubled me a bit. While that analysis certainly a compelling view (and a common one, I gather), it has the unfortunate consequence of displacing Uhura out of the equation in the reboot or worse, fixing her into the stereotypical role of "nurturer" (since that's the only thing she would bring in that the neither Spork nor Kirk does).

That said, I liked your bringing in the point of Spock having an affinity with feminity in his struggles. I agree with you about the similarities and small differences (here I thought about how Uhura is perfectly comfortable with logic)--I think this is where her character really becomes interesting and not just another insert-love-interest-here. :)

[ineptshieldmaid]

I love it when strangers drop in on my meta!

Hmm. I... think it would take a lot of argument to convince me that Kirk is supposed to represent any form of femininity. Way, way too aggro, that boy.

Uhura doesn't look like she'd know "nurturing" if it hit her over the head with a steel plank :P. Supportive, she manage, but nurturing? *snorts*

Glad you liked my meta-thoughts!

[meiou_set]

I think what the person meant about "chaotic feminine" was about creativity, out of the box thinking, and that sort of thing (the non-rational and thus, why Kirk/Spock balance each other out) not necessarily aggression

[iremos]

You are made of so much win.

[ineptshieldmaid]

I do try.

[tarimanveri]

Ooh, very interesting essay! I've also been thinking about Star Trek and gender ever since I first saw it. That now seems to be taking the form of contemplating writing a "five scenes from Star Trek XI that would have played out very differently if Kirk and Spock were women" fic. I am, however, completely daunted by the prospect. But your analysis of Spock is inspiring...

[ineptshieldmaid]

Tarimanveri, HALP, my brain is busy trying to flesh this out, and saying things like "if you found some secondary criticisms, you could do something with this..."

I would read your genderswap. I would read... most genderswap, actually. :D

[tarimanveri]

Um, I'm pretty sure there are academic fora where you could, indeed, do something with this. You do know about the MIT Comparative Media Studies program, right? They probably have publications

[ineptshieldmaid]

I have only one thing to say to that, and it is WRITE IT.

[niamh_sage]

Whoops, I just read Spock/Uhura as Spock/Urethra :$ 0_0

[ineptshieldmaid]

Well, um.

[niamh_sage]

Yeah, that's about what I thought too. And then I went on to read someone else's phrase about art and music as 'rats and music'. I'm a bit tired I think.