I had to post this — it so nicely overlaps my political interests with my geekish side. Plus, I think Nichelle Nichols totally rocks.
It’s also an interesting reminder of how a character who is, looked at today, a glaring token (only woman cast member, only Black cast member, in a very subservient role) was nevertheless important and groundbreaking at the time.
Curtsy to Julian.
Yeoman Rand? Nurse Chapel?
Should be “only Black woman cast member.” But otherwise, quite right, Barry.
How about “only memorable woman cast member”.
I should have said “regular cast member,” not just “cast member”; it didn’t occur to me that people would have trouble understanding what I meant (“Because you’re a dick,” Kevin says to me). Majel Barrett and Grace Lee Whitney played recurring characters, but they weren’t regular cast members.
I guess you could argue that Whitney was, technically, a regular cast member; but since she was fired after eight episodes and didn’t appear again until the movies, I don’t think she entirely counts.
Pingback: Hungry Blues › Lieutenant Uhura and Doctor King
To give you an idea of how groundbreaking this was: the original pilot of the show (footage from which was used in The Menagerie) had a slightly different cast. In particular, Spock was two characters – the alien science officer Spock (who had nothing to do with logic) and the hyper-intelligent/logical female first-officer who was only known as Number One.
Apparently, NBC didn’t think the audiences could handle Rodenberry’s ideas of having a woman and an alien as commanding officers. So Number One and Spock got rolled into a single character, leaving Uhura as the only female character in the main cast.
what was the occasion of this speech?
I remember reading about that pep talk in her autobiography! Which is quite something and I highly recommend it. At least, it’s been about ten years since I read it, but I remember it being quite good. Insight, humor, and frank narrative.
I recently gave my husband the DVDs of the original series of Star Trek and I was quite astonished by how multicultural the cast was. In three of the first four epsiodes: “The Man Trap”, “Charlie , and “The Naked Time”, both Uhuru and Sulu had fairly major roles. There were also several random crew members, including the obligatory “unnamed crewman” who were more ethnically diverse. In contrast, in the second pilot episode (the third one aired) “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, the cast was nearly entirely white., as it is in “The Menagerie”. I was impressed with the obvious effort Roddenberry had made to create an ethnically diverse crew. Unfortunately, as the series continued and writers became enamoured of the Kirk/Spock/McCoy combination, the secondary cast members (largely the minority actors) had less and less to do. But Roddenberry still continued to cast minorities as extras and in smaller roles. When you consider the usual face of television (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966-67_American_network_television_schedule) at the time- it was a significant accomplishment.
This is charming (and not in the ironic sense). Do you have any idea when/where/for what occasion it was made?
Unfortunately, I have no idea.
I didn’t think she was a token at all–us little girls all thought she was great. We all wanted the job!
I’ve been told “I don’t get science fiction” whenever I talk about how great shows like Star Trek is. I find it difficult to explain that it’s not just about spaceships and exploration, but also about the vision for an ethnically diverse future which still maintains equality.
Thanks for sharing!
About 10 years ago, the SciFi channel aired all the Star Trek shows, one a night, for weeks. During the commercial breaks, they showed some of the actors talking about their experiences, and Norris told this story. I was blown away. I also wouldn’t necessarily say she was flat-out subservient — I mean, she’s an officer.
She also has the best quote, which I’ve noted before on this blog, from “Mirror, Mirror”: “You are away from your post, mister.”
My favourite Uhura quote was always from when Sulu wigs out and comes onto the bridge with a sword, grabs Uhura and says something along the lines of, “I’ll protect you, Fair Maiden,” whereupon she shoves him away and replies, “Sorry, neither.”
Ohhhh, also a good one. “Sorry, neither” is heard often Chez Krup.
that might be because you’re mistaking Star Trek for scifi. it’s a plain utopian fantasy fiction with delusions of science in it; no more scifi than Star Wars is.
FWIW, i honestly don’t think any decent SF tv series has ever been filmed, unless maybe it was Babylon 5. let’s not start talking “scifi” movies, because that’d just make me sad.
(well, okay, we can call Trek and Wars “scifi”, provided i get to lump them very solidly within Sturgeon’s ninety percent. otherwise, no.)
“that might be because you’re mistaking Star Trek for scifi. it’s a plain utopian fantasy fiction with delusions of science in it; no more scifi than Star Wars is.”
Oh, good. Genre policing. Just what every really productive and interesting discussion needs.
And when I said “Norris,” I of course meant “Nichols”. Sheesh.
To put the “regular cast member” clarification in context: Lt. Uhuru was on the bridge crew, in the direct chain of command. Her role might have seemed “subservient” by comparison, she might have been stuck wearing a Space Miniskirt Of The Future, but there’s a big difference between saying “In The Future, little girls can grow up to be nurses on a spaceship!” and saying “In The Future, little girls can be officers on a starship, personally tasked with operating a complex and important piece of machinery.”
The original Star Trek was social science fiction. Much of classic science fiction is, when you get right down to it. Asimov knew that “positronic brain” didn’t actually mean anything beyond sounding cool. He wasn’t actually predicting his particular vision of robots coming back. He was writing about humanity’s relationship with technology and how he would see that changed for the better, if he had his way. That’s great. By the same token, Star Trek wasn’t about spaceships and phasers…. it was about humanity’s relationship with humanity.
Yes, they posited that in the future the entire planet would speak English. Yes, the Caucasian “ethnic” characters gave into cliches. Yes, they had a Russian bridge crew member to show how the West and East would one day learn to play nice while using Klingons as surrogate Cossacks.
It wasn’t perfect. It was still groundbreaking, and it deserves recognition. Bravo to Nichelle Nichols, for carrying off her part of it with such class.
“Oh, good. Genre policing. Just what every really productive and interesting discussion needs.”
Especially when they’re ignorant enough of the genre to use “scifi” without irony, and without being Forrest J Ackerman.
Policing is bad enough. Policing after flunking out of the academy is just sad.