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| Saviour of Voyager: Seven of Nine in silver catsuit and corset |
Scantily clad, buxom women have been a part of sci-fi since its inception, often crassly so. A recent exhibit of film posters was filled with images of beautiful women imperiled by vampires, werewolves, tentacled aliens and even ancient mummies.
The posters for The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, Invaders from Mars, Invasion of the Saucer Men, Tobor the Great, Satan's Satellites, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Revenge of the Creature, Attack of the Crab Monster, Robot Monster and many, many more show monsters carrying a shapely damsel in distress.
On the flip side are alien seductresses in human guise, predatory succubi and femme fatale sirens.
I don't think that even begins to delve into truly exploitation cinema. Grindhouse is even more explicit.
Why? We know why. The three main drivers of human behavior are: food, sex and fear.
A preying mantis woman hybrid monster would hit all three. Has that been done? Call my agent!
Seven of Nine, from Star Trek: Voyager, follows in the footsteps of space babes going back to even before Barbarella. Seven was brought on to Voyager due to flagging (har har) ratings. And what do you do when your ratings are collapsing? Bring in a busty woman clad in catsuit, corset and high heels.
This did not sit well with Captain Janeway's Kate Mulgrew, and I can't say she was wrong, especially as the first woman to lead a Trek show. You'd think the ideals behind Trek would elevate it beyond such crass pandering. Nope. When your show's going to be cancelled, you don't stop to question. And after Seven of Nine joined the show, ratings spiked. Her figure hit magazine covers everywhere, and was prominently featured in promotional materials.
There's an argument to be made that she saved the show from an early cancellation.
Here's the thing: there was no in-universe reason for her to be dressed like that. None, other than the Doctor's (understandably) pervy male preferences. But that's not enough of a justification in-universe: Janeway would never have stood for it. She'd have Seven dressed as a member of the Voyager crew, same as the former Maquis, in a Starfleet uniform. That, of course, would not show off Jeri Ryan's wonderful figure or boost ratings (quite as much). Bottom line, Trek is a commercial TV show; push comes to shove, any in-universe ethical integrity gets trumped by ratings, especially when cancellation looms.
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| Remind you of anyone? Bueller? |
Seven was so successful at drawing attention that they added the shapely T'Pol to Enterprise right from the get go, also in a figure hugging catsuit. Was there any in-universe reason for this, other than it appeals to male viewers?
Not that, on a certain level, I object. But such pandering to male sexuality can irk and alienate female viewers, who feel the effect of the male gaze everywhere males go. Mulgrew felt the pandering was beneath Trek, and I honestly felt kind of the same when Seven appeared. What franchise was I watching?
Don't get me wrong! As a male, I appreciate female beauty as much as the next guy. It's awesome! But such button pressing is often more than a little on the nose, and our male susceptibility to this is amusingly, if annoyingly, human. But there's a time and a place, too, and Trek I always thought to be inclusive, and from TNG on more sophisticated than TOS. Initially, it seemed like Seven would be more at home in Lexx, which never had any pretensions about what it was or where it was aiming.
I don't think there was ever a reason in Barbarella for her to be dressed like that. Same goes for Heavy Metal, The She Creature!, Starcrash, Logan's Run, Cleopatra 2525, Queen of Outer Space, Barb Wire, practically any vampire movie (doubly so for space vampires) and endless others. None of them have a rationale for this. Look at the entire genre of superheroes, where women's outfits are anything but practical.
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| A heavily armed and lightly dressed Barbarella |
That was the inspiration for the satire that is Magnum Thrax. To satirize and the whole phenomenon, the underlying drives, while on another level eating its cake. The book does have an explanation for scantily clad and heavily armed 'space babes'. It's quite specific about it, the reasons are very pointedly satirical, and the book goes on to explore many themes, topics and tropes in a tongue in cheek way.
This is our nature, as human beings: both sublime and base.
For example, the internet was created by scientists to help spur collaboration and accelerate research. The big joke? As songs on the internet say: the internet is for porn. Humans take our greatest scientific achievements and turn them around to fill our base desires.
What? You were expecting something different? What species are you from, again?
Think about how banana split sundaes hack our desire for sweets. All hunter gatherers would be able to find in the wild is some ripe berries. Our sweet tooth would compel us to eat them all at once. Fair enough: it was probably advantageous to eat berries immediately, whenever we found them. Thanks to technology, however, we can create a dish that indulges our base cravings for sweets and enter calorie heaven... and sicken ourselves at the same time.
Healthy? Of course not! Not in the least! But very human.
The book explores how ridiculous we are, how our behaviour is shaped by our underlying desires, and how our greatest aspirations often become entangled in our base nature.
That's part of the humour of it!
Films like Amazons on the Moon also takes satirical aim at our penchant for space babes in sci-fi.
A lot of people can't see beyond a surface level reading. They are appalled by the very idea of repurposed sexbots, and see no satirical value or subversion. Fair enough, it's not for them, the humour is invisible. Humour is extremely subjective and I've no doubt I've gotten some things wrong; I readily admit my sense of humour is a bit different. Okay, maybe flat out weird. I don't know.
Yet a lot of other mainstream sci-fi properties exploit female sexuality without any acknowledgement whatsoever of what they're doing, with Seven of Nine being a case in point.
I should note that Jeri Ryan gave a fabulous performance in Voyager; she became a compelling and fully realized character who transcended the crass reasoning behind her initial conception to the point where character dominated. I don't think T'Pol ever rose to that level.
And times are changing, too: a Star Trek film received a lot of flak for including a gratuitous bikini shot.
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| Taylor Swift's satirical music video Bad Blood hits a lot of the tropes on a banana split sundae level |
If you find humanity's flawed nature itself funny, you might enjoy Magnum Thrax, warts and all.
Because having warts is human, just like the characters in Thrax.
Now if you will excuse me, I'm going out for a double bacon cheeseburger, poutine, carbonated liquid sugar drink and a banana split sundae, followed by a nap and a triple bypass.
