(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Trek and me, and the Women of Star Trek, The Original Series: Uhura. [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-09-06
Trek and Me
Presentism is the tendency to interpret historical events, figures, or cultural artifacts through the lens of contemporary values. It’s a common pitfall in historical analysis, and it shows up just as often when we revisit the pop culture of our youth.
I was born in 1968 and grew up watching Star Trek on syndication. It shaped my imagination and values in fundamental ways. Gene Roddenberry’s vision was boldly progressive: a multiracial crew exploring the galaxy with curiosity and compassion. Yet The Original Series (TOS) was also a product of, and constrained by, its time. Kirk, a white man, led that “multiracial crew,” and the Federation often read as a projection of American hegemony beneath a UN‑like veneer of benevolence — and sometimes not even as subtext. In “A Private Little War”, a thinly veiled Vietnam War allegory, Kirk wearily endorses arming one side in a proxy conflict, accepting war as the lesser evil. And while the show championed diplomacy in principle, it often defaulted to the pulp sci‑fi tropes of the era and leaned heavily on Kirk’s space‑cowboy resolutions — a decisive punch, a toppled villain — reaffirming both Cold War ‘realism’ and the masculine hero archetype.
Trek pushed boundaries, but it also reinforced others—especially in its portrayal of women. That’s the tension I want to examine, starting in what I aim to be a series about the Women of Star Trek.
Please note: I try to keep in mind that TOS was unironically goofy. Really goofy. Female officers in mini-skirts, melodramatic line readings, papier‑mâché boulders, men in rubber suits — it was as much space opera as social commentary, ’cause you gotta get bums in seats. For every Hamlet, Shakespeare gave his audience blood‑soaked crowd‑pleasers like Titus Andronicus, competing with the literal bear‑baiting shows right outside the Globe. So, while much of the criticism aimed at TOS is legit, some of it misses that the show’s earnestness and absurdity were always inextricably intertwined. To be sure, its pulpy schlockiness doesn’t excuse its blind spots, but it does shape how we can — or even ought to IMO— view them.
The Uhura Paradox: Dignity in a Miniskirt
Nowhere is that mix of camp, cultural ambition, and constraint more visible than in the character of Lieutenant Uhura — a role that managed to be both a product of its time and a glimpse of the future it promised. Much has been argued and written about Uhura — mostly laudatory, with just as much cogent critique. To me, she’s the Trek case study in the tension between progress and structural limitation.
Everyone vaguely familiar with Trek knows the celebrated take on Uhura: a poised Black female officer on the bridge in 1966, praised by Martin Luther King Jr., who urged Nichols to stay on the show, and inspiring a young Whoopi Goldberg to exclaim, “Momma, there’s a Black lady on TV and she ain’t no maid!” But it’s more than symbolic presence: She is charismatic, unflappable, authoritative and humanized in her smaller roles, and when the script did put her front and center, not easily forgotten. Let’s take those in reverse order.
Uhura’s Main Roles
In TOS, Uhura has two roles central to the episode’s plot: “The Changeling” and “Mirror, Mirror” — both from early season 2.
The Changeling
Uhura right before NOMAD wipes her brain clean.
The Enterprise encounters Nomad, a damaged Earth probe that has merged with an alien sterilization device. Mistaking Captain Kirk for its creator, Nomad spares the ship but begins eliminating crew it deems “imperfect”—including wiping Uhura’s memory. She must completely re-educate herself, relearning language from the alphabet up (even defaulting to Swahili at times), and reacquiring her knowledge and skills from scratch. By episode’s end, McCoy assures Kirk she’ll be “back on the job within a week.”
Uhura’s recovery in “The Changeling” is unique: there are no other examples in TOS of characters recovering from total memory loss or relearning complex skills without alien intervention or advanced techno-magic. While futuristic pedagogy is implied, the episode frames her recovery as grounded in personal effort and unwavering institutional support. And that matters—not just within the narrative, but as allegory. In 1967, when Black Americans and women had just started fighting for full access to education, employment, and civic participation, Uhura’s arc dramatized a deeply progressive core principle: that when the state (here, Starfleet) invests in repairing harm done to a Black woman’s mind, she can — and will — reclaim her rightful place “on the bridge” through grit, self-improvement, and determination.
Mirror, Mirror
Kirk, his “woman” and Uhura.
A transporter accident during an ion storm swaps Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura with their counterparts from a brutal parallel reality with a Terran Empire instead of the Federation, where everyone is armed (!), uniforms are flashier and more revealing (especially for the women), assassination is a career move, and Spock famously sports a diabolic goatee.
Uhura uses guile and seductive charm to outwit the evil Mirror Sulu, who is aiming for an advancement (See lead graphic). And yes, her exposed midriff is all part of the push and pull I’m talking about. The plot subverts the classic femme fatale trope: Uhura is neither a villain, nor morally ambiguous, nor driven by self-interest—unlike Kirk’s Lady Macbeth-like consort, Marlena Moreau. Instead, Uhura deploys the tools of the femme fatale appearance, charm, tactical seduction — not to ensnare, but to protect her crew and execute a mission. She performs the role the Empire expects, but her loyalty remains with the Federation. In doing so, she asserts agency within a system designed to objectify her, turning spectacle into strategy. And some might go so far to say tricking the audience as well by “it’s all in the evil universe so let’s indulge ourselves with a heavy scoop of eye candy,” but let’s just say that’s complicated…
Uhura’s minor roles
“I’m good, and keep your pants on.”
Uhura consistently portrays control, confidence, and good humor, evident in both her dialogue and demeanor. One great example comes in “The Naked Time”, when an intoxicated swashbuckling Sulu calls her a “fair maiden” and offers to protect her, she coolly replies, “Sorry, neither” — a subtle but potent clap back. For others, see here.
Arguably, and I’m gonna argue it, Uhura has more composed competence and grounded character than all the others inTOS, perhaps even that of Spock. “Wh-wh-wha----?” I hear you say. Allow me to explain: this isn’t about how we might view these characters through a modern or ironic lens, but rather how they were originally constructed.
All of the TOS regulars are hyper‑competent and always get the job done, but don’t forget how unironically goofy they could be and how that intended goofy factor intersects with the gender norms of the 1960s. Think about the main and supporting crew: Kirk, Spock, and McCoy at the core; Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, Nurse Chapel, Yeoman Rand, and later Chekov. Let’s get the easy ones out of the way: McCoy is an raw nerve, the passionate foil to Spock’s logic, whose comic relief plays off his brusk emotionalism; Scotty, while a brilliant engineer, is often used for comic relief in drinking scenes; Chapel is written as a hopeless romantic, her unrequited love for Spock defining much of her screen time; Rand is cast as a sexual being: she gets all kinds of sexualized attention — from what at the time was playful “boys will be boys” kind of banter which she, naturally, enjoys, to creepy stuff she doesn’t like, to outright assault, — or acts as the damsel‑in‑distress, with one especially telling scene in Miri where she loses her head because she fears she will no longer be attractive to, yup, you guessed, it: Kirk; and Chekov, added in Season 2 to appeal to younger viewers, is often played as comic relief and teen‑idol eye candy.
And Kirk: In TOS itself, he’s frequently the butt of the joke, put in absurd situations, or made to look slightly ridiculous for comedic effect. That includes not only Tribbles, but episodes like A Piece of the Action (Kirk hamming it up as a gangster), Shore Leave (flustered by fantasy hijinks), and The Gamesters of Triskelion (shirtless, chained, and bantering through the absurdity).
Against this backdrop, Uhura’s “goofy” moments are few and far between, if they even exist at all —and that’s no accident. While Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Chekov are often played for laughs, Uhura is consistently portrayed with self-possession and demonstrable respect. And unlike Spock, she is never the butt of another character’s banter. Her playful scenes (like singing in “Charlie X”) show warmth and charisma, and never undermine her competence nor her dignity. In the context of 1960s gender and racial norms, that is nothing to sniff at.
Uhura as a Cultural Icon
Now, the story is not quite done. As far as Uhura’s cultural impact goes, there’s her much‑heralded—and much‑deconstructed— role in Plato’s Stepchildren.
The “banned in the South” story is a myth; the real ban happened in the UK, for the episode’s scenes of humiliation, torture, and sadism.
The Enterprise responds to a distress call from a planet inhabited by godlike telekinetic humanoids who use their powers to humiliate and torture the crew—including Kirk, Spock, Uhura, and Nurse Chapel—for their own amusement.
For many people outside the 1968 Trek fandom and onwards, the Kirk–Uhura kiss was the single moment that broke through into mainstream cultural awareness, an impact that lasts to this day. During the forced inter-racial kiss, she delivers the following line:
I'm thinking. I'm thinking of all the times on the Enterprise when I was scared to death and I would see you so busy at your command, and I would hear your voice from all parts of the ship, and my fears would fade. And now they're making me tremble, but I'm not afraid. I am not... afraid.
Let’s unpack that a bit.
From a celebratory perspective: On screen, the moment is about alien coercion and Uhura’s refusal to surrender her composure; off screen, it’s about pushing a cultural boundary while navigating NBC’s anxiety over rapid social change. The network reportedly ordered multiple takes — some without the kiss — but Shatner deliberately ruined the “no‑kiss” versions so the one with the kiss had to air. In that instant, Uhura embodies the show’s central paradox: breaking racial taboos while still constrained by both the overt plot device of coercion and the gender structures of 1960s television.
From a critical gender perspective: The moment is more complicated. Uhura’s words occupy a space between subsumed agency and inner resilience. The script’s male‑centered framing diminishes her autonomy: her fear and pride are directed toward Kirk, reinforcing his heroism rather than her own. This reflects a broader pattern in the series, where women’s emotional beats often serve to elevate male leads. What’s worse, in cultural memory, the scene is remembered as “Kirk kisses Uhura,” erasing her as an equal agent and flattening the complexity of her resistance.
A lot more has been said about that.
The Ending Balance
So, how does it all add up with that tension between how TOS pushed boundaries but reinforced the gender norms in its portrayal of women?
I don’t know.
But I do know how profoundly it affected me. What it did right outdistances what it got wrong by a country mile, because it imagined a future not constrained by the past. That gave me permission to surpass it.
It showed me the limits of its imagination—and in doing so, helped me age up alongside it, especially through its later iterations.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/9/6/2307696/-Trek-and-me-and-the-Woman-of-Star-Trek-The-Original-Series-Uhura?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
