Switching between Voyager & TOS rewatches, I find myself struck by how far gender discourse hadn't come in 30 years. *So* much reductive thinking: about women, about relationships, about masculinity.
But it's the writers, not the generation. (TNG & DS9 were between them, & much better!)
Every generation has had people who see us all as people... and people who can't imagine drama outside crude stereotypes.
Who was the first writer you remember really *getting* a different human point of view?
@MLClark why is it that it’s the bad ones who make a more lasting impression? I remember reading fantasy writer Robert Heinlein in the 80s as a teen, who built idealized futuristic dream worlds…
for men - the women functioned as little more than readily available sex-pots. He had a fantastic imagination, with a hugely misogynistic blind spot.
I think you've hit the nail on the head with that last part: it's maddening *because* they can imagine so much, but remain so obstinately blinkered in this one, strikingly obvious way.
It would make more sense, perhaps, if our population wasn't nearly evenly split between these gendered categories. How does one move through the world with so much exposure to fellow human beings, while retaining such an incurious attitude toward them?
I swear, many know how to write dogs better.
@MLClark 🎯 😂/😫
Right?! We’re over 50% of the pop! I’m in my late 50s,& the arch of progress has been slow, but as non-male writers/producers/directors make headway into creative fields, things have steadily improved IMHO.
The advent of streaming has helped break the conservative constraints of broadcast TV & introduce the world to books, stories & scripts written some amazing non-male authors. (I don’t read much now due to my eyes, so judging mostly by what I see in visual media).
The Hays Code really set us back as a culture, didn't it?
Film's early eras included some phenomenal female directors and performers, and productions with rich and nuanced looks at life that... well, got certain media execs very worried about society going to hell in a handbasket with all its empowered women and "untraditional" lifestyles on screen. 🙃
But oh! Just imagine what we might have created if not for that "moral" block between 1934 and 1968.