One of the quibbles I had about the new Star Trek was the “oh man, the one female character is having sex with her commanding officer” thing. It sucked, cause Uhura was in all other ways such a great update of the character. But see, I was reading this from the perspective of a white chick.
Here’s a much more interesting take, which turns Spock/Uhura from EpicFail to EpicWin:
Uhura being single in TOS was not empowering.
She was single because the male leads were all white and as a black woman she was less of a person than them, she was less of a person than a white woman, and the fact that this serendipitously ended up meaning that she didn’t have to spend all of her time mooning pathetically after dismissive men does not make that any more acceptable.
She got to sit in the back and rarely do anything and have her sexuality ignored not because they respected her so much as a colleague and a person, but because she was not a full, real human being and when you’re not a full, real human being the idea that actual people would ever desire you or romance you or love you is ridiculous. You are invisible.
I love it when somebody points something out that makes me read an entire situation totally differently.
