TMC
10-26-2016, 04:32 PM
http://screenertv.com/television/star-trek-the-next-generation-deanna-trois-fashion-revolution/
For a show that spent its first 25 years reaching toward socialism and absolute equality with both hands, the physical and semiotic impact of clothing — particularly of uniforms; they’re all military of one kind or another — can’t be overstated. While the intensity of the enduring cosplay world tells us a lot about which costumes, uniforms and details have made the most impact on readers and viewers of genre fiction, comics and television, there is a specificity to “Star Trek” fandom — and fetishism — that speaks to our complicated, long-term relationship with those enduring visuals, the bodies within them, and the highly emotional and gendered response that they still evoke.
For the same reason the steel bikinis and “barely there” armor of female game and comics characters provoke such huge — and increasingly vitriolic, for whatever reason — debate, we’re looking today at a benign, less toxic — but no less meaningful, or nuanced — progression in the female “Star Trek” look, and specifically what it meant for the seven-years-plus journey of one of its most fascinating characters, Marina Sirtis’s Deanna Troi. Was she defined by her clothes, or did she — by design — set an ongoing tone for the franchise’s relationship to femininity and sexuality that continues into the current day?
For a show that spent its first 25 years reaching toward socialism and absolute equality with both hands, the physical and semiotic impact of clothing — particularly of uniforms; they’re all military of one kind or another — can’t be overstated. While the intensity of the enduring cosplay world tells us a lot about which costumes, uniforms and details have made the most impact on readers and viewers of genre fiction, comics and television, there is a specificity to “Star Trek” fandom — and fetishism — that speaks to our complicated, long-term relationship with those enduring visuals, the bodies within them, and the highly emotional and gendered response that they still evoke.
For the same reason the steel bikinis and “barely there” armor of female game and comics characters provoke such huge — and increasingly vitriolic, for whatever reason — debate, we’re looking today at a benign, less toxic — but no less meaningful, or nuanced — progression in the female “Star Trek” look, and specifically what it meant for the seven-years-plus journey of one of its most fascinating characters, Marina Sirtis’s Deanna Troi. Was she defined by her clothes, or did she — by design — set an ongoing tone for the franchise’s relationship to femininity and sexuality that continues into the current day?