I’ve been watching the DVD extras for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and they have interviews with the makeup artist who creates all the funky looks for various species of aliens on that show. He refers often to conversations in which the producers tell him they’ve hired a “pretty girl”, so he needs to “keep her pretty”. So he’ll do just a little forehead ridge or some wrinkly stuff at the bridge of the nose, or some tattoo work – nothing that would distort her eyes, cheekbones or mouth from looking human and traditionally attractive.
No, this is not the most appalling instance of misogyny I’ve come across. It’s just one example of those very subtle things that can make you think an actress is less talented than her male counterpart in a similar role. Even in sci-fi, with characters who aren’t supposed to be human, producers are more concerned about an actress’ visual appeal to the audience than they are with the character’s visual integration into a story.
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Seems to be an accurate analysis, but this knocks it down:
Very true – they were actually quite frightful-looking (other than B’Elanna who was only half-Klingon) – certainly unattractive by human standards (A face only a Klongon could love). To me, they even seem more ugly than the male Klingons.
That’s a good point too – even when they’re not trying to make the female aliens pretty, they still feel they have to make them ultra-sexy – you just cant have an ugly unsexy female alien like you can with the males. Maybe some network exec decided the Klingon gals needed to dress like Xena!
But now that I think of it, I think I have seen several female aliens on star trek (minor or guest-starring characters mainly) who did look pretty “ugly” by human standards and didnt have cleavage showing.I’m going to look out for that from now on.
Caroline(Quote) (Reply)
Not an alien example but… Lisa in the Torchwood episode “Cyberwoman”. Partially converted to cyborg by the Cybermen, process got stopped halfway through and she spent awile strapped to a sort of life support machine undergound, with all these cybernetic components.
You’d expect some sort of scarred, scary looking cyborg woman, bits of metal clashing with flesh, and the like.
Instead, Lisa was a healthy looking woman wearing what amounts to a a very stylish metal bikini.
Of course *sigh*
Ink(Quote) (Reply)
IIRC, Russell T Davies was a big confused to see giant metal tits being put on it by the designer.
But he didn’t do anything about it, which is daft. It’s the damn Cybermen, Russ! The original ones were covered in bandages with huge metal bits sticking out and couldn’t talk properly – an imcomplete Cyberwoman should be hideous and unnerving.
Charles RB(Quote) (Reply)
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