Citizen Power

This has nothing to do with politics, but it’s about a TV icon who passed away on December 18th.

Majel Barrett-Roddenberry was the wife of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and someone I admired.   She died on Thursday of leukemia complications.  Barrett was the original Star Trek feminist, the powerful, smart woman. In the original Star Trek pilot she played “Number One” which was the Captain’s sidekick or sort of a vice-captain. Score one for the women. That role later went to “Mr. Spock” when the series started, but she blazed that path briefly back when it was still a woman’s place in American society to defer to men and look pretty. She did that later too because after all, it was Star Trek. To her credit, she never appeared on the show in a bikini or harem pants, (did she?) at least until she was much older and played Lwaxana Troi, when she appeared (faux) naked for her wedding ceremony.

Barrett’s most well known as “Nurse Chapel” (remember her Spock Gaze) on the original series, and also as the voice of the ship’s computer through several of the ST shows and movies. I used to be a huge, geeky fan of Star Trek, and even went to a ST convention once, though I never met her. I think I have seen every episode of ST, (except for some Deep Space Nine episodes (and much of the last show, Enterprise)) several times. Star Trek, especially TNG (The Next Generation) helped form how I think about the world and is one reason why I am a progressive. It’s one reason why I thought things like science, immigrant rights, space exploration, and governments were important. It made me see into the future, and consider ideas like borders don’t matter when you are dealing with a universe, even at a very young age. It was a show that made you wonder. What’s a parsec, anyway? Would food replicators solve world hunger? Would the Federation be a good evolution for the UN, or would it be repressive? And remember, there are no borders in space, so free trade… well, that’s Firefly, not ST. (Firefly was every bit as good as Star Trek, it just burned out far more quickly).

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