R E C E N T L Y
The nanny trial, "Boogie Nights" and feminist writing about men
Martha Stewart, I salute you
Men and their discontents
Why we leer at JonBenet
Boycott Rosie, not the tabloids
Wisdom in a bottle
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A L S O
About Camille Paglia
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C O L U M N I S T S
Sexpert Opinion
Word by Word
Unzipped
The Awful Truth
Right On!
Sound Salvation
Ill Humor
Unzipped
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A S K_C A M I L L E +|+ CAMILLE+PAGLIA | PAGE 2 OF 2
Dearest Camille:
Knowing you're a staunch "Star Trek" fan, I wondered what your thoughts are concerning the current state of the franchise, particularly given "Voyager's" recent ratings jump. While "Deep Space 9" always struck me as a bit slow and dour, I'd hoped that "Voyager" would bring back some of the spark that "Next Generation" had at its peak. I love both the half-Klingon Torres (when the writers let her anger and humor show) and Capt. Janeway. And now that the mushy Kes has been replaced by Jeri Ryan's sexy, edgy Seven of Nine, I wanted to know: Do you think this show is finally poised to do the name "Star Trek" proud? And am I wrong for thinking the most interesting characters on the "Trek" series nowadays are the women?
Spaced-out Dear Spaced-out: Yes, I adore "Star Trek" and consider it the most visionary exploration of our intergalactic future. My mash note to the android Data ("Dear Mr. Data, You Made Me Love You") was published in TV Guide's special magazine supplement on "Star Trek" in 1995. The artful, visually elegant, psychologically intense TV series "The Next Generation" is my all-time favorite "Star Trek" spinoff. I'm afraid to say that I can't stand "Voyager," with its cramped sets, dowdy costumes, ugly makeup, bad photography and corny dialogue. I find Kate Mulgrew's stilted performance as Capt. Janeway utterly unbearable: She has all the forced, phony swagger of a ham amateur trying to play Shakespeare's transvestite Rosalind. In genteel appearance and earnest, real-life manner, Mulgrew is a dead ringer for the kind of doggedly networking, WASPy woman who rocketed to the top of the Ivy League faculties in the past 20 years of beady-eyed, big-business campus feminism. Mulgrew has another career ahead of her, should acting fail. However, when I saw this fall's sensational publicity campaign for Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine (whose vampy, bust-revealing, silver-mauve body-suit provoked a prudish feminist backlash), I nearly passed out. My eyes popped out of my head: Never before have I more fully understood that piquant metaphor! Ryan is dynamite -- lithe, sexy and smart. And the entire creative team that designed her costume and produced those gorgeous, high-porn PR photos (which blanketed newspaper TV supplements) deserves the golden apple of Aphrodite.
Postscript: Speaking of Aphrodite, or rather
Brigitte Bardot's incarnation of her, see my long article, "Homer on Film: A
Voyage Through 'The Odyssey,' 'Ulysses,' 'Helen of Troy,' and 'Contempt,'" just out
in the Fall 1997 issue of Arion, the scholarly classics journal published by Boston University.
Mood stabilizers haven't kicked in yet? Ask Camille. - - - - - - - - - - |
