“Friday’s Youngster” is a irritating episode. Author Dorothy Catherine (DC) Fontana, one of many few girls creators on the sequence, wished to discover problems with maternity and femininity. Particularly, the script is a few sturdy girl who doesn’t need a baby. It displays on and questions second wave feminist discomfort with motherhood and domesticity.
Sadly, although, Fontana’s themes find yourself buried beneath the standard journey plot mechanisms and colonial machinations. That’s partially the results of poor building—the script feels overstuffed and rushed. Nevertheless it additionally displays the constraints of the unique sequence, which, each as a matter of casting and a matter of predilection, was ill-equipped to middle feminine characters or feminine views.
Patriarchy and Moms
The plot of “Friday’s Youngster,” just like the plot of so many unique sequence episodes, is about colonial mining rights. The USS Enterprise is on a Federation mission to negotiate for an unnamed however necessary mineral with the inhabitants of Capella IV. Capellans are massive, sturdy, and warlike, however noble and honorable. They’re form of a cross between pulp fiction portrayals of Native Individuals and Muslims—although, as is typical within the unique sequence, the actors portraying them are just about all white.
Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), first officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and Physician Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) beam right down to the planet to attempt to open negotiations. No sooner have they landed than they uncover a Klingon, Kras (Tige Andrews), can be negotiating with the Capellans. Within the ensuing confusion, Kirk’s safety escort attracts his weapon and the Capellans kill him. Then they demand the touchdown social gathering’s communicators and weapons. That successfully cuts them off from contact with their ship.
Not an incredible begin! And issues proceed to deteriorate from there. The Teer, or chief of the Capellans, Akaar (Ben Gage) favors a treaty with the Federation, who’ve been reliable up to now. Nevertheless, his very pregnant younger spouse, Eleen (Julie Newmar), thinks the warlike Klingons are extra persuasive. So does a younger warrior Maab (Michael Dante). He challenges Akaar for management, and his troops win the following combat.
Maab then desires to execute Eleen, so her child can’t change into Teer. Nevertheless, Kirk intervenes to forestall her dying. Within the combat that follows, Kirk touches her. It’s a lethal crime to the touch a chief’s spouse, and Eleen requires Kirk’s execution earlier than her personal.
That ought to be it for our hero. However Kirk’s the star and might’t be killed willy nilly. So Maab inexplicably stalls, giving our heroes an opportunity to flee into the hills with Eleen.
The Capellans are a patriarchal society, and kids belong to their father. Eleen doesn’t need her child as a result of she feels will probably be an outcast. (Or that’s the implication; she isn’t given a lot of an opportunity to elucidate herself.) Dr. McCoy tries to get her to just accept the kid throughout start by telling her to repeat, “The kid is mine!” She agrees that the kid is McCoy’s, a lot to his confusion.
Maab and his males pursue Kirk into the hills. Kirk and Spock handle to discourage them by utilizing their communicators to generate a landslide and by making bows and arrows, a weapon unknown to the Capellans. At a vital juncture, after the start of her baby, Eleen knocks McCoy unconscious, and returns to Maab, telling him her child has died.
Then Kras considerably randomly however conveniently freaks out and begins taking pictures Capellans. Maab sacrifices himself so his males can kill Kras. That leaves Eleen’s baby as the only remaining Teer. She names it Leonard James Akaar after McCoy and Kirk.
Additionally! Within the center there’s a prolonged and uninteresting subplot the place the Enterprise is diverted by a Klingon ruse. You possibly can actually hear the plot whining and groaning because the Enterprise rushes away from Capella IV after which rushes again, all in order that we perceive that there’s no ship in orbit and the touchdown social gathering actually is at risk.
Whose Child Is It?
Eleen’s rejection of her personal child is in principle the middle of the episode. However Julie Newmar, an exquisite actress, will get few strains. In actual fact, we be taught that she doesn’t need the kid from Kirk in a voiceover. Eleen’s motivations are interpreted to the viewer to start with by way of the phrases of a person.
That is maybe inevitable given the casting of the unique sequence. Later Star Trek franchises like Subsequent Era and Discovery embrace central roles for ladies. The unique sequence, although, is centered on Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. To write down about feminine expertise, Fontana had to make use of a secondary character. That character is then inevitably handled as if she’s secondary.
“Friday’s Youngster” additionally marginalizes girls’s points as a result of, as is typical within the unique sequence, its in the beginning curiosity is colonialism. The principle battle within the episode is the Chilly Conflict machinations of the Federation and Klingon empires as they attempt to affect and manipulate the colonial third world Capella society.
Eleen’s destiny and emotions are subordinated first to the patriarchal struggles inside her personal society, after which to the colonial patriarchal wrestle exterior of it. She turns into a logo of Capella. Touching her with out her permission is off limits, simply as taking Capella’s minerals with out the Capellans consent is forbidden. By extension, whoever claims her claims Capellan assets too.
McCoy wins Eleen over with a mix of kindness and brutality. He says he’ll assist her as a health care provider together with her child. Then he slaps her when she is cussed and insists on asserting her personal bodily autonomy. The mix of carrot and stick is a mannequin for colonial relations. So additionally the Federation gives incentives backed by the specter of drive. (That menace is made specific when the Enterprise sends down a full safety group on the finish.) Eleen insists that “Solely McCoy!” might contact her, transferring her patriarchal allegiance to him, and Capella’s minerals, by implication, to the Federation.
Leonard James
On the floor, Eleen overturns the patriarchal dominance of Capellan society by changing into ruler herself. Nevertheless, she’s not likely the ruler; she’s only a regent. The actual ruler is “Leonard James”—that’s, the infant who can be the kid of the Federation. Eleen has simply exchanged one male ruler for an additional.
It’s not unusual for imperialism to disguise itself in a feminist masks. Vron Ware, in her guide Past the Pale: White Ladies, Racism and Historical past factors out that the British Empire justified its management of countries like India by claiming to rescue or free South Asian girls from patriarchal management.
Fontana most likely didn’t intend for “Friday’s Youngster” to be an ideological apology for useful resource extraction. However the unique sequence simply isn’t set as much as see girls as drivers of their very own tales. They will solely act on the behest and because the regents of individuals with names like Leonard and James.
Score 6.5/10 SPECS
All episodes of Star Trek: The Unique Collection are at present streaming on Paramount+.
This text was produced and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.
Noah Berlatsky is a contract author primarily based in Chicago. His guide, Surprise Girl: Bondage and Feminism within the Marston/Peter Comics was revealed by Rutgers College Press. He thinks the Adam West Batman is the very best Batman, darn it.
