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Fictional Women Around the World: Uhura · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stephaniely
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Never Told You production of iHeart Radio. And welcome to
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: another sub sub segment on fictional women around the world.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: And I'm actually so excited to talk about this one,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: which is kind of funny. I'm gonna get into it
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: in a second. Today we're talking about star Treks and
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Nyoda Herra, first played by Michelle Nichols and later by
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Zoe's Aldonna, explaining Star Trek is a lot. It's a lot,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: as are I mean, like no different than like Marvel
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: or Star Wars. There's been a lot of property behind
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: this one. And it's happening again like that I'm bringing
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: it back. Yes, yes, currently, and I have a lot
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: of friends who are excited about it. But like in
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: a nutshell, if you can imagine if our silly space
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: force that we have here in the United States was
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: an actual thing, if in this fictional world which is
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: set in the future United States, and it's called Starfleet
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: in this universe, um, and if it's it's not militaristic,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: it's a diplomatic, exploratory thing. And you go these star
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: check these Starfleet crews go and and explore and try to,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: you know, make relationships with these other alien species. So
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: like that's kind of the basis. The property is huge, huge,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: and so impactful with multiple television shows and movies parodies,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: and it has also influenced real world technology. Shout out
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: to spot. It was one of my first crushes. My
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: brother in love star check he made me watch it
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: on Christmas Eve, Star Trek Nemesis when he knew I
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: was afraid of aliens and I had nightmares at night.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I had nightmares, but um, I actually because I was
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: so afraid of aliens and and I know people listen
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: to this, I was like, but you love Star Wars.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: I feel like Star Wars was much goofier in their aliens.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: And I say this with love. Star Trek was much
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: more like there are these worms that were crawling in
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: your ear and control you, like they have freakier. It
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: had many It was still goofy, had many, many scenarios,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: and Star Wars later went on to have things that
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: were more serious. But I think I really one of
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Like I remember being four years old and watching over
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: the couch as that guy what was his name, I
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: don't know, check Off. He got one of those worms
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: when his ear and I wasn't allowed to watch it
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: because it's scary, it's so badly I did go on
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: to watch. I've seen all the movies. I've seen the
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: original series. I've been told I'm missing out by not watching.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: I've been told I would really like the next generation,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: which I probably would. It's probably, that's probably absolutely true.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: But anyway, it's funny to me that I had this
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: crush on Spock even with all that fear, and even
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: with I didn't really watch it a lot. Obviously enough,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: my favorite Star Trek movie was the way Old one
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: that everyone mixed up. I don't know, so I know
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: so little about this. It has never been in my
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: pure structure, so I don't. I don't even know friends
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: who watch it. Maybe they do, they just never told me,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: because I feel like there is no in between. Either
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: you love or hate it, like you are either a Treky.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I've heard them called treky. If that is not, If
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: that is offensive, I'm so sorry. That's I assume. I
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: was like, yeah, obviously this is a fan group. That's
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: how I'm saying it. If it's not, please let me know.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: But or you weren't, and there was no in between,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: so I never really got into it. I've never seen
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: that it's my thing. I know Patrick Stewart's in it. Oh,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: William Shatner is in it. I know, uh Spock and
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: then the hand signal that's it. Uh that's interesting to me.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that makes sense. Most people I
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: know who love Star Trek really really do love it.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: As you say, I feel like I'm trying to been
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: in between her. I think I really, I really enjoy
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: it when I watch it, and I think I would.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I'd never think people are wrong when they're they tell
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: me I would love it, I think they're they're right.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I just I get a little overwhelmed sometimes by like
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: there's a lot, right, there's a lot. I feel the
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: same thing about Doctor Who. I don't know much about
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: it either, but I know it's existed for a very
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: very long time, and for being an English series, which
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: they only do like two or three seasons of things,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: this is a long, long, long show. Um. And also
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: just out of curiousity, you may be talking about it.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Is Michelle Nichols the one that's under a conservativeship? Yes,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: and there's the conversation about that as well. Yeah, yes,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: we are going to mention that at the end, but
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: before we get into that, just one more funny side now.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: I was telling Samantha the other day that I did
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: I did get into the two tho nine kind of
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: reboot for a hot minute, and I for I wrote
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: fan fiction for it, but it was such a short
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: like sometimes I get these really intense flares love and
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: it passes. I can't imagine how much fan fiction is
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: it there is for Star Trek, well as you know
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Spock and Kirk or the original slast couple Spurk. It's
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: all coming together now, But today we are talking about her,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: who was a human starfleet communications officer that served on
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: the U. S. S Enterprise and U. S. S Enterprise
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: A under Captain James T. Kirk Yes, played by Shatner.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: She first appeared in the nineteen sixty six episode called
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: The Man Trap and went on to portray her in
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: sixty six episodes. Sal Donna has portrayed her in three movies,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: beginning with the two nine reboot. Um this character is
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: really smart, creative, efficient, quick, and expert communicator. Can speak
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of languages, according to Ambassador Colos and one
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: episode quote and to hera whose name means freedom. She
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: walks in Beauty Like the Night. Some sources suggest the
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: writers got the name in the nineteen sixty two American
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: novel Hru by Robert Rourke and Nayota. Her first name
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: means star in Swahili, and it's kind of a joke
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: in the show that you never like know her first
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: name for a long time. Andy was trying to get
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: it out of her. Yeah, this character was of African descent.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: She was very proud of it and was fluent in Swahili.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Music was one of her primary hobbies. You see her
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: like playing instruments and singing in several episodes UM and
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: also in several episodes she proved herself to be the
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  Speaker 1: first to notice something UM very intuitive quick on the uptake.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: She was also really good at math and succeeded in
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: physical test. She proved herself capable in many areas and
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: episode that Captain Kurt trusted her to command the helmet
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: of ship navigation and main science station. Through this, the
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: audience got to see instances of her leading, something rare
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: during the nineteen sixties, especially for a black woman. Of course,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: she did do this in a short skirted uniform and
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: in at least one episode wore a middriff and short
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: skirt to flirt with someone as an intel slash traction
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: kind of operation, right of course, right, so there's that element,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: but it was for the time, very very progressive and
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: uh for a lot of people, I haven't seen this before,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: right as in fact, I think the thing that I've
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: seen since trending on Twitter is how that that's not
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: talked about enough. And then also how people are really
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: upset when Star Trek becomes too political and everybody's like,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: have you actually watched Star Trek? So like it's like
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: it's commentary and you're not on the right side. Like
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: it's if you're upset it's political, you're not on the
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: right side of it. That's wasn't but but that she
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: really was, like I know nothing of the series, but
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: I know she was a catalyst and a really big
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: beginning for representation and good representation for black women. So
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: I thought that was interesting too. And that's not know
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: very little once again about the show, but be here's
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: some key points that I am finding out as well
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: as you are if you have not if you don't know.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: So in one episode, she has to take command of
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: the ship after it lands on a planet where an
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: alien species cast the type of sirens song on all
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: the men the silly man, and she and the rest
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: of the women on the crew have to save the day. Yeah,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: some have rightfully critiqued this in terms of it took
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: getting every single man off the ship before her got
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: her moment, of course, but still pretty big moment. In
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: another episode, a telekinetic named Charlie stole to hera's voice
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: and almost made her choke on it. That's an interesting thing. Then,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: on a later occasion, someone attempted to sexually assault her
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: and she fought them off, and at one point she
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: went through a traumatic memory wipe, always a good good
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: plot point. In another episode, she sees her worst fear
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: implanted in her brain buy an enemy force her as
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: a diseased, dying old woman. That's a big fear for
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  Speaker 1: a lot of us, right. In one episode, a telepath
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  Speaker 1: forced her to kiss Captain Kirk, and it was the
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  Speaker 1: first kiss on an American episodic television between an African
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: American woman and a white man. Via the Alpha Fandom
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: reporting on nichols book Beyond her quote, the scene was
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: at the behest of NBC executives. Worried that Southern afiliates
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: might refuse to air the episode filmed with and without
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: the kiss, but Nichols and Shatner consciously sabotaged the non
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: kiss takes so that there would be no choice but
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: to leave the kiss in the final version. Loved that.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: M hmm, what's the big moment? Her husband kidnapped in
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: health hosts many times. She has also received many distinguished accolades.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: She served as Lieutenant commander under Captain Will Decker and
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: later served under Rear Admiral Kirk during the events of
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Star Trek the Motion Picture. While some critiqued her lesser
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: position of in their words, this character answering Kirk's phone calls,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: others often argue her role was far more important than that. Um,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: the writers just didn't give her the spotlight that she
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: deserved all the time. Maybe this could also be an
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: argument about how traditionally women's jobs get consistently undervalued. Because
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, again, from my point of view, I understand
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: this critique, but when I was a kid watching this,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: I was never like, she's just answering his calls. She
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: seemed to like be really on top of like managing things,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: and she was often the one that was like, hey,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I think there's a problem here. Yeah, and she was
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: very very smart. It definitely Again, I was watching this
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: as a kid, and I haven't really seen them recently,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: but when I was a kid, I remember thinking like,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: she's on their level and she's incredibly intelligent and they
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: respect her in her opinion. In the two thousand nine reboot,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: she in Spock, who is her teacher, and will say
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: are in on and off again relationship. Some fans hated
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: this relation ship and labeled her a merry suit. What
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: I care talking about this forever? You will not stand
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: for it. I won't. Nichols said of this that there
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: were hints of a spot of her relationship in the
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: original series, but that people weren't ready for it. And yes,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: in this particular iteration of her the reboot, she is
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: a polyglot. She's super efficient and very very smart. Okay. So,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: during her time betraying this character, Nichols expressed several times
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: that she was thinking about leaving during the first year
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: of the series because she believed the role wasn't important
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: or meaningful. The actor, she faced a lot of obstacles,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: but the character did as well, including allegations at the
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: studio ordered some of her subplots to be cut from
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: the script and that her fan letters not be delivered
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: to her. That's terrible, um, And some studio executives reportedly
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: even made racist comments right to her face. But famously, uh,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: this is something else probably a lot of you have heard.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Martin Luther King Jr. Helped change her mind after sitting
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: down with her, explained to her that he was a
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: big fan and that she could quote not give up
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: because she was a huge role model for women and
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: black children in his mind. And after that conversation, related
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: or not, her role did expand on the show. Many
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: others have written about the influence this character had on
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: their life as one of the first black women on
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: television not performing menial task and that was kind of
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: a key um. And yeah, also this was happening alongside
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: civil rights movement in President Obama had a meeting with
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: her and told her that he had a crush on her.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Was cute. I like that, you know, because full circle.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Let me be president so I can tell my TV
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: crush that I had a crush. Yes, you know, it's
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: not a big deal. This is how you get to
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Mark Hamill become I gotta go. Okay. So Gools got
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: involved in space activism in nineteen seventy five after witnessing
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: a NASA presentation at a Star Trek convention that featured
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: almost entirely white men. Yes, she started writing editorials about
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the importance of representation in space. Uh. These editorials caught
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: NASA's I and they contacted her about updating their program
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: and changing their recruitment. At first, getting things done, I
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: love it. So Nichols agreed, but only as an independent
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: contractor so that she could terminate her participation if they
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: did not uphold their end of the deal. Very reminiscent
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: of the Ma Rainey when they were like, you know what,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: I needed to see all of the loopholes. As a
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: part of this, she traveled the US in nineteen seventy
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: five and helped recruit the class of nineteen seventy eight,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: including the first six female American astronauts and the first
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: three African American astronauts. Yeah. I love that. I love that.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: But yes, as you mentioned at the top, Samantha, Lately,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Um Nichols has been the focus of a free New
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: show campaign, her son successfully petitioned to be her conservator in. So, yeah,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: this is what we were talking about with the whole
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Britney Spears Free Britney movement, and there was a lot
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: of conversation around you know, Britney Spears getting all this
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: attention is kind of a you know, white woman and
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: we're not talking about other all these other people who
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: are in these conservatorships in similar situations and how it's
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: kind of this much larger problem. And I did right
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: before this. I just checked and it's still ongoing. Uh,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: she is still alive. I got a little scared because
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: the Wikipedia article just said until but I know I
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: had a moment of panting, like, oh my gosh, she's
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: I think from like my quick researching, she is one
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: of four remaining original Star Check cast members alive. Yeah,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: I think we need to talk about the I mean
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: we've talked about the conservatorship before and yeah, like there's
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: so many other cases outside Britney Spears, and but Britney
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Spears even said there's others I'm gonna work towards helping
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: and hopefully, uh Nichol's name is on that list as well.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: It's really really an amazing story and really amazing character
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: and has had so much impact. And there, yeah, there's books.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: There's a website you can go check out. And I
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: want to apologize if I got anything wrong, because this
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: was coming from a lot of my like memory and
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: also just research I did. And I know people big
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: fans like my brothers. If you want to send us
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: a correction or if you want to send us an edition,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: you know we'll read it because we love it, because
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: again two perspectives and one perspective has no idea. Yes, yes, honestly,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: like I love I love doing this kind of research
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: and it makes me so happy that so many people
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: connect with a character like that. So yes, please send
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: those suggestions are away. You can emails that stuff and
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: your mom stuff at I hurt meia dot com. You
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Instagram and stuff I've Never told you. Thanks as always,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: you are super producer, Christine, Thank you, and thanks to
• 16:01
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