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SMNTY Classics: Uhura · Stuff Mom Never Told You

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