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So, I went into my trek through Trek with both excitement and apprehension about Voyager. I was excited for a female captain lead at last and intrigued by the premise of Lost in Space, but the little I heard while trying to avoid spoilers as much as possible was…not incredibly flattering. A lot of what I heard was unflattering remarks about executive meddling.
And then I stumbled on the Voyager tvtropes page which stated “Captain Janeway, who is usually considered the most morally ambiguous of the five captains…”
To which I thought, hot damn sign me up. They weren’t saying her ‘Thing’ was being the woman. Her ‘Thing’ was making difficult choices in difficult situations.
Upon watching the show, I’m not sure I entirely agree with this statement (the morally ambiguous thing, obviously she made plenty of difficult choices in difficult situations) but regardless I fell in love with Janeway because she is everything I ever want from a Star Trek captain.
She is cool.
There are about three main ‘types’ of Trek storylines: the goofy sci-fi antics, the dramatic philosophical sci-fi metaphors, and the epic sci-fi explosions and the witty one liners that go along with them all. The best kind of Star Trek captain can fit into each and every one of these scenarios without ever feeling out of place or out of character and without the audience losing faith in the dignity of their command.
Just as Picard can cringe from the apparently terrifying little kids on his ship and then turn around and keep those same little kids calm and together during a crisis, Janeway can spend an episode frustrated by an old man who keeps getting in the way because he doesn’t understand she’s not his daughter and then turn around and call that dying old man father and promise he is forgiven.
When Sisko says ‘it’s easy to be a saint in paradise.’ I go hell yeah it is, and when Janeway says ‘We make our own hell, I hope you enjoy yours.’ I get chills.
This isn’t meant to be a big defense of Janeway’s place among the Trek captains (although if you want to contest that for some reason, come at me bro) but to set up why Janeway is so important, why she stands out if she’s so much like the others.
Because she is cool.
Obviously so are the other captains (well. I mean. Archer. He does try.), nobody would really deny that. But Janeway is that rare woman who fits into so many of the traditional action hero archetypes. The traditionally male action hero archetypes, that is.
She is the Determinator who won’t stop, who won’t break a promise. She doesn’t believe in a ‘No-Win Scenario’. She makes a decision and she sticks with it not out of arrogance but because her crew needs a leader who can do exactly that. They don’t have time for hesitation or doubts.
And she’s the captain who fricken’ loves explosions and witty one-liners and ramming her ship into other ships.
I am not denying Voyager and the writing for Janeway herself didn’t have its problems or that the executive meddling didn’t show through here and there or that the show didn’t criticize or deconstruct exactly those attributes about her to varying levels of quality. The point is I spent a lot of the show going HELL YEAH and that’s what I want from my action hero.
And that’s the amazing part, they wrote Janeway as an action hero, not The Lady Captain. For the most part, except for the occasional weird moment here and there, they wrote her gender as an obstacle only when it was someone else’s problem.
And Janeway, who grew up with a level of confidence so many little girls can barely hang onto out of toddlerhood because she didn’t grow up in a culture that derided her gender or blamed her for its supposed failings, Janeway rolled her eyes and shrugged it off and then blew up their ship if she felt like it.
This is not the only female representation we need, far from it. Women overcoming the oppression and struggles of our current societies and our past are extremely important. But sometimes it’s just so nice to relax. Sometimes I want women crushing the patriarchy in combat boots, sometimes I want women crushing the patriarchy in high heels, sometimes I even want to mourn women being crushed by the patriarchy.
And sometimes I want a woman who goes ‘What patriarchy? That’s been crushed for years, come’on, let’s do experiments with this nebula and then become best friends with some Borg and then have dramatic philosophical arguments with some aliens and then blow up these pirates. And then maybe tea and a nice book.’
And that’s what Janeway is. An escape from a world where the obstacles are my body and my gender and the people who try to control and disregard both.
Yes, alright, there were a couple moments where Janeway had to fight a patriarchy or explain to a new officer how to properly address a female captain (seriously? seriously?) but that’s what happens you’re a writer dreaming of a future without prejudice instead of actually experiencing it. Or, you know, you’re a lazy writer who doesn’t consider how many female captains there have been since such gendered bigotry among humanity became a nonissue centuries ago.
I mean come’on, how can they not have a standardized gender-neutral or even set of gender specific titles with which to address the captain? Surely this was addressed in some kind of protocol class, Harry?
Okay, okay, point being, Janeway may or may not have been created to be The Woman Captain, I don’t know much about the process of her creation, but she was written as The Captain Who is a Woman And Also a Scientist and Also Pretty Damn Stubborn and Also… and so on.
Little girls – and big girls and old girls and all the girls – need this type of character as much as little boys need Luke Skywalker, need Superman. It’s not about characters who don’t have struggles, it’s about characters who struggle with the kinds of things we wish were our struggles, if we had to be a hero.
If pressed I’d probably admit what I want out of life is some tea and a nice book. But if I had to choose between being an action heroine who kicked men in the groin for calling me a bitch or the kind of heroine who kicked people in the face for telling me I couldn’t save every single puppy and then saving every damn puppy, I know which I’d rather live.
And I know what I love to watch. I love to watch Janeway play a Victorian governess in the holodeck, drink coffee during the night shift with her crew, debate what a right to individuality means with drones and queens alike, and then shoot Kazons in the face.