captaincrusher:

maeraevokaya:

Random thought: I strongly disagree with the commentary that SNW Uhura is “masculinized”. She’s got makeup, sparkly earrings, walks with a sashay, and was a literal queen in one episode.

Some of these negative comments regarding the character have hurt people, particularly Black fans with that very hair which is the subject of much of this commentary.

I don’t know where this commentary is coming from, but it sure feels familiar. When have people not been upset about Uhura’s hair? I’ve written about this before, but to return to this:

In the original series Uhura had straightened hair, which Nichelle Nichols later called “denying her identity” or something similar. When the movies came around Nichelle was determined to keep her afro but the studio called this “too contemporary”. They settled on the short style.

Is Uhura presenting as more masculine because she doesn’t have long, straightened hair? Of course not. Is a hairstyle that black people have had for thousands of years “too contemporary” to appear on black people hundreds of years in the future? Of course not.

There’s a long Star Trek tradition of being obsessed with Uhura’s hair in particular. The racist connotations of calling Celia Rose Gooding’s profile masculine because they have short hair unfortunately have a long history in Star Trek.
It’s also very telling that people don’t complain about how almost every black woman in Star Trek had straightened hair until recently, which is a time consuming process and wouldn’t work for everyone - but they chime in when a woman has a much shorter, easier to manage hairstyle. Which one makes more sense in the quasi military setting of Starfleet?

It displays a very narrow view of femininity and just like when Nichelle fought for her hair in the 70’s, it reveals that black actors have to fit in a much tinier box than white counterparts to conform to people’s expectation on screen.

:

Lieutenant Nyota Uhura

cheer-deforest-kelley:

Still more wonderful pictures of Nichelle and the gang.

glumshoe:

majokkomaimun:

glumshoe:

has anyone in the universe aged as radiantly as Nichelle Nichols

WAIT THIS IS A PICTURE?????????????

I THOUGHT THIS WAS LEGIT ART FOR SOME GODDESS, WHAT THE ACTUAL DIVINE SHIT IS THIS

she looks like that IRL too

I saw her at a distance at a convention a few years ago and she like… shimmered in a way that made her seem more real than real

she was very pretty as a young woman, but so are lots of people—as an old woman, she stopped me in my tracks like a human traffic light

speedygal:

And then there were three.

firstofficernims: