Anonymous asked:
genuine question - deanna’s catsuit, seven of nine’s catsuit, t’pol’s catsuit. all exploitative or do you personally find any redeeming qualities in any of them? this isn’t a discourse question i promise, it just occurred to me after your recent ask
ericbogosbian answered:
i don’t like catsuits. full stop. they’re exploitative and gross and i know for a lot of people it can be uncomfortable to wear them.
deanna troi
i feel like it should be pointed out that only one or two of deanna’s outfits can actually be considered a catsuit. a catsuit is a skintight garment which conforms to the shape of one’s figure. like what seven and t'pol wore. deanna’s costumes, especially early on, were not skintight and were even designed to hide certain parts of her body’s natural shape because the producers (berman) thought she was too fat for either the skant or the full uniform after the pilot episode. now, this is absolutely not me saying, “her outfits weren’t catsuits so they were fine!” because that’s not what i’m saying. i’m just saying a lot of them were not catsuits.
one big problem, which marina sirtis has talked about on multiple occasions, is the fact that deanna always has a lot of exposed cleavage. the biggest issue, though, is that as a starfleet officer, she should have been in a uniform. i think it’s ridiculous that they make it a point to say that bajoran earrings and things like headbands are against regulations, but counselor troi being in a titties-out pink body suit is perfectly fine. also- the nerve of the people who want to call her outfits a “counselor’s uniform.” like. bitch what other counselors are we gonna see wearing that? where are they? we never saw ezri in any of those numbers.
as for whether or not any of them are forgivable… i do enjoy the teal outfit with the skirt. i just wish it had been reserved for like an off-duty kind of outfit rather than a regular everyday kind of thing.
seven of nine
all of them are catsuits and they are all a problem, in my opinion. especially the silver one because it made jeri ryan physically ill. the canon “purpose” of these outfits was to act as a second skin in place of her real biological human skin while her body regenerated after the removal of all her borg parts. therefore, as a “skin,” it should have been covered. letting her wear things over these, but sometimes having like the sleeves or part of the pant legs visible would have been great. but noooo. rick wanted to be a gross little bitch about it and make her into a “sexy borg babe.”
t'pol
t'pol’s catsuits were annoying, definitely. especially when they showed us other vulcan officers and none of them dress like that. and after she quit the vulcan science directorate and joined starfleet, she absolutely should have gotten a starfleet uniform instead of just a little iron on patch. but… i didn’t see the catsuits as being as big of a problem as the fact that they constantly filmed her naked or almost naked. she was literally just there to be some kind of sex object and to be looked at, even though they also (likely accidentally) wrote her as one of the only competent characters on the entire goddamn ship.
other costuming things i have a problem with
tng women’s uniforms
this isn’t a HUGE problem, but it still annoys me a bit. even after the men were given better-fitting, more flattering starfleet uniforms, the women were stuck wearing the skintight (and smelly according to a lot of the actors) spandex version which nobody liked. in beverly’s case, though, they made some minor accommodations for her, making it out of a slightly different material, cutting it a little looser, and letting her wear the lab coat/cardigan thing sometimes so she didn’t feel quite so exposed. they also let dr. pulaski wear what looked like one of the most comfortable uniforms in all of star trek, and i would have liked to have seen more characters in that.
kira nerys’s often-ignored catsuit
for several seasons, kira was in a modified catsuit and nobody says anything about that. like. she’s in a literal fucking catsuit that just has shoulder pads sewn onto it. it’s a catsuit disguised as a uniform and it’s not even disguised that well because it doesn’t look anything like any of the other female bajoran militia officers’ uniforms. she’s also in heels, which doesn’t make any sense.
If I can add op:
Jadzia’s actor and Kassidy’s actor were forced to wear “monster bras” to enhance them and make their breasts look bigger/perkier. They were uncomfortable but those actors got to wear them under uniforms not catsuits so we hear about them a lot less.
Also, the Jeri Ryan story is more cursed than people realize. The Borg costume she wears in the first couple of episodes pushed on her artery and made her pass out. But the catsuit was just overly tight. This caused her to need an entire team of people to get her back into it when she needed to use the restroom and it would slow down or shut down production. She felt guilty about this. SHE FELT BAD ABOUT NEEDING TO USE THE RESTROOM! And so her solution was to just not drink while on set. This is what caused her to be ill…
Felt like people should know that.
