Why, J.J. Abrams, Do You Feel the Need to Titillate?

I wish I could have been there at the script meeting when they discussed the scene between Carol (played by Alice Eve) and Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) when Kirk, although he’s been asked to turn around while she disrobes (no dressing room being available?), nonetheless turns around anyway and gets a load of Carol divulging her very best Victoria’s Secret underwear. I wish I could have been there to ask J.J. Abrams, “What exactly is the point? Why do you feel you need to titillate the men (boys) in your audience? Seeing Carol in her skivvies does absolutely nothing for your plot–absolutely nothing; it doesn’t even serve as prelude to a cheap romance between her and Kirk (at least not in this movie). So why, Mr. Abrams, do you feel the need to titillate? Is it because you think that men (boys), being what they are, need this sort of thing, even in a pretty darn good space adventure (and Star Trek: Into Darkness is a pretty darn good space adventure). Do you feel we can’t endure 120 minutes of your story without a little bit of soft porn thrown in? Why do you feel the need to pander in this way? Or do you think this is part of your “art”? Or did you feel you had to cave to some producer higher up in the food chain? What was it? I’d really like to know. Because you’re a good filmmaker, Mr. Abrams, and your film would have lost nothing if this scene had been completely rewritten. In any event, please know that I asked my 13 year-old son to look away while I forwarded past this scene. (Yes, that’s easy enough to do. But it sure disrupts the experience of watching your film.)

I also wish I could have been there at rehearsals to ask Alice Eve: “Really? Is soft porn really why you went into acting? Is it because you feel your acting talent can’t carry a scene that you allow yourself to be used in this way?”

Feminism is fraught with all sorts of problems, but one wishes that by now it would have succeeded at least in giving female actresses the courage not to allow themselves to be objectified by (predominantly male?) filmmakers–or by their own ambition.

Alas, this seems too much to wish.