3. Uhura's Fan Dance
Uhura was the Enterprises communications officer, andas played by Nichelle Nichols a ground-breaking character. She was an officer of African descent (Uhura is meant to be African, and Nichols is an African-American actress) with a substantive starring role on a TV series in the 1960s. Uhura was a technical whiz, a great singer, and rose up the ranks along with the rest of the crew. But in Star Trek V, one of her biggest moments comes during her infamous fan dance. As the crew of the Enterprise is assaulting the crazed Vulcans position, they decide they need to distract some guards to steal their horses. Naturally, they have the only woman among them strip down, surround herself with feathery-fans, and sing and dance in front of the skeevy terrorists. Why is this so bad? Well, this may be my Seven Sisters training coming out, but the scene feels a bitsexist to me. Granted, after she dances for the men she gets to fly the shuttlecraft in to pick them up, but I cant help but feel that her character was degraded here. Social commentary aside, it was just dumb. Is that really the plan they came up with? Where did the fans come from? What about the weird drumming and voice effects as she was singing? And if, while I was part of an army searching for God, a woman suddenly appeared out on the dunes, I would run in the opposite direction. Havent they read their Queste del Saint Graal?