I’d heard the stories, but I had no idea how awful William Shatner was. And then…
She protected her tweets like a true SJW, attack and hide. https://t.co/Ktfkz36ZjI
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) July 16, 2016
And then…
Thousands of fans turned out for Montreal Comic-Con July 8-10, many to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Star Trek. Overall, the mood was positive, forward-looking, and particularly supportive of diversity in the franchise. But then William Shatner opened his mouth, and took us all back in time (not in a fun Voyage Home way) with a string of sexist jokes.
And no, they weren’t even funny sexist jokes. They just kind of flopped there, looking stupid. He even repeated one of the more pointless ones three times.
So Leonard Nimoy turns out to be a thoughtful, interesting, enlightened human being, and he dies. William Shatner is a raging dillhole, and he lives forever. It all makes the old Star Trek really hard to watch.
Oh, hey, how about that Rogue One? No asshats involved in that one, I’m sure.
A friend of mine worked on Miss Congeniality, the 2000 Sandra Bullock vehicle about a beauty pageant in which Shatner played the pageant MC. She told me it was perfectly disgusting the way he sat around between setups, openly leering at the granddaughter-aged actresses playing the contestants.
He did a somewhat self-referential album a few years ago, Has Been; yet even that song witha self-defacing title had some aggrandizement built into it.
The ego Kirk needed to be Cap’n of the Galaxy bled over into his own persona to be the most egotistical person (until Drumph blew him away in that regard). Like I tweeted earlier to PZ, don;t the assShat (TM) dissuade one from the Trek franchise. Still the most iconic SF franchise ever. (Staw Wars is more Legend than ScienceFiction, IMO) Kirk was a fun part of the Trek story, a brash leader who tried hard to restrain himself but would violate the rules to get the job done anyway.
Shatner may be a shithead… I’ll leave it there, I always new that, really, I did actually, honest, would I lie to you. Fisbin!!
I grew up around the time of TNG, VOY and DS9, so I didn’t watch all of TOS at the time nor have I done so by now. But didn’t Kirk always have a bit of a reputation for misogyny and using and abusing women?
I’m not defending Shatner, I’m just not sure his recent comments alter my view of Kirk as a character, because I never thought of him as being as enlightened as Spock. And even Spock had his fuck-up moments, like when he claimed that women are just naturally more prone to fear than men and whatnot.
These are ugly parts of an overall good and forward-thinking show, but there are quite a few of them throughout. Some of that can be attributed to its era, to the time it first aired. Shatner, though, has no such excuse. He should’ve moved forwards.
AFAICR, all of the major ST stars loved Galaxy Quest… except Shatner
While disgusting, it’s nothing new or surprising. He was a egotistical, misogynous shithead when he was 35, and he’s gotten more bitter as he’s gotten older.
Yeah, Shatner’s been well known for his casual douchery. There’s a reason most of his costars didn’t like him. Nimoy probably only tolerated him because he was a chill guy. Thankfully, he didn’t get out of line when my choir and I worked with him at the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. Still minorly irked that Nimoy had to cancel and sent him in his stead, though…
Saganite
From what I can tell from the first season, this is a misconception. While not perfect on gender issues, Kirk was far more progressive than Shatner. There is an episode where he explains sexual harassment to a young man raised by energy beings and why was not okay for the young man to slap Yeoman Rand on her rear.
I think much of the misconception comes from the fact that Kirk was not opposed to engaging in consensual relationships with women of non-human but equally sentient species.
TL;DR: Shatner is worse than Capt. Kirk.
@8
Yeah, Kirk’s misogyny falls squarely on the writers (“Turnabout Intruder” being possibly the most egregious example). Shatner is still a scumbucket.
Er…that should be @7. I blame my touch screen.
Matrim,
I confess, I haven’t seen much more than early season 1. I looked up the synopsis of “Turnabout Intruder”: holy shit.
@gmacs
I know, right? That episode was so over-the-top gross that, even in the sixties, I’m surprised it got made.
I know that among the part of the fandom I’ve seen, “Turnabout Intruder” is generally relegated to the category of episodes widely agreed to be very bad, along with “Spock’s Brain”, TNG’s “Shades of Grey”, Voyager’s “Threshold”, and so on.
Overall, it seems like a lot of characters ‘influenced by’ Kirk seem to be influenced more by this cultural idea of Kirk than the actual character, which is a shame. This seems to include the new movie Kirk as well. Reading this, I wonder if some of the cultural idea came from interviews with Shatner?
when thinking of Shatner and the roles he has played as an indication of who he actually is and how the character he played is influenced by his behavior off the screen do not forget to include his part in Boston Legal of Denny Crane.
a decidedly different type of character from Captain Kerk.
and not to forget he is not a comedian what ever he thinks!
uncle frogy
I never liked that man. That probably had more to do with my cousin taking over the tv to watch star trek reruns early in the morning when I wanted cartoons mind you. I have no interest in knowing exactly what that asshat said though I know I hear about the same so often at work it’s all exactly the same after a while(i work in industrial construction and my once quiet and serene lunch table is now dominated by crotchety rightwing fart bags that still can’t get over the fact that Notley got elected).