Nana Visitor On Star Trek Under Gene Roddenberry And Rick Berman, And Hollywood Culture

When Deep Space Nine‘s Nana Visitor was approached about writing Star Trek: Open A Channel: A Woman’s Trek about the women in Star Trek, the original idea pitched to her was that she’d do short interviews to work into a picture-filled coffee table book. When she started doing interviews, the concept changed to something deeper: a look at female Trek characters, yes, but also a deep dive into the actresses who played them and they times they lived in. We reviewed the book when it came out, then spoke to her in depth about her experience writing it and how it affected her.

Here is part 2 of that extended and frank conversation, where she talks about Rick Berman, Gene Roddenberry, the changing times, and the pressures of being a woman in today’s society. (Read part 1.)

I’m curious, did you try to interview Rick Berman for the book?

I watched so many interviews of his. I watched hours and hours, and most of his responses were “I don’t remember.” So I didn’t think that I’d get a different response.

Interesting. And is that because, obviously you know him to some degree…

I just took him at his word in these interviews over and over again, “I don’t remember.”

You wrote about how you and the other women cast members couldn’t go in and just plunk down on his couch and have a conversation with him, but the men could. So did you have any kind of relationship with him when you were doing Deep Space Nine?

Well, actually, Gates [McFadden] is the one who said that, and I went, “Oh yeah,” that was one of the aha moments for me: It was like, right. I went into that office to be judged for looks, to approve a look, and that was it. And no, the relationship was very different.

From A Woman’s Trek (Insight Editions)

That’s what I always figured, and I do want to give him credit, because I do love those shows!

I do too. And he hired me.

And he was steering it, and he hired all the great writers, and he hired fantastic people, and he let them do creative things. So I never want to take away from that. But there was obviously lots of layered things going on there.

If you look at it, first of all, he’s the man who called me when I said no, I didn’t want the role, and talked me into it, and not in a weird way, but let me know what they were trying to do with this show, and it was so exciting to me. I went “yeah, I want to be a part of this.” I mean, that was the kind of thing that had been maintained, it could have… but that’s not what happened in Hollywood back then. Evidently now, they sit down with characters, the producers of the new shows, and talk about what arcs they’re looking at, and ideas, and how do you feel about this, and include them in the conversation of the character so that they really feel like they’re building it together. That wasn’t what was happening in the ‘90s. There was a feeling and just about every—Henry Winkler was the only producer I worked for that was different, but the rest were like “No no no, you stay in your place. You do your thing. I’m the one who has authority.” And it was the culture of Hollywood back then, and there’s some men who took that and behaved badly because of it. Some men didn’t. Some men didn’t take advantage of that. But, you know, you can get lost. I certainly got lost in the time.

Yeah. I was working at MTV in the ‘90s and it was a big boys club.

And how do you navigate that? Do you go “Nope, I’m out” because ethically that jibes with you? Well, then you’re out of a job. That’s what makes it so wrong.

I don’t know much about Rick Berman’s life, but Gene’s life—he was not great with women—and on screen, there were lots of issues with when Rick was in charge, and yet Star Trek still managed to be, for its time, quite progressive.

Well, Gene was progressive. He was definitely caught in some amber of his time. He definitely had the 1960s World War II thing going on for him, as far as I could see. But you can’t take away the fact that he did try to have a woman be Number One. And that Nichelle [Nichols] was there. All of it broke so much ice, it got the boat through so much of the Antarctic, you know what I mean, for this time?

And I understand that he changed somewhat. He listened, he heard women through his life and made some shifts. I read some articles that said that he’d have a secretary go “Hey, hey!” and he’d go “Oh, okay, got it.” So people call them in, let them know. I think the conversations we as women have, we can have them with men too, and let them know we’re not just trying to ruin your fun, but you’re  flirting with us, and it’s a job situation, actually, there’s a nervous system response that you are preventing me from using my brain, because now my mind is on other things, my nervous system that’s worried about, how far is this going to go, do I need to do something about this, can I make a joke? You’re trying to calibrate responses and manage something, and that steals your brain from you, where you want it. So I’m not sure that there’s some men who get that.

I think a lot of them don’t.

Yeah, and that’s just because no one told them!

Yeah. Like just how much space it’s taking up in our heads can be overwhelming.

I remember Samantha Cristoforetti… I felt like a dinosaur. She’s a fighter pilot, engineer, astronaut, and when I spoke to her, mother of two children under five, And I knew that she was going up to the space station imminently. And I was like, “Oh my God. Who takes care of your children when you’re up there?” And she looked at me like she just couldn’t understand. It was just like, “What are you talking about? They’re my husband’s children. My husband does.” That’s what she said, “My husband does.” And I went, “Ah,” I cannot believe that I didn’t think that through, that I don’t think that way, that I still think it’s a responsibility–well, I did –that it’s up to the woman, to set the tone, to do this, to do that, to arrange care for the children if she goes to work. Listen: Back in the day, if I went to a convention, I made and froze three meals, dinners. They were on their own for lunch and breakfast, but I made and froze dinners for the boys and I had a husband at the time. But that’s how I thought. And so when this young, brilliant woman said, “No, I have a partner,” I immediately shifted my thinking on that. It was like, boom, done. I get it. And I think a lot of people can have those kinds of paradigm shifts just with hearing a different way.

Astronaut and Star Trek fan Samantha Cristoforetti (NASA)

It’s funny because I probably would have asked her the same question.

Right! [laughs] I ran to my husband, and the boys aren’t here anymore, but I ran to my husband, I said, “Look, when I clean the kitchen, we’re not saying, I’m not saying, ‘Can you help me?’ It’s OUR kitchen. We’re doing 20 minutes together, okay?” And he was like, “Yeah, oh, my God, I get it.” And that’s what we do now.

My mother wrote a memoir for us, which we’ve all been reading. She was born in 1942. I see her as this accomplished woman who had four children, then went to nursing school, then became a psychiatric nurse, she had this whole career, she did all these great things, but she was often looking back at her life in terms of the men along the way.

My mother had some very similar things. I had to stop and go. Wait a minute. I don’t get the ‘60s. I don’t really understand. I know what MY experience was, because I was a little girl in the ‘60s, but I got to stop and see. And doing that work, we can see where our mothers thought—I mean, the barrage, it was you need to have a man, and you DID need to have a man. You did. I mean, how else are you going to survive in certain cases? The barrage of information that there is no other way to live as a successful woman other than having a husband, for sure, and then, if you’re real lucky, having children. And if you didn’t do those things, you’re off kilter. You’re not a successful woman.

It’s fascinating, isn’t it? And that is that that was mostly cultural, what she was raised to believe was, you know, that box to check, right? It’s the history of women and how we get here. And what happened, and what were we thinking, and how much of our brain was taken up with stuff that we shouldn’t have to deal with, or, you know, shouldn’t have to deal with. Anything that takes you away from what your intentions are for your life is annoying. [laughs]

Well, that’s what I’ve always thought about the pressure on women to be so focused on our looks. It keeps us away from politics, decision-making, it’s such a distraction. Have you listened to Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ podcast at all? She only interviews women over 70, and she spoke to Debbie Allen, who was on Ira [Steven Behr]’s show, Fame. She got a chance to direct, and she said she knew what she was doing, but she spent all night thinking about what she was going to wear.

[laughter]

I love that she said it. I love that she said it, because I certainly have been in that position, too, and when I hear it, I can go “WHAT?” There’s more pressure on women and how they look, and either they have to pull their look back or they have to put it forward. What’s wanted? What is this system looking for?

It’s this weird inner battle that you have where you don’t want to have it, but it’s preoccupying.

How much media do we take in that tells us what our value is and what we’re supposed to look like and what we should care about? It’s absolutely endless, and it’s constant.

From A Woman’s Trek (Insight Editions)

More to come…

Check out part 3 of our interview with Nana Visitor, where she talked about the “female box” and how Enterprise took things backwards. And read part 1 of our interview, where Nana talks about becoming a Star Trek fan to prepare for the book and her experience working on DS9.

Buy Open A Channel: A Woman’s Trek by Nana Visitor

Nana Visitor’s full-color illustrated Star Trek: Open a Channel: A Woman’s Trek was released by Insight Editions on October 1. You can order it on Amazon in hardcover and  Kindle e-book.

Check out more exclusive interviews at TrekMovie.com.

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