In my previous posts about Star Trek Into Darkness (read the review here, and the analysis here), one of the things I complained about was the gratuitous scene whose only purpose was to showcase Alice Eve in her underwear.  The writer of Star Trek Into Darkness, Damon Lindelof, just issued a series of tweets apologizing to fans for the scene.  Read on for the image in question and Lindelof’s apology.

Lindelof’s four tweets read:

In my book this is a bold and appreciated move from Lindelof, whose writing I’m generally a fan of (I loved Lost).  However, I believe an apology from director J. J. Abrams would go even farther, and is perhaps more called for.  It’s one thing to write a scene like that, but quite another to film it that way.  There have been many articles written about the “male gaze” in film by people far more intelligent than I am, so I’ll leave the deep analysis to them.  But, as I said several times, I was disgusted and insulted by the scene, and am glad someone is taking some responsibility for it.  I can only hope that this will lead to an open dialogue about the objectification of women in film.

Lindelof does make a point that Kirk was in his underwear in both movies, however the camera did not linger on him, objectifying his body the way it did with Alice Eve, Zoe Saldana and Rachel Nichols.  Considering the enlightenment of the Star Trek universe, and it’s open, healthy attitudes towards sex (particularly in The Next Generation), this felt like a huge step backwards.  It’s one thing for confident women to willingly show off their bodies, but it’s quite another to exploit that confidence by turning them into a piece of meat.  It’s particularly grievous considering how little function the characters played by the women seemed to have in the movie.  Carol Marcus had basically no defining characteristics in the film except for her body, which could not be farther from her original incarnation.  The original Star Trek series was very much a product of its time, and doesn’t have a particularly stellar track record where women other than Uhura are involved, yet it’s still leagues ahead of this.

What do you think?  Was Lindelof right to apologize?  Do you feel anyone else should?  Is this whole thing being blown out of proportion?  Let me know in the comments!