The Alien Hermaphrodite: USS Enterprise NCC-1701 (1965)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USS_Enterprise_(NCC-1701),_ENT1231.jpg

Today I am thinking about the iconic USS Enterprise NCC-1701 (1965) designed by Matthew "Matt" Jeffries (1921-2003) under the direction of series creator Gene Roddenberry (1921-1991), may they both rest in peace.

First, an acknowledgement: what follows is based on arguments in an article I am writing with my partner and oft co-author Ximena Gallardo C.

The Enterprise is essentially two rockets strapped onto a flying saucer--which makes it symbolically either a hermaphrodite or a massive flying sex act. Seriously. Rockets are phallic (erect structures that symbolically represent or invoke the penis). Flying saucers are yonic (circular structures that symbolically represent vaginas). I do not make this shit up.

Yes, Matthew "Matt" Jeffries designed a ship that has design elements derived from aeronutics engineers. Get the explosive stuff (fuel and engines) away from the people. Be sure to have some sort of ejection system if possible. So, then engines of the Enterprise are up on stalks that ostensibly can break away and the saucer section ostensibly can also break away from the engineering section. Gotcha.

But they are still rockets strapped onto a flying saucer. Yes, Jeffries knew a lot about aeronautics, but it is still a TV show and Roddenberry, who had worked as an airline pilot, was first and foremost a writer-producer. As a creator, writer, and producer, he wanted a ship to serve as the central symbol and centerpiece for the show, and together Gene and Matt worked up The Enterprise.

Let's just admit it: the ship has to look like it goes with the projected themes of the show and that outranks any "engineering principles" beyond what audiences can possibly identify with and in the 1960's it was all rockets and flying saucers. (Can you imagine Battlestar Galactica in a Star Trek episode?) The Enterprise was one weird looking dude. It made people uncomfortable.

In fact, the studio execs though it was so weird that they hated it and wanted it gone from the show. They hated it almost as much as they hated Roddenberry's female first officer--played by Majel Barret, later Majel Roddenberry. Who knows what deal he made to demote Majel from first officer to bitchy nurse and the voice of the computer, but he kept the weird ship and the "pointy-eared alien".

But that was the point: humans were in contact with aliens already and even breeding with them. Ergo: the half-human/half-vulcan Spock. If both Spock and the Enterprise had to be kept as central to the show and the human female first office could get the axe, then the ship and Spock are tied together. How? Hybridity. The joining of opposites.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Enterprise_smithsonian.JPG

Why was the Enterprise more important than the female first officer? Because it was the central symbol of the show. And what did it symbolize? Space sex. Sure I could go on about Kirk's skirt-chasing, but what I mean here is that one of the central themes of the show was that space changes us. Going into space makes us more alien. Suddenly was have weird alien-looking ships that connect masculine to feminine, known shapes to odd ones, and so on.

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(NCC-1701)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_enterprise
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Jefferies