Star Trek Into Darkness‘ brief moment of sensuality (so tame the MPAA didn’t even mention it in the ratings explanation) is further complicated by the type of movie that it wants to be. Fast & Furious 6 is supposed to be a movie about incredibly good-looking people doing utterly ridiculous things, and showing us a fantastically fun time while they’re doing it. The ass-shaking, bikini-wearing ladies of Fast & Furious 6 are presented in that hedonistic spirit. In contrast, Star Trek Into Darkness asks us to take its universe and characters seriously, and invites us to be moved by the crew’s plight. But first, it says, let’s take a moment to check out this hot chick.
The sad part of all this is that it’s not as if Fast & Furious 6 is some paragon of feminist ideals. Male roles outnumber female ones by a 2:1 ratio, and the film fails badly at the Bechdel test. Then there’s the fact that all four major leads are men, while all the pretty but silent set decoration-extras are women. The female characters it does have, however, are treated as equals, both by the other male characters and the movie itself. Gisele, Letty, Riley, and the rest of the ladies make for luscious eye candy, but no one would mistake them for plain old sex objects. Star Trek Into Darkness, on the other hand, struggles to come up with anything else for its female characters to do.
