Kirk and Uhura's kiss

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William Shatner as James T. Kirk and Nichelle Nichols as Lt. Uhura in the November 22, 1968 Star Trek episode, "Plato's Stepchildren."

In the episode of Star Trek: The Original Series titled "Plato's Stepchildren", season 3 episode 10, first broadcast November 22, 1968, Uhura (played by black actress Nichelle Nichols) and Captain Kirk (played by white actor William Shatner) kiss. The episode is often cited as the first example of an interracial kiss on television.[1][2] The episode aired one year after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down nationwide laws prohibiting interracial marriage.[3]

Historical context[edit]

Identifying the first interracial kiss on television is a subject of debate. Historians noted that interracial kisses between blacks and whites were depicted on British television during live plays as early as 1959, and on subsequent soap operas like Emergency Ward 10. In the United States, interracial kisses were shown on I Love Lucy between the Cuban Desi Arnaz and Caucasian Lucille Ball, who was both his onscreen and real-life wife, in the 1950s.[3] However, despite Arnaz and Ball being frequently described as an "interracial couple", "Hispanic" is not always considered to be a race.[4] Arnaz is today considered by some to be a white man of Cuban ancestry.[5] The United States Census Bureau uses the ethnonyms Hispanic or Latino to refer to a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race; the Census Bureau states, "People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be any race."[6] In 1958, a decade prior to "Plato's Stepchildren", Shatner himself shared an interracial kiss when he kissed France Nuyen, a person of Asian ancestry, during a scene in the Broadway production of The World of Suzie Wong, which was shown in an episode of The Ed Sullivan Show.[7]

Other shows such as Adventures in Paradise and I Spy featured kisses between white male actors and Asian actresses. Sammy Davis Jr. kissed Nancy Sinatra on the cheek on a December 1967 episode of her televised special Movin' with Nancy.[3]

On Star Trek, in the first season episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", first broadcast in October 1966, there is a friendly kiss between Uhura, played by Nichols and Christine Chapel, played by Majel Barrett. In the February 16, 1967 episode "Space Seed, Mexican actor Ricardo Montalban, playing the genetically engineered supercriminal Khan Noonien Singh, kisses Madlyn Rhue.[3] In the second season episode "Mirror, Mirror," first broadcast on October 6, 1967, Kirk and Lt. Marlena Moreau, played by BarBara Luna, an actress of Filipino-European ancestry, kiss on the lips. Meanwhile, Mirror-Sulu, played by Japanese-American actor George Takei, kisses Uhura's neck.

According to Syracuse University Professor of television and popular culture Robert Thompson, irrespective of which interracial kiss was the first, Thompson observed, the one in "Plato's Stephchildren" is the one considered a historical milestone.[3]

"Plato's Stepchildren" first aired November 22, 1968, one year after Loving v. Virginia, in which the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional nationwide laws prohibiting interracial marriage between blacks and whites, between whites and Native Americans, Filipinos, Asians and, in some states, "all non-whites."That year only 3 percent of newlyweds were interracial couples. In contrast to this, in 2015, 17 percent of newlyweds, or at least 1 in 6 of newly-married people, were interracial couples, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.[3]

Production[edit]

In "Plato's Stepchildren," which was broadcast in 1968, the kiss is involuntarily forced by psychokinesis. Shatner recalls in Star Trek Memories that NBC insisted their lips never touch, using the technique of turning their heads away from the camera to conceal this. However, Nichols writes in her 1994 autobiography, Beyond Uhura, that the kiss was real, even during takes in which her head obscures their lips.[8] She also gave this account in multiple recorded interviews.

When NBC executives learned of the kiss they became concerned it would anger TV stations in the Deep South.[9] Earlier in 1968, NBC had expressed similar concern over a musical sequence in a Petula Clark special in which she touched Harry Belafonte's arm, a moment that has been incorrectly cited as the first physical contact on American television between a man and woman of different races.[10] At one point during negotiations, the idea was brought up of having Spock kiss Uhura instead (as Spock was half Vulcan),[11] but William Shatner insisted that they stick with the original script.[12] NBC finally ordered that two versions of the scene be shot—one in which Kirk and Uhura kissed and one in which they did not.[13]

Worried producers decided to film the kiss between Shatner and Nichols with their lips mostly obscured by the back of Nichols' head. They also intended to film a second take in which it occurs off-screen. However Nichols stated in her memori, Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories, that she and Shatner deliberately flubbed lines to force the original take to be used.[3] As Nichols recounts:[14]

Knowing that Gene was determined to air the real kiss, Bill shook me and hissed menacingly in his best ham-fisted Kirkian staccato delivery, "I! WON'T! KISS! YOU! I! WON'T! KISS! YOU!"

It was absolutely awful, and we were hysterical and ecstatic. The director was beside himself, and still determined to get the kissless shot. So we did it again, and it seemed to be fine. "Cut! Print! That's a wrap!"

The next day they screened the dailies, and although I rarely attended them, I couldn't miss this one. Everyone watched as Kirk and Uhura kissed and kissed and kissed. And I'd like to set the record straight: Although Kirk and Uhura fought it, they did kiss in every single scene. When the non-kissing scene came on, everyone in the room cracked up. The last shot, which looked okay on the set, actually had Bill wildly crossing his eyes. It was so corny and just plain bad it was unusable. The only alternative was to cut out the scene altogether, but that was impossible to do without ruining the entire episode. Finally, the guys in charge relented: "To hell with it. Let's go with the kiss." I guess they figured we were going to be cancelled in a few months anyway. And so the kiss stayed.

Reception[edit]

While there was much talk among the production about the kiss, the episode and its groundbreaking content did not garner much reaction from the general public nor the television industry, according to Thompson, who stated, "It neither got the backlash one might have expected nor did it open the doors for lots more shows to do this. The shot heard around the world started the American Revolution. The kiss heard around the world eventually did ... but not immediately."[3]

There are no records of any public complaints about the scene.[15] Nichols observed that "Plato's Stepchildren", which first aired on November 22, 1968, "received a huge response. We received one of the largest batches of fan mail ever, all of it very positive, with many addressed to me from girls wondering how it felt to kiss Captain Kirk, and many to him from guys wondering the same thing about me. However, almost no one found the kiss offensive," except from a single mildly negative letter from one white Southerner who wrote: "I am totally opposed to the mixing of the races. However, any time a red-blooded American boy like Captain Kirk gets a beautiful dame in his arms that looks like Uhura, he ain't gonna fight it."[15] Nichols said she found the episode to be the most memorable one from the show's final season.[16]

Nichols said in 2010 the episode's iconic status is due to its profound effect on viewers, commenting, "The first thing people want to talk about is the first interracial kiss and what it did for them. And they thought of the world differently, they thought of people differently." Eric Deggans, national television critic for National Public Radio, the kiss "suggested that there was a future where these issues were not such a big deal. The characters themselves were not freaking out because a black woman was kissing a white man. ... In this utopian-like future, we solved this issue. We're beyond it. That was a wonderful message to send."[3]

In 2016, TVline ranked the kiss as one of the top 20 moments of Star Trek.[17] In 2016, Radio Times ranked the kiss as the 25th best moment in all Star Trek, including later spin-off series.[18] The cultural impact of the kiss was noted by National Geographic, in 2016.[19] WhatCulture ranked this the 8th best romantic-sexual moment in Star Trek.[20]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "After 40 Years, Star Trek 'Won't Die'". Space.com. 7 September 2006. Archived from the original on 8 October 2009. Retrieved March 23, 2011.
  2. ^ Christian Höhne Sparborth (September 5, 2001). "Nichols Talks First Inter-Racial Kiss". TrekToday. Archived from the original on February 29, 2012. Retrieved March 23, 2011.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i "'Star Trek's' interracial kiss 50 years ago boldly went where none had gone before". Associated Press. November 29, 2019. Archived from the original on May 18, 2024. Retrieved May 18, 2024 – via NBC News.
  4. ^ Passel, Jeffrey S.; Taylor, Paul (28 May 2009). "Who's Hispanic?". Pew Research Center. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
  5. ^ Jaramillo, Juliana (7 July 2015). "Paula Deen's Racist Brownface Stunt Isn't Even Accurate". Slate. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
  6. ^ "The Hispanic Population: 2010" (PDF). U.S. Census Bureau. May 2011. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
  7. ^ Tom Lisanti (25 April 2016). "William Shatner on Broadway, Before His Trek Through the Universe". New York Public Library. Archived from the original on 23 September 2021. Retrieved 23 September 2021.
  8. ^ Nichols, Nichelle (1994). Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories. New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons. pp. 195–198.
  9. ^ Nichols, p.195
  10. ^ "Harry Belafonte 'Speaking Freely' Transcript". First Amendment Center. Archived from the original on 1 January 2014. Retrieved May 13, 2013.
  11. ^ Bernardi, Daniel Leonard (1998). Star Trek and History: Race-ing toward a White Future. Rutgers University Press. p. 38. ISBN 9780813524665. Archived from the original on March 13, 2022. Retrieved August 15, 2012 – via Google Books.
  12. ^ "Little-known sci-fi fact: Uhura's famed Trek kiss wasn't meant to be with Kirk". Blastr. 19 April 2013. Archived from the original on 24 October 2016. Retrieved 24 October 2016.
  13. ^ "Nichelle Nichols bio at NNDB.com". Archived from the original on 14 October 2016. Retrieved 24 October 2016.
  14. ^ Nichols, p. 196
  15. ^ a b Nichols, pp.196-197
  16. ^ Nichols, p.193
  17. ^ Mason, Charlie (2016-07-19). "Star Trek's 20 Most Memorable Moments". TVLine. Archived from the original on 2019-03-27. Retrieved 2019-07-04.
  18. ^ "The 50 Greatest Star Trek moments of all time - 6". Radio Times. Archived from the original on 2019-03-27. Retrieved 2019-07-06.
  19. ^ "'Star Trek' Is Right About Almost Everything". National Geographic News. 2016-06-16. Archived from the original on 2019-07-04. Retrieved 2019-07-04.
  20. ^ Marion (2013-10-06). "Star Trek: 10 Sexy Moments That Made Geeks Feel Hot Under The Collar". WhatCulture.com. Archived from the original on 2019-07-08. Retrieved 2019-07-08.
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