Are Brains Sexy? Still more musings...

Jospeh H. http://kweejeeboe.gather.com/ posted a link on my article "If you could be anyone from a book, TV show or a movie, who would you be and why?" http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977366442 to the article below. As is my usual way of doing things I will let you read the article and then please read my comments below it. Of course I will ask a question(s), oh and there will be a test later on.

In Character
Mr. Spock: The 'Mystery of Masculinity' Embodied
by Neda Ulaby
Weekend Edition Sunday, June 1, 2008 ·

When Gene Roddenberry created the TV series Star Trek, the suits at NBC had some advice: "Lose the Martian." They were talking about Spock. But Mr. Spock went on to become the most beloved half-alien in network history. In fact he went on to become, well, one of the most fascinating fictional characters on TV.

Fascinating - four syllables and one arched eyebrow - that's Spock, just as much as his pointy Vulcan ears. The first time actor Leonard Nimoy said the word was in an episode where the crew of the USS Enterprise faced a strange, sinister entity. No matter where the ship turned, the object managed to be in their way. The bridge was on high alert - so Nimoy shouted out his next line with the same energy: "Fascinating!" "The director, God bless him, said be different from everyone else," Nimoy remembers. So on the next take: "Fascinating," in that cool, collected way. "I think in that moment a very important aspect of the character was born," Nimoy says.

D.C. Fontana was a writer for the original Star Trek series, which ran from 1966 to 1969. She says that singular "fascinating" conveyed interest, skepticism and - layered deeply in there - a kind of wonder. Nimoy found fascination in Spock's status as an outsider. "When [Gene Roddenberry] hired me to do the role," Nimoy says, "he gave me a very interesting dynamic to work with, in that Spock's mother was human, his father was Vulcan. He was sort of a half-breed." And as such, he was prone to some internal conflict. As Spock's mother Amanda explained in one episode: "When you were 5 years old and came home stiff-lipped, anguished ... I watched you knowing that, inside, the human part of you was crying."

"I think that's one of the most interesting things about Spock," says Nimoy. "It's not what you're getting, but what you don't get - what peeks out occasionally." What peeks out occasionally are Spock's emotions. One of the series' favorite gambits was to have him lose his mind. Writers would put him under the influence of an urge to mate, or a flower spore, or a germ that eliminates defense mechanisms, as in an episode called "Naked Time." "I'm in control of my emotions, in control of my emotions," Spock insisted in that episode.

Emotion vs. Intellect: 'It's A Struggle We All Face'

"It's a struggle we all face," says Henry Jenkins, humanities professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Are we driven by our emotion or by our intellect? And how do we reconcile those two things?" One of the things Jenkins studies is Star Trek fan culture. He says Spock's struggle makes him an unlikely sex symbol. "Spock is sexy for a large number of people, male and female," Jenkins says. "Many of the female fans I studied really are attracted to the emotional depths of this character." Like many men, Spock "represses outward signs of emotion," Jenkins says. He's a character "who tries to hold it all in, but who seems to be sensitive, sensuous at certain times."

And Spock's intense relationship with Captain Kirk only complicates his character."He seems to have a deep affection and even passionate relationship to Captain Kirk," Jenkins says. "This character, then, became the embodiment of the mystery of masculinity."

At a Turbulent Moment, a Bridge Between Cultures

Star Trek made its debut during a turbulent moment in history - in the midst of the Vietnam War and the feminist movement - and Spock somehow spoke to the times, Jenkins says. It was rare then, he says, to see a TV character embody two very different cultures. "In that sense Star Trek looks ahead to the society we live in today, where so many people are mixed race, mixed cultural background," Jenkins says. "And I've been thinking about that a lot lately, looking at Barack Obama. There's something in the [Obama] mythology that seems to echo our assumption about Spock - that he's someone able to bridge worlds. And he's indebted to Vulcan philosophy of IDIC, the Vulcan philosophy of infinite diversity and infinite combination. Someone who is of mixed race is seen as being capable of understanding both races." (As it happens, Nimoy supports Obama for president.)

While Jenkins says Nimoy's performance as Spock was a marvel of sensitivity and nuance, he is looking forward to a new actor playing Spock in an upcoming movie. Jenkins is brave enough to make a comparison to Hamlet: Like Shakespeare's conflicted hero, Jenkins says, Spock is a character for the ages. "We can imagine seeing hundreds of different actors play Hamlet, and indeed the richness of Hamlet is seeing differences and the different interpretations of that character," Jenkins says. "With the new movie, we will for the first time see Spock as a character larger than an actor."

Fascinating.
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Are brains sexy? In my opinion they are. Before I was married to my very sweet, creative and intelligent Hubby I used to hang out with this particular woman friend and as people did back then, we used to bar hop and discuss things. She was interested in dating this guy, who though extremely attractive, my suspicion is he used his head for a hat rack. So I asked her why she would want to date someone like that and she gave me the obvious answer. My response to her was "Well what do you do after that?" In all of my relationships I have been fortunate to know people who are intelligent. (I am not speaking of formal education here, but of the ability to think) My opinion is looks fade. When you get to know an individual their looks become affected (effected? Oy!) by their personality and their intelligence (IMHO). So someone who at the onset looks very beautiful/handsome can become very ugly. While conversely someone who looks ordinary maybe even less than pretty, can become beautiful in your eyes. This has actually happened to me. I introduced some friends to a person I thought of as beautiful and they were perplexed that this was the same woman I had talked about. But, they did not see her through my eyes. I also had a friend who worked with an actress considered to be very beautiful (sorry I cannot recall her name). At first he was stunned by her beauty. But, he said at the end of the assignment she was ugly to him because of her rudeness toward other people etc.

I will be honest with you here, I have had a long standing love affair with the mind. Do I find Mr. Spock sexy, oh my goodness yes! I actually find Albert Einstein sexy. Ok, bring on the comments! I am a product of my environment. My mother told me after she met Henry Fonda that she could now die a happy woman, for he was as intelligent and thoughtful (meaning use of thought) as she felt he would be. I have a friend who I have known for a while. This person is in a long distance relationship. I was in one once, Washington, D.C. to New York City. Because of the distance it did not work out. It intrigues me though having a totally unphysical realtionship, one completely of the mind. Wait, I do have those, here on Gather!

I did actually read something about why they kept the character Mr. Spock on the show. It said they (NBC) were going to get rid of him, but so many women wrote in telling them how much they loved the character, they decided to keep him in the show. Seems that I was not alone in my adoration of Mr. Spock.

So, here we come to the show and tell portion of this piece. I really don't want to hear "I'm a leg man." or "I'm into butts.". I have no interest in that whatsoever. I actually think that's the other article over there ->. Do you think brains (intelligence) are sexy? Why or why not? If you do think they are sexy name someone who are you attracted because of their brains.(name someone we might all be familiar with, it does not have to be a real person, it can be a character from a book or movie etc.) Have you ever had a relationship that was primarily of the mind? What do you think of that? Would it work or not? Comment about anything else you feel is pertinent to these questions. Thank you. And thanks to Joseph O. for the inspiration, without whom none of this would be possible.

Link to this article - http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977395754