Mudd’s Women started off controversial and continues to be so. The Network was worried about the “hooker’s in space” vibe, even though these women were looking for husbands not selling sex. The venus drug also provoked worry. Sex and drugs were controversial topics in the 1960’s. To be fair, sex and drugs are controversial today also.

The viewing audience in 1966 generally enjoyed Mudd’s Women. Apparently, the viewing audience were not a shocked as the Network Execs expected. The Nielson ratings showed the audience tuned in and stayed keeping the show number 1, even beating out Bewitched in the second half.

In this episode, the Enterprise recues the captain and his “cargo”, three rather lovely ladies who are to become wives of interstellar settlers. This is the first episode featuring a swashbuckler character of Harry Mudd. Gene Roddenberry had wanted a guest star playing a rogue. Indeed, we see Harcourt Fenton Mudd in later episodes.

Today, Mudd’s Women is not so well received. I think many of the fans who were born after 1980 have a hard time understanding this episode because they do not understand what life was like for women in the 1960s.

The Plot

The episode opens with the Enterprise chasing an unregistered starship. The small starship’s engines overheat and stop. The ship begins to drift into an asteriod belt and the Enterprise extends its shields to protect the ship while it rescues the people on board. In doing so Enterprise damanges their lithium crystal circuits. Yep, this is the equivalent of a high-speed chase and rescue.

We immediately see that these women have some power over non-Vulcan men, all but Spock seem to be drawn to them like moths to a flame. Kirk and the ship’s captain (identifying himself as Leo Walsh) argue over who is to blame for this incident. The Enterprise is limping along on a single lithium crystal and burned out bypass circuits. Kirk orders the Enterprise to head for the mining colony Rigel XII and a hearing regarding Captain Walsh.

In the hearing we learn the Walsh is in fact a criminal named Harcourt Mudd. The women, whom Mudd claimed to be his cargo, are leaving their home planet where they had no marriage prospects to become wives of settlers on Ophicucus II.

The final lithium crystal gives out and the Enterprise limps into orbit over Rigel XII. As luck would have it, Rigel XII has 3 miners (who apparently are very rich guys due to their mining profession) and there are 3 women looking for husbands. We go throuh a few scenes with the women on Enterprise where we are getting the impression that these women are not what they seem to be.

During these scenes, the plot thickens as one of the women steal a communicator for Mudd, so can contact the miners. Plus we see the women’s appearances beging to change. Mudd gives them a pill (the Venus drug) and their youth is restored.

Mudd contacts the miners serupticously. When the miners meet with Kirk, they don’t want payment, they want the women. The women transport to the planet’s surface. When the miners find out about the Venus Drug, they get angry that they were duped. Two have already married. The third, Eve, runs out into a storm. The chief miner finds Eve and rescues her. In the final scene we see Eve, who has reverted back to her non-drugged state, take the pill and transform. Kirk tells her the pill was a placebo. Eve and the miner decide to “talk” about things. Kirk gets his crystals and the Enterprise is restored.

Themes

As mentioned previously, there are two main themes in this show: (1) mail order brides and (2) drugs to improve sex appeal. First, beware if you put “mail order brides” into Google. Guess what — it is not a thing of the past. It was prevalent in the 1880s and 1920s in the US according to the Smithsonian (https://postalmuseum.si.edu/research-articles/go-west-young-woman/when-where-did-mail-order-brides-live).

Ancestry also has a write up on the history of mail order brides (https://ancestralfindings.com/mail-order-brides-a-history-of-love-in-the-wild-west/). Unlike what we saw on the old “wagon train” shows, most of the folks moving west were men seeking their fortunes or prospects for homesteading ranches and farms. Women were not as prevalent in this migration. Once the men got settled, they would write home asking friends and family to help them find marriage prospects. Sometimes the men would place adds and a woman would answer. They exchanged letters, eventually some led to the woman traveling west to marry her suitor.

Can we say, 1800’s equivalent to online dating? I guess dating hasn’t changed much over the last 100 years.

As for the venus drug, just look up anti-aging products on Google! There’s a good chance if someone does come up with a venus drug, it will be a huge money maker. Controversial? Maybe only because there isn’t one!

However, I will say that in the end, Eve is beautiful — not because of the drug, but because of her attitude, how she thinks about herself. I have yet to hear any of the commentators on Mudd’s women today pick up on that small subtle theme. It isn’t the drug that makes a person beautiful. It isn’t even their dimensions, shape, or color. It is the beauty that shines from within.

If you’ve seen the movie Barbie, think of the bench scene. Barbie sits next to a woman who is aging. She turns to her and says, “You’re so beautiful”. the woman says, “I know it.” Barbie had never seen aging in Barbie land. She had never seen someone who lived a full life with lessons and experiences, love, happines, grief, and loss all there to be seen. The beauty of age, the experience, and wisdom that comes with it.

In 1960, Mudd’s Women presented the message – you are not the sum of your parts. You are not the beauty of creams and drugs. You are the beauty of your soul.

Controversy

The complaints about Mudd’s women from commentators that I see online today (I won’t link to them, you can look it up for yourself) center around the objectification of women for sex and that women in the 21st century (Star Trek starts in 2063) would consider thier only prospect of a future be marriage.

First, let’s discuss the objectifiation of women for sex. Yes, it is wrong. Yet I do not think this episode did that. Simply because the women were perceived beautiful and alluring doesn’t mean they were being treated as sex objects. The basic definition of sexual objectification occurs when a person’s body or body part is viewed as a physical object simply for sexual desire. Consider the following conversation between Kirk and McCoy. These guys are trying to understand how these women are different. There is a difference between being attracted to someone and turning that someone into an object.

In the 1960s we see feminism taking hold as a social movement, and a controversial one. Not all women were on board with this movement. Some women felt secure in their role as wife and mother and felt it un-natural for women to want to step outside that role. Other women wanted the opportunity to do something differnt with their lifes.

It reminds me of a conversation in a series I enjoy, Young Sheldon. Sheldon is a child genius. The series takes place in the 1980s in Texas. In Season 3, there is a episode when Sheldon and his college class mates work on a project at Sheldon’s home. Sheldon’s mom is doing the laundry, making lunch, coffee. In her mind she is being a good hostess. But Sam, the girl, finds Mary’s behavior to undermine the advancement of women in the sciences.

The argument started in the 1960s and still continues. Consider some of the rights that women have fought for that began in the 1960s

• The Supreme Court ruled that the law against birth control was illegal in 1965 (Griswold v. Connecticut)
• The Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963 to protect against sex-based wage discrimination.
• The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was established in 1965.
• The National Organization for Women was founded in 1966 to promote women’s rights.

HistoryCentral provides a clear picture of women in the 1960s.

The role of women in American society changed dramatically in the 1960s. At the beginning of the decade, women were portrayed on television and in advertisements as happy homemakers, secretaries, teachers, and nurses. Women who did not get married were depicted as unattractive, unfortunate spinsters, and those who asserted themselves were dismissed as nagging shrews. Women were to strive for beauty, elegance, marriage, children, and a well-run home. Meanwhile, popular culture ignored the fact that all women did not fit the mold that tradition had proscribed for them.

https://www.historycentral.com/sixty/Americans/WOMEN.html

Considering that Mudd’s Women was filmed in the late 1960s, the audience would be more acceptable to women seeking husbands and life the role of wife, mother, homemaker. If the series were to have provided a different role — these women wanted to join Star Fleet and become officers — well, let’s say that would have gone over like a lead ballon.

Mudd’s Women is one of my favorite episodes merely for the theme of the concept of beauty. It was not until I’d read some of the commentary about “why are these women looking for husbands instead of a job?” that I realized something of a generational gap between me and the young women today. Growing up during the 1960s and 70s, I appear to have missed the point of it was NOT ok to want to find someone to share your life with and that women should ONLY be focused on a career. So my question is, why can we all have choices to live the life that suits us best?

References

http://www.apa.org/education-career/ce/sexual-objectification.pdf
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1964/496
http://www.eeoc.gov
http://www.now.org