For well over a decade, allegations have been floating around the interest accusing the late Star Trek creator, Gene Roddenberry, of raping the actress who played the role of Janice Rand on the TV series.
Now, a series of tweets have pushed the claims back into the conversation, and the allegations are being hotly debated on podcasts and sci-fi fan sites.
Actress Grace Lee Whitney, who played Rand on the show and died in 2015, alleged in her 1998 memoir that she was sexually assaulted during her stint on the series by an unnamed TV executive. The late actress resisted calls to identify her attacker, but blamed his actions for her lifelong struggle with alcoholism. She claimed wanting to “drink [herself] to death” after leaving the series. Despite her setback, she continued to take on TV roles, and appeared in the early Star Trek movies written by Roddenberry, reprising her role as Janice Rand.
The search for answers initially began in a 2005 thread on a little-known Star Trek fan forum, where members speculated on his identity. Per the accounts of readers who read the book, Roddenberry was described as something of a sex addict, but at no point does Whitney identify him as her attacker.
The truth about who sexually assaulted Whitney was never publicly revealed, but social justice advocates are now pointing fingers at the show’s creator with no way to substantiate their accusation.
The recent tweets by Pookleblinky identify Roddenberry as being Whitney’s rapist, with no evidence to back up the allegations. The person says that Whitney was written out of the show in the week following the alleged rape.
TW: rape
Gene Roddenberry raped Grace Lee Whitney (Janice Rand) halfway through the first season of Star Trek TOS
— Pookleblinky (@pookleblinky) January 13, 2017
Whitney’s own statement on the matter clarifies why she was removed from the show. In a now-deleted interview with The Sun, she said “They wanted William Shatner to have romances in each episode with a different person, because for him to be stuck with one woman was not good for him and it wasn’t good for the audience. That’s what they told me, so I was written out.”
Regardless of her clarifications, Pookleblinky went on to suggest that Whitney’s character, Yeoman Rand, was “constantly dealing with rapey dudes,” and followed it up with the unsourced claim that Roddenberry was “a powerful scumbag, and that level of power kept her silent for 32 years.”
The Twitter poster wrote: “The same culture that allowed Roddenberry to thrive, built him a career and gave him power, produced Trump.” It’s a claim that such rants come down to in the end.
The entire mess was retweeted and shared by hundreds of users.
Roddenberry may have been notorious for being a womanizer, entering relationships with both Nichelle Nichols and Majel Barrett (whom he later married) at the same time, but that doesn’t make him a rapist—nor a misogynist, for that matter.
A staunch secular humanist, Roddenberry used Star Trek to promote equality and created a roadmap to a future free of prejudice. After all, it was the only show at the time to feature an interracial romance—the kiss between Kirk and Uhura was the subject of national outrage upon its screening.
As it stands, the only thing Roddenberry was guilty of was being a successful straight white male. That alone, apparently, is enough to indict him.
Ian Miles Cheong is a journalist and outspoken media critic. You can reach him through social media at @stillgray on Twitter and on Facebook.
