3.23 — “Family Business”

3.23 — “Family Business”

Plot: Quark and Rom receive a visit from the Ferengi Commerce Authority (FCA) to inform them that their mother, Ishka, is in trouble for breaking Ferengi law by earning a profit as a female. Meanwhile, Jake pushes Sisko to go out on a date.

Thoughts: My overriding feeling is that this episode has not aged well (if it was even okay in 1995). First the good stuff: it’s our first visit to the Ferengi homeworld, expanding the canvas of the series (and thereby making it feel more like Babylon 5). I appreciate some of the details revealed, like Ferengi conventions upon entering a home, which invert expectations. My reaction to the whole plotline with mother, however, is that it’s made of yuck.

sunny jim and I were wondering, did they think they were making a feminist episode? Memory Alpha suggests yes. Quoting the Deep Space Nine Companion:

This show originated from Ira Steven Behr’s desire to do a more serious Ferengi episode than had ever been seen in Star Trek up to this point, and both cast and crew feel that Behr succeeded in this aim. Armin Shimerman calls it “a very heartfelt psychological study,” while director Rene Auberjonois points out, “it’s much more serious than the usual Ferengi story, even though there was a lot of comedic stuff in it. It’s about a very painful thing, a son who has totally lost any sort of relationship with a parent.” Behr himself was also extremely pleased with how the episode turned out, calling it “the Long Day’s Journey into Night of Ferengi stories.” Finally, co-writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe says, “There’s a lot more to it than just the yucks. Underneath it all, it’s a story about family.” /endquote.

Oh? Come on, though. Surely the jokes in this episode are all on Ishka. They have Quark trot out and rehearse all these horrible restrictions on women, and exploit the Oedipal yuckiness of the boys insisting that their mother take off her clothes to make them feel more comfortable. In the end Ishka is put in her place, and all is right again for Quark, because she’s subjugated and submissive, even if she keeps a little action on the side for herself. Just think of all the narrative possibilities that were squandered for the stomach-churning turn. What is the purpose of all this fascination indulged with suppressing the agency of a talented woman? Is it to tell a good science fiction story?

Not even. The Ferengi were born out of the worst impulses of the early producers of TNG. Armin Shimmerman played one of the original Ferengi in TNG 1.4, “The Last Outpost,” which portrays the race as an obvious antisemitic caricature. The throwaway lines about keeping all of their women naked are played for laughs–pure misogynist wish fulfillment. This prurient “joke” finds its apotheosis in one of the two or three lowest points of franchise history, TNG 3.24, “Ménage à Troi,” which makes light of the kidnapping, sexual assault, forced stripping, and subjugation of two of the show’s ostensibly strong female characters, all of which is consequence free for Daimon Tog. But this is ground we’ve covered before.

Deep Space Nine has done wonders for the Ferengi from this inauspicious beginning. I quite enjoyed DS9 2.7, “Rules of Acquisition,” which introduced the franchise’s first Ferengi female, Pel, whose flaunting of her homeworld’s canonical retrograde customs felt progressive and empowering. The Quark of that episode could tell right from wrong, and didn’t see himself in the role of enforcer of the indefensible. “Family Business” proves to me all over again that sexism has a strong center of gravity to which DS9, for all its strengths as a show, was not immune to on May 15, 1995.

I continue to enjoy the subplot in which Jake plays matchmaker for his father. Although here again, I shake my head. Does the female captain have to be black? Is that the reason everyone thinks to fix her up with Sisko? Would it have been too shocking, in the fictional year 2371, to see an interracial couple go on a date?

Sigh. We’ve made some progress in the 23 years since this episode, although as ever, it’s two steps forward, one step back.

2 out of 5 latinum strips to use the elevator.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Family_Business