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 Manchu wrote:
Mr. Takei obviously disagrees about there being no "true to the original version" argument

I hereby dub it the "No True Sulu" fallacy

Takei has no authority to define the bounds of the character, and he certainly doesn't have the authority to declare what a man whose been dead for 25 years would be thinking right now. No one but God knows what Rodenberry would be thinking right now. I think Takei has the grounds to complain that they made his character gay because he's gay. "Lets have a gay character in Star Trek. We're overdue. How about Sulu? Takei is gay. Okay." That's insulting to his person imo, diminishes the impact of the first gay ST character, and I'd argue the exact kind of tokenism the creators say they want to avoid.

It's not however a limitation on what writers now can do with the character, and it doesn't support half the half baked nonsense and doom crying that people are making about the decision.

This .. authority ... you speak of ... it seems like an invention of your argument. Surely it is obvious that Mssrs Roddenberry and Takei (and yes I am willing to take Mr. Takei's word on this) understand what they intended and endeavored to portray. I don't think you want to go down the "death of the artist" route here; it's just disproportionate. As you yourself are willing to argue, stamping >GAY< on the character now is rife with problems. I think some of those problems clearly arise from the fact that the characters' creators conceived of and executed on a straight character, and not merely a character of unspecified sexual orientation.

What is so unique about this example is, the counterargument here simply cannot be WELL U R HOMOPHOBE because not only is the party objecting a homosexual man but he also has a notable reputation for gay rights activism.

 Manchu wrote:
the counterargument here simply cannot be WELL U R HOMOPHOBE because not only is the party objecting a homosexual man but he also has a notable reputation for gay rights activism.

Maybe he's REALLY x4 confused.

I know you're joking but there are extremists out there who would not hesitate to accuse someone like George Takei of homophobia. Doing so would of course only expose their own insanity, however.

 Manchu wrote:
I know you're joking but there are extremists out there who would not hesitate to accuse someone like George Takei of homophobia. Doing so would of course only expose their own insanity, however.

That's pretty dumb. I can't think of a more outspoken Pro-Gay activist than George Takei.

Ideological zealotry is a rabbit hole, for sure.

 Manchu wrote:
This .. authority ... you speak of ... it seems like an invention of your argument

I'm not the person appealing to Takei's opinion, so lets not be disingenuous.

Surely it is obvious that Mssrs Roddenberry and Takei (and yes I am willing to take Mr. Takei's word on this) understand what they intended and endeavored to portray.

What was intended and what was done are not the same thing. Even if they were, Takei can only speak to what was intended over 30 years ago. He can't know what Roddenberry would think or intend now. Even if he did, it wouldn't matter. The new timeline can be used to explain virtually anything. Just as Voltron Legendary Defender/Elementary/Starship Troopers can gender flip a character, writers of a new ST film can write a character to have whatever orientation they want, and Roddenberry and Takei would have no authority to tell anyone what the true Sulu is because there is no true Sulu.

problems clearly arise from the fact that the characters' creators conceived of and executed on a straight character

Objection; Facts not in evidence. Sulu's sexuality was never addressed in TOS, and we can only hazard to guess he had sex with a woman at some point because he has a daughter who appears in Star Trek: Generations. And none of those things really apply to alternate timeline Sulu, who's been on screen for maybe a total of 15 minutes across two feature length films.

I think "stamping ga"y on a character of undefined sexual orientation is fine. Rick Riordan went 6 years between The Titan's Curse and The House of Hades before revealing Nico Di Angelo was gay, and this was after 3 books suggesting that the character had a crush on a girl (who conveniently was standing next to a guy every time it came up ). Even if the character was previously established straight I can't say I care much if their sexuality was never a significant part of their character. People have had straight relationships and then gay relationships in the real world after all. Anita Van Buren was on Law and Order from 1993 to 2010, and the show didn't reveal she was a lesbian until 2007 after revealing she'd divorced her husband and father of her children Donald, and broken off another relationship with forever off-screen fiancee Frank (in previous episodes). Characterization marches on apparently, unless the fans have convinced themselves of something that was never established and then get butthurt about it.

I think it becomes problematic when you stamp the label onto the one character of the cast portrayed by a gay man, and say you're doing it because the man who portrayed the character is gay. EDIT: And I really only find that problematic because it seems insulting to Takei as a person, not because I wrote a fan fic in 1988 where Sulu married my female author avatar and we lived happily ever after. This position has nothing to do with any of the butt hurt arguments about how they "can't make Sulu gay" or "Sulu was straight" which have no basis in anything but the assumption that someone is straight until shown otherwise. And you know what they say about assumptions.

The hypothetical "authority" implied by your initial argument is non-existent, unless you just want to beat the soulless corporate drum. Contrast this - on both counts - to the creators' testimony about their creation. Similarly, what Mr. Roddenberry hypothetically "would think now" is irrelevant (and not only because he is in fact dead) to what Mssrs Roddenberry and Takei actually made then. Those "facts" are in evidence; whether you accept them or not is down to arbitrary standards of personal fandom or, I suppose, your opinion of Mr. Takei's trustworthiness and judgment.

You haven't managed an example parallel to the one at issue so I suggest sticking to the question of Sulu. To clarify, my issue is not with X character being rewritten as gay - see above where I suggested it would be better to make either or both Spock and Kirk gay for the Abramsverse. I agree with you that making Sulu gay as an alleged tribute to Takei is bad and dumb. But I also see a more basic problem: the assumption that any of the characters ought to be stamped >GAY< to begin with, as opposed to ... you know, just being gay. And this is why I propose a gay Spock - there is something to do with a gay Spock or Kirk: you have this relationship between them that is already incredibly important to Star Trek and if one or both of them was gay, you're going to have so many new facets to that drama. Whereas Sulu is, comparatively, a background character whose relationships have never been and are not likely to now become central to the franchise. With Spock and Kirk, you would be guaranteed to have gay characters; with Sulu, you get a guy who wears a tag that says GAY. By your standards, Sulu will likely be just as [whatever sexual orientation] now as he always has been.

Making Kirk and/or Spock gay - especially gay for each other - that would be mind blowing to the people who oppose gay characters because they don't like gayness. That would really rock the boat. That would be super risky because there would, interestingly enough, actually be something at risk. So you know, feth that, just make Sulu gay - it even has a built in marketing plan because people like Mr. Takei and how gay he is, even if they tend not to like gayness generally. What a brave, brave stand. Is it really any wonder that a gay rights activist like Mr. Takei has reservations? Of course, I'm guessing he would also not like my idea of making Kirk and Spock gay, unless it would piss off Mr. Shatner.

 Manchu wrote:
The hypothetical "authority" implied by your initial argument is non-existent,

If we agree, then you can stop appealing to it. Takei's trustworthiness and judgement has nothing to do with it. His thoughts on the character's creation all those years ago mean nothing to the continuing existence of the character now.

see above where I suggested it would be better to make either or both Spock and Kirk gay for the Abramsverse.

Honestly it probably would if only because Kirk's lady's man persona is such a monolithic joke (Futurama made an entire character off it alone) at this point that twisting it into "Kirk bangs green space dude" would breath new life into the old haha

But I also see a more basic problem: the assumption that any of the characters ought to be stamped >GAY< to begin with, as opposed to ... you know, just being gay. And this is why I propose a gay Spock

What is the difference between "stamped gay" and "just being gay"? I mean let's be clear here; we're talking about a brief clip in the movie where it is briefly mentioned that Sulu "misses his husband and daughter." It's a literal blink and you'll miss it moment. It has no real baring on the film, or anything really. I don't have any issue with that. Sulu has a life beyond being gay. He's on a star ship in the middle of a 5 year mission to deep space. He jumps out of it sometimes to sword fight with aliens, because laser pistols just aren't manly enough. He keeps the captain's seat warm when he's away, maybe makes an analogy explaining technojargon in simple terms. Maybe he'll be bold and make a joke about seamen (*crosses fingers*).

It's good that he's not putting on a rainbow tunic and making weird obnoxious hand gestures and talking in a high pitched voice with exaggerated vowels. Instead it's just a simple tender moment, and that's that because being gay is not the sum total of his existence just like a real person.

That's why I find it a little insulting that the announcement came in the form of a "we're making Sulu gay as a love letter to George Takei's life and work." I see no need to reference to Takei's sexual orientation when making a character no longer played by him gay, or to use Takei as some kind of reach around method of justifying the reveal, or whatever they were thinking when they made that announcement. If the character is being written gay, then just write him gay. Make it a single piece of the character rather than their whole being, and just give us a glimpse at it. That's how you really send a love letter to Takei's life and work, not by making some big announcement about it and saying "X is gay now because Y is gay." At the very least, the makers of the film seemed to get the former part of that right. It's the later part I have an issue with.

Mr. Takei's recollection is only relevant to the character he had an instrumental role in creating. To the extent that his experience is irrelevant, we're talking about some other character.

What I mean by stamped >GAY< is really simple: it's when a character is declared gay but them being gay has nothing to do with anything within the story; i.e., they are gay for (usually marketing) reasons external to plot, setting, story, or characterization. There are characters, not coinidentally many of them are main characters, that cannot simply get the stamp treatment precisely because them being gay would have to be a matter of at least characterization and plot. Spock qualifies; Sulu does not.

To your other points, I found Sulu's role in Into Darkness disappointing. Like Uhura, he gets a shot at doing something he should be good at, and wants to be good at, and he basically isn't up to it. But TBF Abrams gave Kirk the same treatment.

 Manchu wrote:
Mr. Takei's recollection is only relevant to the character he had an instrumental role in creating.

George Takei is not, and never will be or was, the arbiter of all things Sulu.

What I mean by stamped >GAY< is really simple: it's when a character is declared gay but them being gay has nothing to do with anything within the story; i.e., they are gay for (usually marketing) reasons external to plot, setting, story, or characterization.

This conception would effectively ban any character from being gay unless being such is integral to their role in the show. That pigeon holes all gay characters into either being token characters who are only around so someone gay is around, or main characters. Worse, it further reduces any character not cleanly fitting into the two roles as a mere marketing stunt. So yeah. We'll just have to disagree on that.

To your other points, I found Sulu's role in Into Darkness disappointing.

I saw it as; "Hey remember that Captain Sulu TV show you all wanted back in 84, but you got TNG instead? Well let us slap you in the face with that disappointment real quick with this not so clever reference to Captain Sulu."

I used the word relevant, you respond with something to do with the arbiter of all things. Come back down from those dizzying internet hyperbole heights. The character is in a huge sense the creation of the actor who says the writer wrote him straight and that he himself played him straight.

Your pigeon holing argument is wrong. I already addressed it ITT.

 Manchu wrote:
The character is in a huge sense the creation of the actor who says the writer wrote him straight and that he himself played him straight.

Maybe if we were talking about the Original Series, and it was some year between 1966 and 1971, that would matter. George Takei's opinion on Sulu is no more important than anyone else's where it concerns the character played by John Cho in a series of films depicting an alternate timeline written by some other guys.

Your pigeon holing argument is wrong. I already addressed it ITT.

We'll just have to disagree. On both counts.

I believe I already said as much, regarding this different character. (Although your dates are off.)

 Manchu wrote:
I believe I already said as much, regarding this different character. (Although your dates are off.)

I include the Animated Series which I thought ran from 70 to 71, but apparently it was 73 to 74

It's kind of funny, because in that series Sulu uses magic to conjure a beautiful woman which would make the original timeline version of the character straight (EDIT: or at least Bi ) if Roddenberry hadn't decanonized TAS (not that that stopped future ST writers from referencing stuff from TAS though EDIT: especially in DS9, which included hosts of references to TAS alongside its many call backs to TOS). Even funnier, the beautiful woman Sulu conjured turned out to be a man! If you're confused at this point, it's okay because TAS had horrible writing which is probably why it was tossed out the window in the first place XD

I recall ... falling asleep while trying to watch them.

Yeah I tend to think most of ST followed some rudimentary form of "the even numbered movies are good" resulting in about half of ST episodes being good and half being bad. TAS had none imo. The series tried to at the same time appeal to young children and fans of TOS and it just didn't work (animation wasn't good either, even accounting for the times). Whole show had series mood/maturity whiplash.

The reasoning that [minority/gay/whatever] characters have to have a story driven reason for being a particular [minority/gay/whatever] just seems silly to me. In my opinion it just reinforces the notion that every character is automatically a white heterosexual unless the story specifically requires otherwise.

This comes back to Simon Pegg a bit, but I love his movie "Run, Fatboy, Run". His ex in the movie is black and he has a biracial son in that movie, and no attempt is made to give any reason or justification for her being black in the movie. He just fell in love with a woman and had a kid with her, that's it. Her race has nothing to do with why he fell in love with her, it has nothing to do with why the other guy falls in love with her, it never has any effect on the son, it has zero impact on the story and the part could be a white woman with zero impact on the movie whatsoever. In the same way I trust him with Zulu being gay just because without having to pidgeonhole him into some some weird reason for being gay.

Just like Kirk bangs green aliens for no great reason other than "Kirk bangs green space aliens" and Spock has a relationship with a black human other than "Kirk likes Uhura". Picking a particular character as a tribute to the original actor when deciding who gets the token gay character role is one discussion. But you don't have to have a particular reason or include a particular stereotypical behavior or insert a gay storyline to justify having a gay character. Did the fact that Uhura is black ever come up as being particular significant in the reboot? Does she say or do ethnic things? Is she a token character?

I'd argue a character can't be token, even if they are the only member of their identity in the cast, if their character exists beyond that particular trait. Take Captain Holt from Brooklyn 99. He's the only gay character in the main cast, but his character doesn't revolve around being gay. Nor does it consistently fall back on gay stereotypes to characterize him I.E. not Token. EDIT: Oddly, it's Holt's husband Kevin who generally falls back on gay stereotypes more often than not.

Ironically, the character of Token in South Park stopped being Token a number of years ago, as his character expanded being being "the black kid." Though the show still calls him up when it wants to talk about anything concerning race relations, he's been fleshed out significantly in a number of episodes over the years

Star Trek manages to avoid this on ethnic lines, though I'd argue Uhura danced close to tokenism a number of times when it came to being a woman.

I think it's like, black people don't really exist in the Star Trek future - more specifically, being black as a cultural or identity marker doesn't seem to exist. The Federation has this monoculture that encompasses everyone and its closest 21st century analog is white suburban American. But anyway, to continue with d-usa's example, if some screenwriter were to say, oh "white character X is married to a black woman" and this had basically no impact on film, didn't figure at all into anything, I would be rolling my eyes because it's just that writer doing marketing, exploiting real issues to peddle his goods. That seems to be what's happening with Sulu here.

So any writing and casting that isn't "normal" is automatic pandering unless there is an explicit reason for the character to be different?

When you go out into public, do you tell everyone you see your sexual orientation? I hope not. That would be awkward and creepy. Now, because we have posted on this forum for years and years, I know that you are married to a woman and, so far as I know, all the evidence available to me points to you being straight. Now, the point of our association (digital friends 4-ever!) is nothing to do with your sexual orientation. It's just something that organically came to my knowledge. The same sort of thing should apply to writing screenplays, comics, novels, etc, and that includes developing properties except that unlike real people the details of fictional characters are the product of their creators' intentions. So it is perfectly acceptable to question their motives. IMO if Simon Pegg (or anyone else) was serious about portraying the homosexual orientation of a character, he would write a gay character who's romantic relationship, and I don't mean the fact that it is a gay relationship, just the relationship itself (as in, not necessarily a story about being gay), is meaningful to the plot and/or story. Here's a rule of thumb: if you have characters whose romantic relationships are irrelevant then their sexual orientation should also be irrelevant.

 Manchu wrote:
When you go out into public, do you tell everyone you see your sexual orientation?

No. I'm fething Kronk. Men want to be me. Chicks want to be with me. Children wish I was their dad.

It gets old.

Like being a lotto winner, but for good looks.

Besides, Star Trek isn't very accurate of the future, anyway. In the future, Caucasians, Asians, African, and Latinos will all blend into one race of 7' tall, dark complected, super smart people.

 kronk wrote:


Besides, Star Trek isn't very accurate of the future, anyway. In the future, Caucasians, Asians, African, and Latinos will all blend into one race of 7' tall, dark complected, super smart people.

So, Battletech?

.., Well maybe not the smart part

So did the reboot manage to tell the story adequately enough to justify having a white heterosexual captain? Or was that just a casting to satisfy marketing goals?

Are you seriously asking me why the actor playing Captain Kirk in the reboot is white?

If so, that is the dumbest thing I have read on the internet all week (so far).

 Manchu wrote:
Are you seriously asking me why the actor playing Captain Kirk in the reboot is white?

If so, that is the dumbest thing I have read on the internet all week (so far).

Pick any of the white Heterosexual Star Trek characters from TOS, TNG, DSN, Voyager, Enterprise. Did the story telling and writing do enough to justify their requirement to be white heterosexual characters?

l

You are spoiling so hard for a fight that you aren't even bothering to understand (or possibly even read) what I have posted.

Here's a rule of thumb: if you have characters whose romantic relationships are irrelevant then their sexual orientation should also be irrelevant.

So is Kirk's, Uhura's, Spock's, Bone's, Picards, and Sisco's sexual orientation relevant to their roles in the series?

Apply my rule of thumb: are their romantic relationships ever relevant to the plots/stories?