McCoy also had a romantic time with Yeoman Barrows in Shore Leave!
JB
JB
Sulu -- the forgotten lover and racism of the times?
- Thread starter Gassy Man
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Wait, what was the problem with casting Chinese people?? lol That's the first I've heard of that.
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Or just a day actor that the show runners didn't think of expanding on. Three expensive leads are being paid, the second season was nearly the last, they may have just had other things on their minds. Like the next job.
I'm certain I read somewhere that just about the only nationality not allowed in TOS Trek was Chinese. I can't remember the source. Wasn't there a war on at the time?
I don't know what happened in Omega Glory though.
What's interesting is that the class analyzed your comments. Among the things they noted was your refusal to read any of the links I posted. One student laughed and said, "I can't believe this guy. He doesn't like the questions, so he avoids reading anything that might contradict his opinion. Then he basically wants a signed confession from someone as proof. What world is he living in?" Another said, "If it was that cut and dry, you wouldn't have asked the question in the first place. 'Trek God' should do more reading and less talking." They actually have a homework assignment to analyze yours and other comments here for the logical fallacies and shady argumentative tactics. I'll let you know later this week the highlights of what they came up with.
I suppose if a person posts something on a public forum, you can offer it to others for comment.
Having said that, posting these "responses" (assuming they are real) is low-grade trolling. And really, just poor form.
I don't want to have to give out infractions, so everyone please just chill the hell out. No personal attacks/interpretations of motives.
...and we are dealing with more dodging:
You were not attacked. Attack is the fallback squeal for those seeking to turn attention from their inability to support statements, claims or charges.
You were pressed to provide well researched evidence for your hollow "racism" OP.
SIX pages in, and you have failed--in spectacular fashion--to provide evidence that all involved in the presentation of Star Trek (NBC, Roddenberry & Desilu) committed a sustained act of racism in the lack of romance for Takei's Sulu.
Not once have you tried to support the hollow charge, and just for future reference, you cannot tuck tail and run from your own words. Learn that certain words have meaning and a historic legacy of implication, so your predicted attempt to dress "racism" as a question does not work, son.
You launched this thread based on your own unsubstantiated belief that Takei/Sulu not being involved in an on-screen romance means racism.
It is always amusing when some love using inflammatory language, but believe others should not question such language and demand evidence.
Not working now, or at any time in the future.
Moreover, your dishonest nature was exposed as you repeatedly failed to address information from the series challenging your nonsense, such as the Fontana opinion, or Sulu in "The Way to Eden."
Again, six pages in and you have not supported your own OP.
Where is your specific evidence regarding Takei, NBC, Roddenberry and Desilu?
Probably in the same nebulous, fact-free world that produced this thread.
Try again.
Where is the racism?
You were not attacked. Attack is the fallback squeal for those seeking to turn attention from their inability to support statements, claims or charges.
You were pressed to provide well researched evidence for your hollow "racism" OP.
SIX pages in, and you have failed--in spectacular fashion--to provide evidence that all involved in the presentation of Star Trek (NBC, Roddenberry & Desilu) committed a sustained act of racism in the lack of romance for Takei's Sulu.
Not once have you tried to support the hollow charge, and just for future reference, you cannot tuck tail and run from your own words. Learn that certain words have meaning and a historic legacy of implication, so your predicted attempt to dress "racism" as a question does not work, son.
You launched this thread based on your own unsubstantiated belief that Takei/Sulu not being involved in an on-screen romance means racism.
It is always amusing when some love using inflammatory language, but believe others should not question such language and demand evidence.
Not working now, or at any time in the future.
Your "class" (which is now used as your trolling tool having no bearing on the topic) is irrelevant, as are links you did not feel the need to use in your OP. Only when pressed for evidence did you post links which have nothing to do with the specifics of George Takei / Sulu's alleged treatment on Star Trek.
Moreover, your dishonest nature was exposed as you repeatedly failed to address information from the series challenging your nonsense, such as the Fontana opinion, or Sulu in "The Way to Eden."
Again, six pages in and you have not supported your own OP.
Where is your specific evidence regarding Takei, NBC, Roddenberry and Desilu?
Probably in the same nebulous, fact-free world that produced this thread.
Try again.
Where is the racism?
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What's interesting is that the class analyzed your comments. Among the things they noted was your refusal to read any of the links I posted. One student laughed and said, "I can't believe this guy. He doesn't like the questions, so he avoids reading anything that might contradict his opinion. Then he basically wants a signed confession from someone as proof. What world is he living in?" Another said, "If it was that cut and dry, you wouldn't have asked the question in the first place. 'Trek God' should do more reading and less talking." They actually have a homework assignment to analyze yours and other comments here for the logical fallacies and shady argumentative tactics. I'll let you know later this week the highlights of what they came up with.
I suppose if a person posts something on a public forum, you can offer it to others for comment.
Having said that, posting these "responses" (assuming they are real) is low-grade trolling. And really, just poor form.
I don't want to have to give out infractions, so everyone please just chill the hell out. No personal attacks/interpretations of motives.
Oops. I read your post after posting my reply.
Understood, 1001001.
Still seems like someone just needs to ask George Takei. He probably isn't unbiased, but is the only one alive who can give any type of insight into the issue.
That's a good idea. If anyone could substantiate charges of racism, it should be the alleged victim. If nothing is forthcoming from Takei, then its not an issue and the matter is best dropped.
I don't know the answer, but I was just making a little joke.
SPOCK: Very little
Well, it just seems difficult to find an answer to something that would have been muddy 50 years ago. Unless a network executive or Mr. Takei himself want to answer it, and I doubt that they would.
I like to interject some levity because I tire of all of these threads about sexism/racism/you name it about something that was really not. I hope your critical thinking class will be able to learn to do just that, think critcally and not adopt whatever opinion they are told.
SPOCK: Very little
Well, it just seems difficult to find an answer to something that would have been muddy 50 years ago. Unless a network executive or Mr. Takei himself want to answer it, and I doubt that they would.
I like to interject some levity because I tire of all of these threads about sexism/racism/you name it about something that was really not. I hope your critical thinking class will be able to learn to do just that, think critcally and not adopt whatever opinion they are told.
It's certainly possible, but there's no "smoking gun" confession from Takei or anyone else either for that situation. Of course, the question of why he felt that way might be germane, too. For instance, if he just felt that as an actor he couldn't convey a romantic situation realistically, that's one issue. If he felt that as a person of color, the audience would not accept it -- that it was taboo or even embarrassing -- that could just as easily feed into an issue of bigotry.
However, the point of asking the question in the first place was to posit if racism could be an explanation, not to definitively address some cabal out to get Takei. Certainly, there is plenty of evidence in the testimonies of male Asian American actors of the day that racism was a barrier -- Takei himself addresses this in many of his posts and videos. He just never speaks to it for Star Trek. That could be because he feels it never happened, or it could be because he is being careful with something he both values and has been a significant part of his professional life, then and now.
Certainly, there have been negative ideas and concepts from Star Trek that over the years were revealed. Grace Lee Whitney's sexual assault, for instance, was something no one realized until well after it happened. Neither she nor anyone else discussed it, but according to her and others later, it nonetheless happened. No one knew that Nichelle Nichols was having an affair with Gene Roddenberry until well after the fact (not to mention her story about the involvement of MLK in her decision to stay on Star Trek grew and grew over the years). At one time, people thought Shatner et al got along famously until the bitter acrimony among some of the actors with him became more and more apparent in time. Just because there is no "smoking gun" about racism or whatever doesn't mean it couldn't have happened; certainly, there is plenty of precedent in Hollywood.
Why would anyone be shamed if they did not think what they did was shameful? If the reasoning and behavior is something to be proud of, then by all means, be proud. Keep doing it. Use it among educated people, and see if it works.
I brought up the class reaction as a statement of fact -- if it felt like shaming, then there must be a reason on the part of the person that my students identified and commented on. And students are not "minions." In this case, they are working hard to understand appropriate ways to reason and the fundamentals of using logic, and not straw men arguments or personal attacks, nor dismissing ideas out of hand.
Talk radio and discussion boards like these are excellent "real world" places to see what constitutes argumentation. And the students are doing a fantastic job of identifying the flaws and weaknesses that they see.
But the fact that the two times he went after her, he was either the "opposite" person he was in the traditional universe or under some sort of inebriated influence suggests it wasn't simply a straightforward romantic issue. Moreover, putting people of color with other people of color is viewed by some people as bigoted, in part because this country literally once had laws that said that was the only arrangement possible among minorities. Even as recent as a year ago, there were many people "outraged" over a Superbowl commercial for cereal that showed a biracial couple with a biracial child, and that was in 2014.
The novels often do in places the show did not -- I read The Entropy Effect when it first came out, and I recall an interview with Vonda McIntyre where she literally said she wrote a romance for Sulu because he was conspicuously absent in having one in the TV series. She also made it an interracial romance.I'd like to recommend that the OP read Peter David's novel "The Captain's Daughter", it does a really good job of elaborating on the romance that gave Sulu his daughter. It's one of my favourite novels actually, an under-rated gem.
McCoy also had Yeoman Tonia Barrows as well (from 'Shore Leave') or did you forget?
And how old is too old for a man of McCoy's age, and how do you (and others) get to judge?
They are real, and I didn't think they were trolling because they directly addressed the specious reasoning of people who seemed pretty dismissive and hostile.What's interesting is that the class analyzed your comments. Among the things they noted was your refusal to read any of the links I posted. One student laughed and said, "I can't believe this guy. He doesn't like the questions, so he avoids reading anything that might contradict his opinion. Then he basically wants a signed confession from someone as proof. What world is he living in?" Another said, "If it was that cut and dry, you wouldn't have asked the question in the first place. 'Trek God' should do more reading and less talking." They actually have a homework assignment to analyze yours and other comments here for the logical fallacies and shady argumentative tactics. I'll let you know later this week the highlights of what they came up with.
I suppose if a person posts something on a public forum, you can offer it to others for comment.
Having said that, posting these "responses" (assuming they are real) is low-grade trolling. And really, just poor form.
I don't want to have to give out infractions, so everyone please just chill the hell out. No personal attacks/interpretations of motives.
I will continue to use this and other sites as tools in my courses, but I do think I'm going to give posting at Trek BBS a break. I came here regularly once and then stopped when a lot of the old timers started to disappear and noticed that their replacements were often more snarky than thoughtful, more abrasive than engaging. The trouble is, if you give it back, not only do they not like it, but nor do others.
In the meantime, no worries. I'll make one or two last posts and then move on.
But that's the funny thing about it. He may or may not address the issue, if it happened.
But he doesn't even have to be aware that it's happening in order for it to be so. Many people are victims of passive racism without knowing it -- a study showed that resumes with identical information except for the first names of the applicants showed a 50% difference in interview callbacks. The only difference in the first names were whether they sounded more white than black (determined by looking at birth certificates in the area for the previous ten years to determine the most popular names for each). An applicant need not know or could not know that the person looking at their resume decided whether to interview them simply because they sounded like someone who is one color or the other.
In the same way, an actor could be passed over for romantic parts based on his or her race and not realize it. And the funny thing is that racism -- which is bigotry woven into the fabric of a society, or institutionalized -- can occur and the person doing it may not even realize it. If someone simply decided that an Asian American man doesn't have what it takes to be a romantic lead simply because he is Asian, that someone may be acting on something they've simply internalized. In other words, it may have been subconscious, or it may not have occurred to them in the first place because the idea is so foreign to their thinking.
Certainly, as the links I've posted suggest, many Asian American male actors have faced this stigma, and so far, in the 100+ years of Hollywood, there has been only one Asian American male actor even attempted to be turned into a leading man, the late James Shigeta, a contemporary of Takei. When he didn't catch on, Hollywood never tried again. Imagine if that actor had been white or even black -- would the same one-and-done attitude have prevailed?
The outright dismissal of even the possibility of racism in Star Trek -- and against Asian Americans in general -- is itself an indicator of how people may form opinions about a group that is driven more by societal perception than individual knowledge. Even in the face of great evidence that Asian Americans face barriers, there will be those who swear it couldn't possibly be true. Even if Asian American male actors at the time and now face great barriers, and write about it, speak about it, and are conspicuously absent from certain kinds of roles, people whose worldview says Asian Americans can't possibly face barriers, or face barriers that are "less than" other groups may silence the discussion, if there are enough of them and they speak often and loud enough. And someone like Takei might reason out that it's still better not to ruffle feathers in Star Trek circles, to which he owes and depends on so much, and only talk about situations outside of the show.
Of course they will learn. But they will also learn that some opinions work better than others, and the will of a group does not constitute automatically either a valid or defensible response. What they are learning from so many of the posts here -- beyond logical fallacies to avoid -- is that even if a show espouses liberal thinking, and even if the fans like to think about themselves in this light, reality and practice often are not the same things.
I told everyone to chill the hell out, and drop the personal stuff. This entire post has nothing to do with the (supposed) topic, and is nothing but thinly veiled trolling Again.
Knock it off. Last warning.
And please learn to use the multi-quote function.
Thanks.
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