HUGE Mr Sulu Spoiler
- Thread starter Danlav05
- Start date
I have always sort of brushed aside the whole Prime Timeline / Abramsverse connections and just tried to accept the new movies as a complete reboot. To be honest, if I tried extra hard to make sure everything makes sense between the two universes, I get a migraine. And don't get me wrong, I am a continuity addict just like everyone else.
In my head, it's a reboot, from the moment it was revealed that Spock used MacGuffin matter to stop a supernova from destroying the entire galaxy because that makes sense and now for some reason Romulans don't have ridges and why is all the tech and hairstyles and uniforms different even on the Kelvin...and I'm done. It works better not even related to the old timeline.
That said, I think it's great Sulu is gay. A character should have been gay in TNG, during the AIDS crisis. Now that would have been revolutionary. As it is, it's simply great. I'm happy with it. I literally can't compute why people would be upset over something so trivial, except if they were homophobic. These are rebooted, new characters that experienced a lifetime of different choices and events. We don't even know if this Sulu had the same parents. According to some sources, Sulu was born in 2237. The Kelvin incident happened in 2233.
In my head, it's a reboot, from the moment it was revealed that Spock used MacGuffin matter to stop a supernova from destroying the entire galaxy because that makes sense and now for some reason Romulans don't have ridges and why is all the tech and hairstyles and uniforms different even on the Kelvin...and I'm done. It works better not even related to the old timeline.
That said, I think it's great Sulu is gay. A character should have been gay in TNG, during the AIDS crisis. Now that would have been revolutionary. As it is, it's simply great. I'm happy with it. I literally can't compute why people would be upset over something so trivial, except if they were homophobic. These are rebooted, new characters that experienced a lifetime of different choices and events. We don't even know if this Sulu had the same parents. According to some sources, Sulu was born in 2237. The Kelvin incident happened in 2233.
An utterly pointless choice to make Sulu gay, but it seems to make everyone happy ... I don't care one way or the other, why do you?
It's not an 'homage'. It's an homage.
Takei's sexual orientation isn't a meme, it's a reality for him as an individual.
They've already come up with a method for allowing two women or two men to have a child using stem cells. They're still working on it, but one can imagine that the technology would be widely available and reliable by the 23rd century.
I like inclusion and diversity. It's a nice nod to Takei who's worked hard for LBGT rights and Star Trek.
Calling it "pointless" makes it seem you do care.
His only other option today is to be part-time gay (i.e. cheating his male partner, with or without consent or the help of people in white coats), which should be valid grounds for dismissing all other approaches besides adoption in this argument. Surely it would be out of place for the arguer to bring up the cheating scenario out of the blue?
It's nice to see a family with two apparent dads, in Trek or otherwise. It's mildly nauseating to think that this would still drop one of the fathers in a sexual pigeonhole in the 23rd century. But it doesn't sound that this would actually happen in the movie - it's not a series of wink-wink gay jokes, but simply a case of a family with two dads, no assumptions made.
Timo Saloniemi
Yes it is a meme and he even wrote a book about it. He doesn't take himself as seriously as you seem to want to do. Consider that he spent the early days of his coming out period on Howard Stern with them repeating the phrase "balloon knot" over and over again, not to mention how it was treated here. Lighten up.
Mirror Universe Sulu was hitting on Uhura, but then again that wasn't Prime Sulu either.
The book was just about his time as an internet celebrity, as far as I know it doesn't have anything to do with his sexuality.
I'm glad they're finally adding a gay character into the franchise, and I don't think there was anything to rule out Sulu being gay. At first I was thinking about his daughter, but then I realized that there are plenty of gay people with kids, so that doesn't mean anything,
You could have said all that and made your point just as effectively without the personal dig, and you - of all people - ought to know by now to avoid making the unnecessary personal dig. This one earns you a warning.
...
I never said he was infertile. Just that Demora was likely his biological kid because I can't see a career officer who spent most of his life in space adopting a child.
Mirror Garak propositioned Mirror Worf. That doesn't mean Garak was gay in the Prime Uni....
....wait, bad example....
All we know about the Cardassian sexual hang-ups is that they place a great deal of weight on the concept of family, and the loving of one's children. We have little idea what this means - perhaps parents teach the Facts of Life to their children the direct way?
There didn't appear to be any snickering about or between Cardassians on the subject of male homosexuality in DS9, at any rate. If there's a macho culture there, in the military or elsewhere, it showed no outward signs of excluding the men-only men. Garak's potentially effeminate behavior wasn't commented on, either, even though Dukat for one would certainly have made all the low blows he possibly could against his hated adversary.
What do we know about showing attraction? We saw one thing approximating a romantic liaison, between Garak and Tora, and no indication whether it was typical or atypical for Cardassians (save for the half-breed angle, and even there the record is ambiguous on whether racial purity matters to Cardassians in the slightest or whether just the implicit cheating on one's Cardassian spouse is the disagreeable thing). Would the society have objected if Tora were Toral?
Unfortunately, Garak's life is so screwed up socially and politically that he's a poor example of how Cardassians in general handle their personal relations. His possible sexual orientation issues probably wouldn't make much of an additional impact!
Timo Saloniemi
There didn't appear to be any snickering about or between Cardassians on the subject of male homosexuality in DS9, at any rate. If there's a macho culture there, in the military or elsewhere, it showed no outward signs of excluding the men-only men. Garak's potentially effeminate behavior wasn't commented on, either, even though Dukat for one would certainly have made all the low blows he possibly could against his hated adversary.
What do we know about showing attraction? We saw one thing approximating a romantic liaison, between Garak and Tora, and no indication whether it was typical or atypical for Cardassians (save for the half-breed angle, and even there the record is ambiguous on whether racial purity matters to Cardassians in the slightest or whether just the implicit cheating on one's Cardassian spouse is the disagreeable thing). Would the society have objected if Tora were Toral?
Unfortunately, Garak's life is so screwed up socially and politically that he's a poor example of how Cardassians in general handle their personal relations. His possible sexual orientation issues probably wouldn't make much of an additional impact!
Timo Saloniemi
Glad to see ST finally include a gay character.
I don't mean to nit pick here, but I wonder if Sulu was the character to make this bold move with? As I said, I think it's a great thing, but we've known Sulu for half a century. Wouldn't we have known by now he was gay?
Either way, I think this is a great statement that Star Trek is making.
I don't mean to nit pick here, but I wonder if Sulu was the character to make this bold move with? As I said, I think it's a great thing, but we've known Sulu for half a century. Wouldn't we have known by now he was gay?
Either way, I think this is a great statement that Star Trek is making.
Not really. Apart from Demora, there's been very little evidence either way.
The concept of sexual preference is not itself archaic (everyone has preferences of some kind, and that will never change) but I agree that they probably would not use words to describe it.
I've been nursing a crush on nuSulu... figures... most of the guys I crush on tend to be taken or gay. Even in fiction.... -sighs-
There's some precedent for this in Trek. In the TMP novelization, written by Gene Roddenberry, it directly addresses same-sex relationships without using words like "gay" and "straight," which are both slang terms that would be archaic by that time period. It's talked about in the most relaxed way possible from Kirk's point of view, saying how often people think he and Spock were in a relationship, and how he simply preferred women, but never explicitly saying he didn't sometimes have male relationships. The casualness of how it's discussed is quite progressive, especially for the late seventies.
Similar threads
