I wonder if the people in the "Prime Sulu wasn't gay!" camp are also outraged that nuSulu is Korean and not Japanese?
HUGE Mr Sulu Spoiler
- Thread starter Danlav05
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Why huge? It's no more huge than revealing that Kirk likes women.
Everyone's angry about something in Star Trek nowadays.
Sometimes I feel like the only person who's like, "Um. I like mostly all of it?"
It's a big deal in the greater context of the show's diversity, and especially to LGBT fans.
Ideally it wouldn't be a big deal at all, and certainly in universe it's just everyday life.
It's not the orientation, it's the social reaction. Societies in general exist through exercising judgement on what is acceptable and what is not, and minorities are a great thing in this sense - they won't be missed when they are dismissed. It's at the leisure and expedience of the society that minorities can be "rehabilitated", the need for banning something, anything, being less severe when the society is better established.
"Ours" is certainly not the first society stable enough to outgrow the need to exploit sexual minorities for disciplinary purposes. But it is one of the first for a very long time, dozens of generations at least!
The sad thing is, they did more or less organize one day in 2006 or thereabouts and say "Let's all be LGBT". After which it was no longer cool to be either L, G, B or T because you had to be part of a vast community. I don't like to fuck with vast communities (okay, that probably wasn't completely accurate, but still), yet there's no escaping it now.
I wonder if Sulu can be allowed to be just gay, or whether he will have to do a transvestite stunt on the side?
What's the deal here? Sulu never was Japanese - he was American.
Timo Saloniemi
"Ours" is certainly not the first society stable enough to outgrow the need to exploit sexual minorities for disciplinary purposes. But it is one of the first for a very long time, dozens of generations at least!
The sad thing is, they did more or less organize one day in 2006 or thereabouts and say "Let's all be LGBT". After which it was no longer cool to be either L, G, B or T because you had to be part of a vast community. I don't like to fuck with vast communities (okay, that probably wasn't completely accurate, but still), yet there's no escaping it now.
I wonder if Sulu can be allowed to be just gay, or whether he will have to do a transvestite stunt on the side?
What's the deal here? Sulu never was Japanese - he was American.
Timo Saloniemi
I can't remember, but was his first name ever specifically mentioned on screen?
I thought it was the same as Nyota/Uhura where it was only common-knowledge soft canon.
It should've happened with TMP or in the 1980's, that it didn't is a pretty big black mark against the franchise.
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Amaris
Guest
Whoa, now, what? Could you clarify this, please?
So every tv show now has to feature a token gay character, is that what you mean? Lame ... *yawn*
I doubt the writers are so oblivious that they would do something clumsy like that.
I guess I'd better. I mean, the "modern" thing is for Sulu to be, let me check this up, LGBTIQQA. Being gay is so non-inclusive and all. But that does require him to do the T bit, too, or else it's non-inclusive. And the L bit, but the I one may facilitate that one. And Q, Q and A might be doable as well., with a bit of trickery.
Or mockery, but trust me, I'm not deliberately seeking to engage in such. I just can't see a way around it.
Timo Saloniemi
Right! The fact that "Blood and Fire" was never produced for TNG is a monumental loss. For a show that tackled numerous current issues framed as a sci-fi story like TNG, I feel like not tackling the AIDS crisis was a misfire.
I think it was mentioned in Star Trek VI.
He says his first name in ST09 when Pike asks him where Crewman McKenna is.
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Amaris
Guest
If someone is gay, they are gay. At what point do they represent the entirety of the LGBTQIA+ community? I'm pansexual, and if I were to go on television as a pansexual character, I represent my aspect of the community in whatever way that is natural for me to do so. Of course, being pansexual makes that easier, but if I were strictly homosexual that doesn't mean I have to suddenly be everything to everyone else, too.
I would love to see a transgender character in Star Trek. I'd love to see every member of the LGBTQIA+ community represented, but that doesn't have to culminate in the body of one person. I'm not sure where you got the idea you have to be everything to everyone when representing one aspect of the overall community.
For those who are VERY spoiler sensitive and those who love absolute surprise when they see the movie
In some cases, I think they do go out of their way to include 'token' gays. Russell T Davies used to annoy me in his Dr Who run but shoe-horning in gay characters everywhere and underscoring that they were gay with an unnecessarily lack of subtlety. In other cases, homosexuality, particularly lesbianism, is used for the same kind of shock titillation as the Caitian threesome in STiD.
However, there are some gems in among them too. Vastra and Jenny are a great double act. Jinx in Warehouse 13 was definitely not a 'token' gay. Willow's gay journey in Buffy started out as a joke but went on to develop one of the sweetest love stories on TV. For all of the annoying shock gayness of Jack Harkness, the maturity of his relationship with Ianto in Children of Earth was very well done. Pythicarus in the second season of Atlantis was probably a far better loved story than that of the lead heterosexual characters.
In addition, the sexuality of many of the characters in the shows above can be superfluous. Gay characters in the Expanse are just kind of, meh, whatever, part of the furniture. Welcome to the future.
Apparently so, same for inter-racial relations, based on the reaction a certain tv-ad some years ago...
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