Well, we did get an explanation for Spock's conception, it was just on an audio tie-in that Gene Roddenberry did:
http://members.shaw.ca/selek/Sarek_Roddenberry_interview.htm
Spoilers ST: Beyond - Surprising fact about Sulu
- Thread starter Jarvisimo
- Start date
- Status
http://members.shaw.ca/selek/Sarek_Roddenberry_interview.htm
But all of this is under the presumption that Prime and Kelvin Demora are the same person just in different timelines. Demora was born in 2270 which would be 10+ years after STID. If Sulu gets a daughter in Beyond, that'd mean that we will see her as a baby and the film takes place at the early 2260s or that she was born before the Kelvin-Timeline movies wich seems unlikely considering the young age of the crew. That would suggest that we get baby Demora in the 2260s, a ten years older version than Prime Demora. But could these two Demoras really be considered alternate versions of themselves or just merely two women with the same name? I suppose it did work with Kelvin-Chekov being 4 years younger (or older?) than Prime-Chekov but if we presume that Susan Ling is Demoras mother in the Prime timeline and a currently unnamed man in Kelvin timeline even genetically they would only be counterparts by 50%. Actually that would make them more like alternate-timeline-twin-half-sisters-where-one-is-older-than-the-other which seems like the most complicated family situation ever.
Or like how mirror Porthos is a completely different breed of dog than prime Porthos.
Actually my comments vis-a-vis The Captain's Daughter are under just the opposite presumption -- that it's a different daughter born years earlier under different circumstances, so it's a huge coincidence that she's given the same name that TCD's Demora was given by her mother as a reference to a very specific place and time (rather than, say, being a traditional name in Sulu's own family).
But then, of course, alternate-timeline stories in ST and other SF tend to be fraught with such wild coincidences, to the point that you have to assume there's some kind of cosmic probability force making them converge on certain outcomes. Though a probabilistic convergence makes more sense for large-scale historical events than for incidental details like given names.
I think though that they would make her somewhat similar to the Prime Demora, either in apperance or personality (was there much from her 10 minutes in ST Generations?) which would make all of this even more unlikely. However I now really want to see the two Demoras discussing this.
The daughter is just a small child in the movie, represented by a photograph Sulu keeps on his console. Remember, these films are taking place before the time frame of the original series. I think they've said this movie is set two years into the five-year mission, which would be about 2262, a full 31 years before Generations. Jacqueline Kim was only 29 when she played Demora in that film. (Although Demora would've been 22 at the time based on her date of conception in The Captain's Daughter.)
I've met numerous men who identify as gay and they have still flirted with women, gone on dates with them, and sometimes even married and had families with them. And vice versa: straight, married men who are seemingly also having sex with men, and sometimes with full approval of their wives. It's a big universe out there.
By the 23rd century, will gayness/straightness even be an issue? Isn't that the point of Pegg's script?
Not his timeline's Sulu anyway.
By the 23rd century, will gayness/straightness even be an issue? Isn't that the point of Pegg's script?
Not his timeline's Sulu anyway.
I've heard that among African-Americans this is called the down low.
I find it rather disingenuous to portray oneself as gay and monogamous but do those aforementioned things. Though to be fair if I was in that situation I myself might capitulate to social pressure and lie to myself and to other people in order to maintain my social standing.
IDIC vs Fear.
How about young men who are told they will be disinherited if they ever come out as gay, so they enter a loveless heterosexual marriage? Young men from a strict Catholic family, who become a religious brother or a priest so they don't disappoint their families, but still get to hang out with other men and they look good for society?
It's situations such as those that get diffused somewhat when popular culture nudges old and outdated societal values into something more accepting of difference. Without a doubt, a huge missed opportunity by TNG when David Gerrold's "Blood & Fire" was quashed early in Season One. It addressed the then-rampant HIV crisis. I wonder how many lives could have been saved, how many suicides prevented, how many lonely lives made more pleasurable?
I won't quibble about the "monogamous" part, aside from pointing out that a very large percentage of supposedly monogamous people fail to live up to the strict definition of that word. But as for the "gay" part, I think it's up to the individual to define their identity for themselves. We have to be careful to avoid the "one drop" mentality. A man who mostly has relationships with men but occasionally, rarely sleeps with a woman might well consider himself gay with the occasional exception, rather than bisexual. Just as people who consider themselves strictly heterosexual will often engage in situational homosexuality in same-sex environments like prison or the military. A person's orientation describes their overall, lifelong preference rather than some rigid absolute. Any pattern can have its exceptions. It's like climate vs. weather. You can still say a region has an arid climate if it has a heavy rainstorm once or twice a year. The rare exception does not invalidate the overall norm.
Sure, a different man who sleeps mostly with men and occasionally with women might call himself bisexual, even if the ratio is exactly the same as the one who calls himself gay. But that doesn't make either of them "disingenuous," and it doesn't entitle anyone else to judge the validity of their chosen identity. After all, there's more to identity than tallies in a ledger. It's about how you feel about who you are, and it's about the larger community you feel an affinity with.
The Down Low is pretty much the same thing as the closet.
I don't think most straight people can understand the extreme pressure that was put on gay people from a young age.
Some of my earliest memories are of being shamed for not gender conforming. I was born in the early 70s and raised in a very conservative religious family in the rural South. I was probably in college before I really understood that living openly gay was even possible or heard anything positive about gays. Generally the attitude I heard was that gays were the worst of humanity and deserved death. Gays are the only minority who are often born into families that will reject them. If you're black, Jewish, etc chances are that no matter what other problems you'll face at the least your family will share your minority status and be there to support you and teach you how to cope and survive. Gays often are born into families that are hostile to them and have to figure things out from a young age all on their own. I learned at early age to try to conform, hide interests that weren't accepted...all of those teaching me that there was something wrong with me. This kind of environment led to me having debilitating stress headaches worse than anything I've ever had as an adult (they went away once I learned to accept myself), left me depressed and suicidal for years.
So with that kind of pressure it's no wonder that some gay people do try to hide in relationships with the opposite sex. It's not just a matter of social standing, it can be seen as survival. I dated women when I was younger, but never more than a couple of dates with the same girl, as I didn't want to let it get serious.
Having grown up without gay role models, I can say that having a positive gay character on Trek would've been a huge boost for me then. Now there are gay characters out there, even if usually in small roles and still underrepresented. It's a shame Trek had to wait until all risk for virtually gone before finally having a gay character on screen, but I'm still thrilled that we've finally gotten here.
Man, that sucks.
Though I can think of at least one other minority that faces that same risk of family rejection or misunderstanding -- neuro-atypical people, e.g. people on the autistic spectrum. Many children born with atypical neurology might be misunderstood as unintelligent or misbehaving or "not right" and be badly treated for it. I think ADHD was long perceived as a discipline problem and might've been met with frequent punishment.
And it wasn't so long ago that being left-handed was seen as an intrinsically wrong or evil thing to be, and parents and teachers tried to "train" left-handed people to conform to right-handedness using methods now understood as abusive and damaging.
You see, this is why I like science fiction about the future, especially optimistic SF like Star Trek. Nostalgia for the past is total BS. The present may not be perfect, but the past was so very much worse.
Understandable in the present day, but one hopes that such stigmas would be gone in the 23rd century. This was the crux of George Takei's objection to the idea of Sulu being gay -- because he felt it implied that his Sulu had been closeted, which in turn implied that homophobia was still around in the future. Although as I've said, I don't think that really follows from the sparse evidence TOS provides. (Someone pointed out to me on my blog this morning that even The Captain's Daughter shows Sulu's fling with Susan as a one-night stand with an exceptional woman, and thus doesn't necessarily prove anything about his normal preferences.)
Yeah, the franchise really dropped the ball there. Something like "Rejoined" was still fairly daring when they did it -- daring enough that some local stations actually smash-cut to commercial rather than showing two women kissing -- but the fact that they made no effort to push the envelope farther in the ensuing ten years of the televised franchise, even while so many others around them were beating them to it, was a grave disappointment.
I agree there should be no closet or coming out in Trek's future. Those only exist because of prejudice that shouldn't exist in Trek. I do think the history of Sulu on screen doesn't really preclude TOS being gay or gay-leaning bi, but Pegg has said they considered that TOS was straight and whatever factors were different (prenatal hormones or whatever) led to new Sulu to be gay, so I don't see George's objections as all that relevant, and I think he'll come around.
I admit I don't see things the way a lot of people do. And that if I were in such a situation, I may or may not actually have the mental fortitude to come out to a likely hostile community. But my view of the world is this: if one has to lie about oneself in order to avoid hostility from one's family, then one never really had their family's love in the first place. If a closeted person can live with that, then so be it. But I'm not about to call that life a good one.
I hate the lies of the world.
Last edited:
I think what you may not get is that gay kids learn at an early age they have to lie to survive, not to get abused or disowned. I'm not talking about an adult trying not to get written out of the will. At a very basic level for kids it's about survival as much as love and acceptance in some communities. Things aren't nearly as bad everywhere as they were in the bad old days.
I'm pretty extremely honest. As a college student I was a guest speaker at a few classes representing the gay community (It takes a lot to shake me now after that. Forget public speaking fears, come out and talk about your life to an audience where you can almost guarantee somebody in the audience will tell you you're going to Hell). I believe in honesty, and I definitely don't agree with people living a lie and dragging another person into it, although I understand the fear that drives people to do it.
I do think there's a difference between a gay person in a repressive hostile society who's had to live a lie to survive and a garden variety liar.
I'm pretty extremely honest. As a college student I was a guest speaker at a few classes representing the gay community (It takes a lot to shake me now after that. Forget public speaking fears, come out and talk about your life to an audience where you can almost guarantee somebody in the audience will tell you you're going to Hell). I believe in honesty, and I definitely don't agree with people living a lie and dragging another person into it, although I understand the fear that drives people to do it.
I do think there's a difference between a gay person in a repressive hostile society who's had to live a lie to survive and a garden variety liar.
I graduated high school not that long ago. Admittedly there are too many old-minded people where I grew up, and the adults at my school didn't give enough damns about racism and such issues, but notable physical violence is exceptionally rare. Plenty of people came out in my high school years. What you're telling me, I can't relate to it to the degree you describe, discounting stories I have heard of people who moved from other countries or the ultraconservative areas of the south which make the news now and then.
Last edited:
Things are really different now, and overall that's a huge improvement. I graduated from high school almost thirty years ago (!) and I lived in a rural area in the South that would've been behind the times compared to urban areas. There was no such thing as no tolerance for bullying. When I went to teachers for help when I was bullied I was told to take care of it myself, and more often than not I didn't feel like the teachers cared.
It's worth pointing out that my elementary school principal who later was my high school math teacher was later arrested for kidnapping and raping his ex girlfriend's young son, and my junior high science teacher (who was rumored to be having sex with multiple female students, and I believe it) was later arrested for selling drugs to students at school, so it seems like I had a lot of crappy teachers.
It's worth pointing out that my elementary school principal who later was my high school math teacher was later arrested for kidnapping and raping his ex girlfriend's young son, and my junior high science teacher (who was rumored to be having sex with multiple female students, and I believe it) was later arrested for selling drugs to students at school, so it seems like I had a lot of crappy teachers.
Holy smokes that's not just crappy ethics that's crappy management!
Just to veer off a bit, it's not always about hiding it or being closeted and posing as an orientation you're not either. Like I mentioned before, there are people that openly identify as gay and yet also have had or are in romantic/sexual heterosexual relationships (or vice versa) while openly identifying as gay. If a man's generally attracted to men and generally has no interest in women, but there's one or two specific women that they're attracted to, they might identify as gay completely reasonably. Check out Erika Moen's DAR, for example; it's amazing and goes into a lot of detail about the struggle with identity she's had both internally and from other people as a woman that publicly and openly identifies as a lesbian while being in a relationship with a man in just such a situation, having only ever felt any degree of sexual attraction to just one or two men.
- Status
Similar threads
