"Jonny, I'm gay."

[F. King Daniel]

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

Came across this on YouTube. It has to be an edit, right? Someone would have caught it before now otherwise.

Right?

 

[Christopher]

It's there in the original, at least the version on Netflix, but I'm pretty sure Sulu's saying "Come on, Johnny, okay."

 

[GNDN18]

CBSAA, too. I agree with Christopher, though. At least I think I do.

 

[STEPhon IT]

The Flinstones' theme song has the word "Gay" and that was sixties so even if Sulu said that, which I don't think he did, it probably wouldn't be the something related to homosexuality.

 

[Tosk]

My ears say "Cool it now Johnny, okay." which would fit with the way he's speaking in that scene. He also calls him "Johnny-O" at the head of the scene.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Or "Cool it, Johnny. Okay?"

 

[Trekfan12]

wow I never remember hearing that.

 

[plynch]

I can't watch that one. Ish. Plus it's boring.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Whatever he's saying, there's no way it's Sulu saying he's gay to Johnny.

 

[Jayson1]

I think someone is playing around with sound mixing or something. I don't recall that at all especially how he says it like 3 times. Maybe it's something that was picked up and recorded by accident because the actors didn't think it would be heard but was heard with modern tech. Sort of like you can hear a Starfleet officer say, spoonhead in "Empok Nor" on DS9 even if they thought it would just sound like background chatter that people wouldn't hear very clearly.

Jason

 

[Tosk]

I don't recall that at all especially how he says it like 3 times.

Well yeah, the last part is obviously repeated for effect. No one is claiming the line plays four times in a row in the real ep.

 

[Jayson1]

Well yeah, the last part is obviously repeated for effect. No one is claiming the line plays four times in a row in the real ep.

I feel so foolish I thought it was. Sometimes the ole brain takes a vacation on me without telling me!

Jason

 

[Maurice]

The dialog is:

SULU​

You're on duty, Johnny-o. Back to reality.

FARRELL​

You can feel their eyes when they look at you, like something grabbing hold of you. Did you notice that?

SULU​

I noticed. How I noticed. Come on, Johnny.​

 

[Spock's Barber]

That’s hilarious...George Takei/Sulu pretending like he was checking out Mudd’s Women.

 

[Sareesataka]

You know, I never noticed that line either. Did anyone try watching with the closed captioning on? I also never noticed how free Sulu was with his hands on old Johnny-O.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It's there in the original, at least the version on Netflix, but I'm pretty sure Sulu's saying "Come on, Johnny, okay."

The dialog is:

SULU​

You're on duty, Johnny-o. Back to reality.

FARRELL​

You can feel their eyes when they look at you, like something grabbing hold of you. Did you notice that?

SULU​

I noticed. How I noticed. Come on, Johnny.​

I'm guessing it is indeed a whispered extra "okay" at the end.

It does kinda seem like he's whispering to Johnny that he's immune to Mudd's women

 

[Pauln6]

"Venus drugs are bad. N'kay."

 

[Christopher]

I think someone is playing around with sound mixing or something.

No, it's just pareidolia -- the human tendency to see patterns that aren't there. If you listen to a chorus of voices changing "La-la-la-la-la" over and over (like with a lot of Philip Glass's minimalist music), you can make yourself imagine they're singing any word you want. Think "cat" and you'll hear them singing "cat cat cat," think "dock" and you'll hear them singing "dock dock dock," etc. And there are many well-known cases of people mishearing song lyrics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen

So this is a simple trick of suggestion -- the video is headlined "Sulu Admits He's Gay," and that predisposes us to hear a slightly unclear "Okay" as "I'm gay." It's the nature of the human brain to try to fill in unclear or incomplete patterns by projecting what it thinks is a likely interpretation, so you can prejudice the result by giving someone (or yourself) a suggestion ahead of time.

It does kinda seem like he's whispering to Johnny that he's immune to Mudd's women

Which obviously contradicts Sulu's lines and attitude just seconds before, so this whole thing is sheer nonsense.

I'm not sure "gay" was even commonly understood to mean "homosexual" at the time. The word originally meant happy and carefree, in phrases like "Gay Paris" and "the Gay Nineties," and was also used to refer to promiscuous, licentious sexual behavior of any kind. (In the 17th century, "gay man" would've meant a womanizer.) The word started to be used in the early 20th century as a code word for homosexuals, something that most people would read as referring to ordinary libertine or flamboyant behavior but that had a hidden subtext. It had started to be used openly as a term for homosexual people by the 1960s, but the traditional meaning was still common -- as in the Flintstones end title song ending with the line "We'll have a gay old time."

 

[ZapBrannigan]

So this is a simple trick of suggestion -- the video is headlined "Sulu Admits He's Gay," and that predisposes us to hear a slightly unclear "Okay" as "I'm gay." It's the nature of the human brain to try to fill in unclear or incomplete patterns by projecting what it thinks is a likely interpretation, so you can prejudice the result by giving someone (or yourself) a suggestion ahead of time.

Thanks for that. It's uncanny how much it sounds like what it simply cannot be.

Also, tangentially related, there's a famous early appearance of the word gay as "that kind of gay" in Bringing Up Baby (1938). Cary Grant is caught having hastily covered himself in a woman's negligee, and he explains it sarcastically: "I just turned gay, all of a sudden!"

 

[Maurice]

That’s hilarious...George Takei/Sulu pretending like he was checking out Mudd’s Women.

Is it hilarious that Shatner pretended to be afraid of a guy in a rubber alien costume, or that Nimoy pretended to be mind linked to a rock?

Also, tangentially related, there's a famous early appearance of the word gay as "that kind of gay" in Bringing Up Baby (1938). Cary Grant is caught having hastily covered himself in a woman's negligee, and he explains it sarcastically: "I just turned gay, all of a sudden!"

The line is, “Because I just went GAY all of a sudden!”

And it's a feather-trimmed robe, not a neglige.

"Gay" doesn't necessarily mean homosexual in that context, especially given the storied history of the word's usage in that era. It could also mean, “I just decided to be zany.”