Wut? I grant you on Disco the LGBTQ+ actors are playing LGBTQ+ characters, but on Picard? You have Seven of Nine and Raffi, who are bisexual characters played by heterosexual actresses.
Uhura trailer released
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
- Start date
Our cadet probably knows that.
They said the opposite though.
Why should a queer actor not be allowed to portray a character whose sexual orientation has never been canonically defined?
Why should any actor not play any part as long as they are considered a good fit to be cast in the role?
Do we only get evil angry dudes to play the villains? Of course not; actors play parts and the best of them carry a magical mix that is both something they find within themselves and a confection of emotion, attitude and presentation that they develop for each character, which is lead, to a greater or lesser degree, by how that character is written and what the director wants.
Gender is just one part of that. It may or may not be directly relevant to what is required for a specific role but its always there in the background ...but that's the character's gender which shouldn't necessarily have to match the actor's gender -- in any direction.
Do we only get evil angry dudes to play the villains? Of course not; actors play parts and the best of them carry a magical mix that is both something they find within themselves and a confection of emotion, attitude and presentation that they develop for each character, which is lead, to a greater or lesser degree, by how that character is written and what the director wants.
Gender is just one part of that. It may or may not be directly relevant to what is required for a specific role but its always there in the background ...but that's the character's gender which shouldn't necessarily have to match the actor's gender -- in any direction.
Since she's not playing Nichelle Nichols, why should she look like her?
I think that there is, broadly-speaking, a reasonable argument to be made that characters who belong to communities that have historically been marginalized in real life ought not to be played by actors who are from communities that have not historically been marginalized along that same axis. Thus, for instance, there is a reasonable argument to be made that a character who is a gay man ought not to be played by an actor who is a straight man, or that a cisgender woman should not play a trans woman, or that characters of color should not be played by white actors when the source material is adapted or rebooted.
But that doesn't apply in this instance; nothing has ever canonically established whether Uhura is queer or not, and Gooding identifies as queer rather than as straight or cisgender -- so there's no reason she shouldn't be able to play Uhura.
I know Nichelle Nichols had other roles as an actress after she retired from star trek but Uhura is her signature role. She and the character are interchangeable in a timeless sense. It would not have hurt if they cast an actress that had a striking resemblance to her. Gooding does not have Nichelle's elegance or gracefulness.
She's not playing Nichols. She is playing Uhura at a younger age. Actresses are not their characters.
Irrelevant to the fact that Gooding is not playing Nichelle Nichols. Connery is for many the signature Bond, but they've never cast someone with a "striking resemblance" to play Bond. Nor should they. Hire the best actor not a doppelganger.
Gooding has a grace and beauty of their own and is quite lovely. And also manages to invoke Nichol's Uhura with out imitating her. Season One's finale is a great example of this.
It was just a pleasant coincidence that Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan bore a passing resemblance, both looking relatively young with dark brown hair. Some people in 1968 and 1969 said that George Lazenby resembled Sean Connery but that was mostly because Lazenby went out of his way to dress and look like Connery for his audition and test footage, going so far as to get one of Connery's unclaimed suits from the latter's tailor to wear for the producers.
Be that as it may, Gooding is not playing Nichelle Nichols; they are playing Nyota Uhura, a role that has already been recast before. Nichelle Nichole, like Leonard Nimoy, may "own" the role in an emotional sense that none of her successors can match -- I'll grant you that. But today, the role belongs to Celia Rose Gooding.
Actor, not actress. As indicated above, Gooding does not identify as a woman per se.
As for the question of resemblance -- eh. Sometimes they can find someone who bears a striking resemblance, sometimes they can't. The relevant issue is quality of performance moreso than appearance. The late Anton Yelchin didn't really look much like Walter Koenig, but he figured out how to embody Pavel Chekov just as well as Koenig, for instance.
Complete hogwash. They absolutely have the same level of grace and elegance. Just watch their performance in the season one finale -- they were playing an older Uhura and they brought a grace to their performance that absolutely matched Nichols's.
Absolutely nobody was talking about Hikaru Sulu or his sexual orientation.
Actually, Takei's problem with Sulu being gay in Beyond was that he has always viewed Sulu as a straight person, a fact he has stated in interviews since publicly coming out. Takei felt that by making Sulu gay, they were ignoring his intentions and wishes.
This is a lot of nonsense.
I notice that you've switched tacks back from worrying over Gooding's gender and sexuality to fussing over her resemblance to Nichols. You've just got to find some grounds to complain about her.
What is your real problem here? Because I don't believe what you're saying.
Just admit you don't like Uhura and Gooding in the role and be done with it.
That is not how casting works.
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