Fun fact: George Takei himself complained that Sulu is portrait gay in the new movies. He said that even tho he himself is gay, he always played Sulu as a straight guy. But why would the headcanon of an actor be more important than any other
I mean, if it informs the performance meaningfully, it’s part of the end product. Doesn’t mean it’s necessarily canon or whatever, but it certainly has the potential to impact later performances if direction moves away from the actor’s previous internal preparation.
I could see it being off-putting to work under a director or with writing that bleeds your public personality into your role, especially if it’s one you’ve gotten to a certain place with.
Like even as a roleplayer, any character i might embody in the moment has a life of its own that’s distinct from mine, and would make decisions that I wouldn’t. If someone tried to push me into acting a way that’s more typical of myself out of character or that’s more in line with a different character I play, or if they reacted to the character based on that outside stuff, I’d certainly resist it.
True, I totally see your point. I think there are different ways to see this:
First, it’s someone else who played it so he wasn’t forced to do anything. It’s just a role he played and now someone else does with different interpretations. You wouldn’t blame a Hamlett actor for performing differently than their predecessor. Sure, it’s different since Sulu was brought into existence by Takei and didn’t really exist in a book or something but still a fictional character played by different people.
Since it’s just one little scene I didn’t even remember after the first time watching, it isn’t part of his story or character building or something. He is just greeted by his husband (or partner) and daughter. In my eyes more of a homage or easter egg to Takei than forcing his personality into the character.
Lastly, HolLyWood goNe w0ke aNywAyS. I don’t mean this negatively obviously. Media puts diversity into more and more places and it doesn’t even have to do with Takei himself.
Even tho I started the last paragraph with lastly, let me add that I think it might even have more to do with losing control of your creation. Sure, Sulu started as the character played by Sulu but he developed further. It’s like trying to force the genie back into the bottle. Sulu isn’t Takei and Takei isn’t entitled to control Sulu.
Oh, I assumed he was talking about something written for him recently. Sulu showed up in Lower Decks not too long ago, and I know the franchise in general has a penchant for nostalgia at the moment. He certainly seemed to have a little more of a Takei tone in his LD appearance, but that may also just be him having grown more into himself over the years.
But yeah, if it’s someone else playing it and it doesn’t inform an established performance, then whatever.
I was referring to the 3 parter beginning 2009. Sorry if I didn’t make it explicit.
To be fair, John Cho played Sulu straight until it was revealed that he was gay. And even then, there wasn’t much gayness to his acting. Unless you count bringing a sword to a skydiving phaser fight, but I’d consider that more bad ass than gay.
And even then, there wasn’t much gayness to his acting.
Care to elaborate?
What is there to elaborate? Other than a brief embrace shown on screen, he didn’t appear to play the role in any stereotypical gay manner. That’s all…
Why would the character be a stereotype?
I didn’t say he was. That’s the entire point. They briefly showed some gay characteristics on screen, but otherwise he just played the character plainly.
Yeah, he played the character like a real person (who lives in space and brings a sword to a skydiving phaser fight) and not a caricature.
I’m assuming you don’t believe all gay men are stereotypes from 1980s comedies?
So, unless you were expecting there to be hardcore man on man penetrative sex on screen, what would “gayness” to John Cho’s acting mean?
I’m not playing this game. You’re obviously looking for a confrontation. You’ll have to find someone else to play with.
He wasn’t a Hollywood camp gay stereotype character.
Why would anyone think he would be?
Because usually when Hollywood includes a gay character they’re doing it to villainize them, make fun of them, or show them off to cynically virtue-signal diversity. Having a character that’s just a normal character who happens to be gay, without making a big deal about it or using it as a plot point, is rare.
It’s not just how Takei played it, the first thing an inhibition-free Zulu does in The Naked Time is to go after Uhura - and Mirror Zulu obviously has the hots for her too.
Takei’s Sulu always gave me bisexual energy.
Source: my wishful thinking (aka my ass)
George only came publicly out as gay in 2005…
Which is still before the 2009 movie …
Nog is straight. But also an incel.
He also grows out of it, at least in The Visitor
Isn’t cis another word for straight?
I honestly don’t know, just askingWell, trans as a root means across from, or on the other side of.
Cis means on this side of. Both are from latin roots.
When using it in gender discussions, it means someone that isn’t trans, aka the gender normative, aka the folks that match in terms of inner and outer gender expression.
Cisgender started out as a term back in the nineties, as a way to be able to refer to the majority that are gender normative with a simpler term when discussing transgender/transexual issues. As you can see, it is incredibly cumbersome to describe the cisgender people of the world without using cis. Pain in the ass when you’re writing or talking about the subject. And the nineties are when that kind of discussion became more prevalent.
There’s also the fact that people have put unnecessary weight to the word “normal”, and tend not to understand the word normative. Because of the way normal has been used for a very long time now, despite it really meaning something that’s typical, any use of it implies that everything else is abnormal in a bad way rather than just not typical. Largely because in most fields, abnormal is a bad thing. Abnormal blood work as an example.
So, we have heteronormative and cisnormative for the straights and non trans people behaving in typical ways for those groups as well as cisgender meaning aligning with one’s nominative gender.
Now, can cis be used to denote “straight” people? Kinda, but not really. It would be a very unusual usage because straight in terms of non normative sexuality being discussed almost always refers to sexual orientation. Using cis to mean straight isn’t unreasonable, particularly since you’ll run into situations where gay people and trans people might just use straight as a shorter word for cis-hetero. But you won’t see that in anything but casual settings because of the very confusion you’re dealing with. Most of my close friends are gay or otherwise under the lgbtq+ heading, and I’ve never actually heard anyone use cis as a synonym for straight, but I have heard “straights” used as a term that includes cis.
Yay for language!
Interesting and still confusing haha.
Thank you for taking the time, I learned a little today.Tldr:
Cis: I got a dick, I look like a guy, I also feel this way inside.
Cis: I got a vagina, I look like a girl, I also feel this way inside.
NB/trans: any number of these combinations do not match the same way as above.
Dammit. Nothing worse than someone giving a better explanation lol.
Ha naw not better than yours just ELI5’d it
Quark is a straight white male, or my name isn’t Jeremiah Paxton
So what is your name?
Tim
There are some who call me… Tim.
“I don’t think so, Tim.”
-Al Borland
Agreed on all points except Garak, the simple tailor.
Anybody who misses how shamelessly he flirts with Julian needs their head-canon checked on.
Although it isn’t really shown, Odo is nonbinary by definition isn’t he?
Gender: fluid
With the debatable exception of Jadzia, all those characters were exclusively shown in heterosexual relationships.
Rejoined was a great episode.
all those characters were exclusively shown in heterosexual relationships.
That’s not exactly evidence against them all being bi
This is where the wishful thinking, mentioned earlier, comes to play I guess.
By that logic, there’s also no evidence that god doesn’t exist.
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. Bisexuals exist and aren’t always obvious, so “absent evidence to the contrary, that person might be bisexual” is not an extraordinary claim — hell, assuming similar prevalence of bisexuality then as we see now, which is arguably the lower bound given the cultural changes depicted, it’s statistically improbable that there wouldn’t be at least one non-straight person in the main cast.
I don’t care.
I don’t need to know their exact sexual preferences. That is not of any influence to the story. If it was, it would have been in the story and if it was in the story, it wouldn’t have mattered what their preference was, because it would have made sense either way in the context of the story.
Issues of sexuality and gender are already being adressed in this show, there is no need to project them into situations where they’re not.
Right, but that’s a completely different thing than you were arguing. The likelihood of a character being queer is a Watsonian question about demographics of a space station, whereas whether it’s plot relevant is a Doylist question about themes and conservation of narrative. And given that Garrick was originally conceived as a queer character and the actor has explicitly stated that he wanted the character to be queer, but Rick Berman insisted that this not be done and instead wrote in a weird love story between him and young girl, I actually think it’s pretty f****** relevant to discussions around the culture of the show.
Julian and Garak were clearly in a relationship. Just ask Garak.
Sure, but that doesn’t mean they were exclusively heterosexual.
The definition of canon is that which is shown on screen.
Any character that does not explicitly say they were hetero/homosexual is canonically bi until proven otherwise.
If they’re not shown in explicitly sexual relationships, they’re canonically ace.
if they are not shown going the the toilet, they’re canonically in voluntary urinary retention
Canonically the poop is beamed out
Shaka when the walls fell. O’Brien bored in the transport room, his poop beamed out.
Oh shit, hoisted by my own Picard.
Not too sure what’s debatable about Jadzia. Julian on the other hand… pretty debatable.
While she kissed a girl, it was never portrayed as a lesbian relationship, rather the post reincarnation resumption of earlier straight marriage.
Did Bashir ever pine after a guy? O’Brien doesn’t count.
If you’ve not noticed garak and Bashir… well, it’s worth a rewatch just for that.
Garak is a pleasure to watch, and Andrew Robinson said he’s intentionally coded as bi, but he’s not in this photo.
Julian has a relationship with garak, and while he’s obviously a bit confused about what it is it’s pretty evident garak is not.
rather the post reincarnation resumption of earlier straight marriage.
That makes it trans, which still counts.
Did Bashir ever pine after a guy? O’Brien doesn’t count.
Lmao yeah lets just throw away evidence.
Did Bashir ever pine after a guy? O’Brien doesn’t count.
Did O’Brien ever pine after a girl? Kieko doesn’t count.
Kira was a rebel at heart.
Bashir was in the “I’ve been genetically modified, which is illegal, so should I have kids?” camp, if I remember correctly.
Sisko loved his wife.
Odo was a gelatinous blob.
Jadzia was influenced by past multiple personalities, so she likely loved pans and pots.
O’Brien was a weeb. He only loved his waifu, the transporter room.
Jake was a reporter. He loved crawling into holes he shouldn’t have been crawling into.
Quark was a businessman. He loved risky ventures.
He only loved his waifu, the transporter room.
Slight disagree, he only loved his waifu, constantly breaking systems.
Miles “I can fix her” O’Brein
Ah yes gender politics, only thing missing from Star Trek themed discussion.
Naw it’s not missing. Always been there.
This is wishful thinking. It was made within a heteronormative society, and most characters who have love interests and relationship histories are hence straight.
Unless stated or shown it’s far more of a head cannon to assume a queer identity where none is suggested.
No media can fully escape the culture, period, and context it was created in.
