So... Sulu is gay now?

So because the Vulcan homeworld blows up, Sulu changes his sexual orientation? I used to be on board with it but then I remembered the original Sulu is straight. That's how Takei played him. This is like Iceman being made gay in Marvel comics. It doesn't make sense and it treats sexuality as a fluid thing. I could imagine why Takei is upset about that as it'sjust the reverse of "have you tried not being gay" like it's a freakin light switch. It also makes out that the character's sexuality is defined by the sexuality of the person who originally played them, which as an actor personally i can tell you kinda undermines your craft. You're playing someone else. If the audience doesn't see the character and can only see the gay celebrity underneath then the actor doesn't feel like they've done their job. What's meant to be a tribute just ends up as a slap in the face. Takei in his awesome humbleness and unselfishness actually said he found it wasn't right due to it effecting Gene Rodenberry's vision (the George Lucas of Star Trek).

Simon Pegg tried to explain that just creating a new gay character would come off as tokenism.
But how does making a pre established straight character gay not? The spirit of Star Trek is that everybody's living together in harmony, where identity politics don't matter. That's not to say individuality and individual thought is dead. You make a new fresh individual who happens to be gay, and make the character more than the sum of his parts and you won't have tokenism. Instead they used it as advertisment and called attention to it. That's why I can't for the life of me understand why people scream "cultural appropriation" at anything that subverts traditional thought about racial identifiers and identity. Their alternative is racial stereotyping and tokenism.

This isn't the first time Takei has fought against tokenism with relation to the character of Sulu. In episode 6 The Naked Time it has probably the most iconic and remembered scene of Sulu. Shirt off, crazed, rippling sweaty muscles... and a fencing foil. That last touch was Takei. You see originally they were going to give him a Samurai sword in the script. It was one of the only times he said no to the creative team. That this character is not defined by his race in that future century like how he would have been in the 60s. He saw Sulu fantasizing himself as a swashbuckler. Why not hey? Hense fencing foil. THAT my friends is how you fight tokenism. That is how you make unique and varied and iconic cinema.

www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/fashion/george-takei-of-star-trek-now-advocating-for-gay-rights.html

BTW none of this would matter if the Star Trek reboot was instead a Star Trek remake. The fact that they decided to keep it canonical with the originals yet fuck with the timeline, personalities, and now sexualities of the characters, while simultaneously cutting budding new fan filmakers off at the knees means the franchise as a whole needs a serious change in direction.

This is coming from a Trek fan who just yesterday bought ALL the original movies on bluray. The new movies have been disappointing just in their first 2 installments. I could go on another blog rant how Captain Kirk is completely different and now a womanizer compared to the charming caring and respectful Captain of the originals. Ironic that in striving to reach a wider audience they feel they have to make Star Trek what it isn't.

http://www.inquisitr.com/3287301/star-trek-beyond-george-takei-urged-writers-to-keep-sulu-straight/