Whilst not a fan of the premise myself, why is this so? For the time Spock was rising the ranks on Enterprise why couldn’t Kirk rise to be Captain on a less prestigous ship, then get a “sideways promotion” to the flagship, like Picard?
This may be contradicted by other material, but I don’t remember enough of the minutae to be aware of any problems.
Gah, whilst adding a stacked quote I must have deleted the part I was actually replying to:
“It’s not over! Was it over when the Germans bombed Khitomer?”
I think Loopydude has a valid point that is being lost in arguing over what is and is not a retcon. Namely, that we’ve had more than enough about Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the original cast. The question isn’t wether or not Sulu is gay, the question is, do we really need to see more of Sulu? Or Uhuru? Or any of these characters? For a show that’s ostensibly about the future, Star Trek is dismayingly obsessed with its own past.
I look at it this way: Straight is the default orientation. Gay is a minority orientation. A character is assumed to be straight unless otherwise indicated. Since Sulu was never portrayed as gay, doing so now is a retcon. It also adds nothing to the existing story. The fact that some people want a gay character for PC reasons is irrelevant.
At this point, would it really matter? As far as I know, they aren’t planning on making any new episodes of Star Trek: TOS. Where would such a change appear?
If you want to introduce a gay crew member to Star Trek, shouldn’t it be done in a new series?
Miller, I couldn’t agree more. Kirk and company have had their stories told many, many times over. I think Star Trek needs to get back to its roots, yes, but not in such a superficial way. They need to go back to the themes and story elements that made TOS and TNG such great television. In other words, jump forward another 100 years, put a crew on the newest flagship, and have them go exploring. And, most importantly, have them deal with issues our society currently faces.
Blasphemer!
How does that reconcile with the Next Generation episode where they piece together the secret code in a multitude of races’ DNAs and discover that all the races we generally know were seeded by another race? I think the Klingons were a part of this, so how could they have been killer crustaceans?
There was talk for a while of having an Exclersior series with Captain Sulu. would have been interested in seeing that show, whether it involved seeing any of the other TOS crewmates or not. A series set following the events of Undiscovered Country would have been interesting to me. And if Sulu or one or more of the other characters on that series had been gay, it would’ve made it more interesting to me. Certainly a damn site more interesting than Enterprise was to me, which I bailed on after less than half a season I disliked it so much.
Scripting something that challenges the unbased-in-fact assumptions of the audience is not a retcon.
I obviously disagree that it would add nothing to the existing or the ongoing ST story to have Sulu or some other pre-existing character, who had not been explicitly established as straight, to be portrayed as gay. I also think it’s… I’m in CS, how can I say this without violating the new rule? odd… to dismiss the desire for including gay characters as “PC.”
I don’t particularly care about Sulu’s orientation one way or another. But I think that, as you say, “making” him gay retroactively is just a poor way to go about dealing with any story or character in any context.
It’s fine to say “we don’t know” about his orientation. Based on our source material, I think it’s fair to say we don’t (aside from an assumption that most characters created in the 1960s for mainstream media were likely straight).
There is, however, no foundation for making assumptions about his sex life one way or another, aside from the fact that we know he ultimately had a family.
I’mposing character qualities on Sulu just because they are not explicitly contradicted is just like saying that Huck Finn is gay. How do I know? Because there’s nothing that contradicts it!
The only difference is that because the Trek universe is still a ‘living’ thing, Sulu could indeed be “made” gay officially by the powers that be. Which would be fine, if his character still existed in the Trek universe. It seems to me that any such inclusion at this point would be a footnote, introduced specifically to say, “gotcha! Sulu’s gay. How does that rest with y’all?” That would leave a bad taste in my mouth, only because it would mean that the PTB are more interested in poking and prodding people for a reaction than they are in good storytelling.
Otto you seem to be assuming that there’s a 50/50 chance that Sulu (or anyone else) would be gay. That ain’t the case. Never has been the case. Never will be the case. A minority of all people are gay. Last speculation I saw put the gay population at something like 10%.
Now look at when the character was created. 1960s America. On broadcast television. I’d say the odds of such a character being gay from the outset are slim. For approximately 40 years, the character has never been gay. Now, the actor that plays the character comes out of the closet, and you want to make his character retroactively gay–despite the cannon of him having children. Why? What purpose does it serve?
Multi-ethnic bridge crew. A Russian. A black female officer. Interracial kiss?
That’s what Gene Roddenberry was all about.
You don’t but I bet Gene Roddenberry would have. He said he wanted a gay character in his Star Trek universe. We’ll never know, but I bet if he were still alive when George Takei came out, he’d be the first one jumping up and down saying, “Sulu was gay, Sulu was gay! Captain Sulu has a husband and kid!”
While it would be nice if somebody…anybody, on Star Trek was gay, I’m still a little bothered by the whole idea of “George Takai is gay, so lets make Sulu gay.” While I could be wrong about this, it seems like openly gay actors tend to get typecast as gay characters. I can’t think of many openly gay American actors who get roles as romantic heterosexual leads, for instance.
Carnivorousplant, what’s the “David Gerrold thing?” I know that Gerrold wrote “The Trouble with Tribbles” script and I heard somewhere - probably at an early con - that he’s gay. Is there more to the story?
That’s a point I thought about bringing up last night but I was tired and went to bed.
But is the question “should Sulu be gay” already moot? Isn’t he already de-facto gay because the audience found out the actor is? When people watch the show now are they thinking “straight character” or are they automatically thinking “closet gay character. Duh.”
“Come back to the raft, Huck, honey!” 
Gerrold is openly gay (and wrote a novelized-factual account about his adopting a hyperactive child who believed he was a Martian). And he was a staff writer for the Star Trek: The Next Generation series, who was present at Roddenberry’s speech to a Boston Star Trek fan convention at which he (Roddenberry) said that he intended to include a gay character on the series.
Thanks for the explanation, Polycarp. I knew about the Roddenberry announcement at the Boston con because my husband was there and heard it, but I didn’t connect the announcement to Gerrold.
I didn’t know about that. It is my understanding that Gerrold and Roddenberry had a falling out over the subject, R saying that it wouldn’t be an issue in the 23rd century.
He may have been born in San Francisco, but he spent part of his childhood in Arkansas I’m embarassed to say.