Star Trek Beyond: The Sulu Controversy (minor spoilers)

Cafe Society
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Ok, if you didn’t know, the controversy is thus. They made Sulu gay in the new Star Trek Beyond, as an ‘honor’ to Takei, who did not find it an honor. This has really been eating at me, for a number of reasons. I tried to ignore it, because on the whole I liked the movie, but I just can’t. So here I am, exposing myself to criticism.

[ul]
[li] First of all, it was done to ‘honor’ Takei. Who turned out to not be honored at all. At which point they should have thought, Hey, this isn’t a good idea. It’s not an honor if the recipient isn’t honored.[/li][li] Why make an existing character, with an established background, gay? Why not make a new character gay?[/li][li] Here’s the part that might annoy: why make the only Asian guy gay? As it is, Asians aren’t getting any roles. Hollywood is totally ok with this, as is the viewing public. Khan, who was never Sikh in the first place, like he’s supposed to be, was changed to a blue-eyed white guy. Cumberbatch did great, but thanks for overruling us. The only Indian male died within minutes of the first movie. (see more below) And on top of that, it’s notorious that when Asian males do get cast, they never, ever get the girl. So thanks for assuring that Sulu won’t get the girl, either. Why not make one of the white guys gay?[/li][li] Seriously, why not make one of the white guys gay? What would be wrong with making Scotty gay? You don’t get a twofor, white people. You don’t get to raise up one minority (gays) by disenfranchising another minority (Asians) even more.[/li][/ul]

In addition:

  • ghost in the shell will be mostly white people
  • doctor strange has a white woman in place of an Asian man. Why not an Asian woman?
  • gods of Egypt - all white people
  • Aloha - 70% white, and the leading actress is white! Emma Stone was supposed to be one quarter Chinese and one quarter Hawaiian.
    When was the last time you saw a brown man in a leading role that wasn’t comic relief? Indians and Persians are just completely ignored, except to be the bad guys.

The fucking Academy Awards were all white, which might be acceptable, except they thought it was Ok to MOCK Asians while they were on stage. Fucking Chris Rock, who I really liked.

Here’s a great article from the NYT that says it better than I ever could:

Asian Americans are Fighting for Visibility

And one from the Hollywood Reporter:

Where are the Asian American movie stars?

The thinking is that white people’s stories are everybody’s stories. That everybody can relate to the white man or white woman. And we don’t. And you don’t get freed, white people, by casting your minorities together. It is not OK to make Sulu gay. You don’t get off by making one guy cover two minorities. Why not add a new gay person? Why not make one of the other characters gay?

It’s fucking disgusting, frankly, and I am way angrier about it than I thought I was. Every show I look at, every movie, is chock full of white people. And yet there are more Asians than ever in this country. Don’t tell me there are no Asian American stars. There are plenty of actors, and there would be more “STARS” if you gave them half a chance. You can’t never give people a chance to ascend to stardom and on the same token complain that there are no stars!

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Dwayne Johnson seems to be doing alright for himself.

But beyond that, I agree. The whitewashing is absurd.

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I haven’t seen the movie and don’t know if I will, but wondered how much screen time is devoted to Sulu’s private life. Would it have been easy to delete it after Takei expressed his disapproval?

And out of curiosity, is his husband also Asian?

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For Star Trek Beyond, I’m wondering how it progressed. If the thought was “we should have a LGBTQ character, how about Sulu?” or if it was "how about we make Sulu be a gay character in honor of Takei?"It sounds like Takei’s issue is with the canon, where Sulu had been straight in the series before, and so they should have made a totally new character who could be gay. That seems to be what’s said here.

I don’t have an issue with Sulu being gay, although I am straight and white so take my opinion for what it’s worth. But I agree that much more diversity is needed in the Star Trek movies and movies in general. The #StarringJohnCho hashtag was a really good example of how things could be different in movies and how there is also an audience for them.

Audiences are increasingly wanting more diverse casting I’m not sure why Hollywood isn’t doing more of it. And a lot of the more controversial white washed movies recently have been big flops. It’s not like Gods of Egypt would have been a good movie or a big blockbuster if Egyptian (or other African actors, or Asian actors) had been the stars, but I would think that would make producers think twice next time they are casting a movie and have all or 95% white people. Although I’m not optimistic since there have been so many white-washed flops but that hasn’t stopped more from coming out.

It is frustrating. TV seems to be doing better, though still far from perfect, and there are still minorities way under-represented on TV, like trans and disabled people.

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Sulu’s husband is also Asian in the film, yes. The husband (and daughter) are nonspeaking roles - basically they’re on shore leave, and the family comes up to greet him.

Honestly, I was impressed with the handling of Sulu’s character in this film. He was portrayed as intelligent, competent, and took charge and saved the day several times. All the characters, as a matter of fact, were well drawn and got some substantial time in the spotlight to show off their skills, not like previous films that were mostly the Kirk & Spock Show.

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I haven’t seen the film, but my understanding is that it’s only a brief episode, and no one makes a bid deal about it. What, specifically, did GT have a problem with?

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I absolutely hate that Aloha is brought up in this discussion each time I see it. The Emma Stone character was based on someone who Cameron Crowe met who looked like a redhaired pale white woman but who couldn’t stop talking about her Asian ancestry. Having an Asian play that role would be ridiculous. The point that others who’s race isn’t important could be played by Asians is valid. The point that Asian roles have been played by white people in the past is valid. But complaining that a role which specifically has to be played by someone who does not look Asian isnt played by an Asian is missing the point.

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From the Vulture article:

I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I can understand to some extent the difficulty that the Star Trek producers were in, because they have the classic main group of characters from the show to work with. It’d be easy enough for the movie to have some secondary gay characters, but harder to write up a new main character who’d be on the poster who fit in well with the existing characters and their dynamics. I’m guessing if Roddenberry was making the show now, there would be at least one LGBTQ character.

But if Cameron Crowe met someone who was part Asian but looked white, why couldn’t the movie use an actress who was part Asian and looked white? There are a lot of white actors who made up to look more ethnic, I’m sure there’s some half or quarter Asian actress who could have her hair dyed red. And it’s not just Emma Stone, it’s that the movie is majority white, but Hawaii overall is majority non-white.

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What?

Lets pick Asian people that don’t look Asian so we can “show” Asian characters?

Do the movie credits need a 23 and me test result so the audience can now go “yep, I just knew that white looking woman was really asian! Good for studio! Yaaa diversity!”

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They could have, but either way it’s not exactly a step for visible representation of Asians, is it.

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I take it the actor playing Sulu is probably straight and has to act the gay part? I wonder how many actual Star Trek actors there are who are gay who have to pretend to play a straight part. Let’s just let actors play their own sex if they’re gay, hey, a gay engineer on the Star Trek!

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Of course, Emma Stone in that movie is just an unfortunate symbol of how whitewashed Hollywood movies are, it’s not like it would have solved everything if a quarter Asian actress was cast instead. It’s just funny that Emma Stone can play a part Asian woman, and Jake Gyllenhaal can play a Persian prince, Ben Affleck can play a Hispanic man, Rooney Mara can play a Native American, and on and on, but it’s a whole lot less often that a minority actor can play a white role.

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George Takei clarified his comments in a subsequent Facebook post, and his criticism of the decision was much more nuanced than originally reported. It’s worth reading his entire post.

[QUOTE=George Takei]
On the specific question of Sulu being gay, when I was first approached with the concept, I responded that I hoped instead that Gene Roddenberry’s original characters and their backgrounds would be respected. How exciting it would be instead if a new hero might be created, whose story could be fleshed out from scratch, rather than reinvented…And while I am flattered that the character of Sulu apparently was selected as an homage to me, this was never about me or what I wanted. It was about being true to Gene’s vision and storytelling.
[/QUOTE]

I agree with Simon Pegg’s response to the suggestion that it would be better to have a new character be gay:

[QUOTE=Simon Pegg]
We could have introduced a new gay character, but he or she would have been primarily defined by their sexuality, seen as the ‘gay character,’ rather than simply for who they are.
[/QUOTE]

But that said, I definitely agree that the representation of Asian and Indian characters in film is very poor and needs improvement. But I don’t have a problem with Sulu being gay in this case. There are plenty of better targets for criticism.

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As it played out in the movie - the scene is very brief - there is a ‘prelude’ with Sulu looking at a picture of his daughter - they get to the base, he’s meeting his family - and thats it - no overt mentions of anything - it just is.

Which is exactly how it should be.

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Masrani from Jurassic World?

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Personally, my issue with the film is that it isn’t a Star Trek film.

The new Abrams films may well be good films, but if Trek fans keep watching them, the real Star Trek will die. There’s simply more money to be made in action adventure films than there is in sci-fi morality pieces, and if Hollywood figures that out, they’re never ever going to make a proper Star Trek ever again.

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This is my problem with Harriet Tubman on the $20. We need a woman - hey, lets get a twofer. We did Sacajawea, lets cross Tubman off the list. Now women, Blacks and Native Americans have all been covered and we can focus on the white men.

In the meantime you pass up white women (Eleanor Roosevelt, Abigail Adams) and black men (Martin Luther King Jr, Fredrick Douglas).

I’ve been on corporate hiring committees where HR has told us to go look for the twofer so we get our quotas up. Lets not hire any white men, or white women, or Hispanic men - no - we are looking specifically for a minority woman - though we’ll take a disabled minority man. Its hard enough to get hired if you are a woman or a minority - and in a lot of fields hard enough to find a minority or female qualified candidate - which is why we need to get our numbers up to start with - how many African American female disabled Java developers does HR think are on the market?

(And its IT, Asians don’t count in IT, we are good on our quotas there :rolleyes:)

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It was 30 seconds, so it would have been easy to chop. And yes, that is exactly how it should be handled -very brief. It wasn’t really pertinent.

Yes, this is what I love about the new films - everyone gets a chance to shine in the spotlight.

Thank you all for letting me vent a little. On the whole I really liked the movie. I just wish we could see more Asians. It’s a pet theory of mine, not wholly imaginative, that lots and lots of people, even without meaning to, get their cultural milestones and feelings from movies and TV, and in this day and age, I think it’s more and more important to show non-whites as being just as representative of being American.

I had to look up to remember who Masrani was, as I only saw the movie once and wasn’t too impressed. Masrani, the guy who reopened the new dinosaur park and caused another outbreak? masrani, the guy who was behind Indominus Rex? That guy?

Yeah, he’s not comic relief, I’ll give you that!

I was always disappointed when Kal Penn went into politics and left acting. He could have been big.

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I don’t recall anything in TOS canon about Sulu’s being straight. Back then, of course, we assume all characters were straight, but that’s not the same thing. Did he have a wife, finance or GF? I don’t recall him ever being shown with a romantic interest. That is not to say I recall everything, but if someone has a tidbit about Sulu in TOS that indicated he was straight, that would be of interest.

I’m just not seeing a big deal here. Take doesn’t own the Sulu character.

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That time Sulu was sweaty bare chested swashbuckling with a sword in the corridor that one time sure looked gay to me.