Star Trek Beyond: The Sulu Controversy (minor spoilers)

[Ludovic]

At first I thought “The Sulu Controversy” was a TBBT episode title.

[SenorBeef]

@Dangerosa

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 your problem with this is “hey, you don’t get to double dip!”, not “what a ridiculous requirement, let’s just hire whoever the best candidate is”?

This seems incredibly racist and sexist to me. The way to move past racism and sexism is to simply stop being racist and sexist. Instead, we’re tokenizing people down to their race and sex like that’s all they are.

[Peremensoe]

@SenorBeef

The way to move past racism and sexism is to simply stop being racist and sexist.

A nation of millions does not “simply stop” doing anything so deeply rooted in its history.

[billfish678]

@SenorBeef

And your problem with this is “hey, you don’t get to double dip!”, not “what a ridiculous requirement, let’s just hire whoever the best candidate is”?

This seems incredibly racist and sexist to me. The way to move past racism and sexism is to simply stop being racist and sexist. Instead, we’re tokenizing people down to their race and sex like that’s all they are.

Ummm…it is not the racists and sexists that created the “problem” HR is trying to solve.

Oh the irony.

[Sampiro]

@Mister_Rik

Actor John Barrowman, who is gay, has said that he has auditioned for gay roles and been told that he’s “not gay enough”.

I’m gay and I’ve been told that at auditions for gay characters. Most recently it was a play called Vanya & Sonya & Masha & Mike: the character is a pop-culture obsessed 50 year old gay man as am I and I was told I needed to be about 50% gayer. My responses is possibly also to blame with why I didn’t get cast.

[Sampiro]

[QUOTE=Anaamika]
I was always disappointed when Kal Penn went into politics and left acting. He could have been big.
[/QUOTE]

I think being Asian is a major reason he hasn’t officially come out as gay. He does still have a foot in the water of show business, and while Hollywood will accept one or the other but a gay Indian actor, however “straight acting”, is going to play hell getting conventional leading man parts. Best he could hope for would be the romantic lead’s friend.

[SenorBeef]

@billfish678

Ummm…it is not the racists and sexists that created the “problem” HR is trying to solve.

Oh the irony.

There’s no irony here. They’re creating a new angle on the same problem. They’re treating people as a race/gender rather than as an individual. Because they’re doing so to bias in their favor doesn’t absolve them of reducing people in that way. It’s incredibly condescending, and quite frankly headed into Harrison Bergeron style dystopia territory. “Hey, you can’t have this job, you’re not the right race/gender” is a really shitty thing to say. The idea that saying “you can’t have this job, you’re not the right race/gender” is a solution to racism and sexism is pretty absurd.

[Miller]

@Broomstick

That was based on interviews with Stan Lee. As I said, he was white-washed for the comic. Lee has reasons for that that make some sense given the time period involved.

You also said that he’d been portrayed as racially ambiguous, which is not the case. As for how he was intended to look, well, Stan Lee says a lot of things, so maybe there was a point where he and Romita tossed around the idea of making him black, but every source I’ve ever seen on the subject says that Kingpin was inspired by the actor Sydney Greenstreet.

[billfish678]

@SenorBeef

There’s no irony here. They’re creating a new angle on the same problem. They’re treating people as a race/gender rather than as an individual. Because they’re doing so to bias in their favor doesn’t absolve them of reducing people in that way. It’s incredibly condescending, and quite frankly headed into Harrison Bergeron style dystopia territory. “Hey, you can’t have this job, you’re not the right race/gender” is a really shitty thing to say. The idea that saying “you can’t have this job, you’re not the right race/gender” is a solution to racism and sexism is pretty absurd.

And WHY do think they are doing that?

[Maggie_the_Ocelot]

@Miller

Also, off the top of my head, there’s Kingpin in the Daredevil movie, Hogun, also from Thor, Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four, Ben Urich in the Daredevil TV show, and Quake, played by the aforementioned Chloe Bennet. And more that I’m forgetting, I’m sure. The Ancient One aside, in comic book movies there’s far, far more examples of turning a white character colored than the other way around. The problem is with the leads, who are invariably white guys. Mostly named Chris. It’s a step up from the comic these movies were based on, which were generally whiter than the Antarctic in winter, but it’s still pretty fucked up that we have to wait until 2017 for a major superhero movie starring a woman, and 2018 for a person of color.

Nitpick: Hogun has always been Asian, wearing clothing inspired by Mongolian traditions and generally drawn with Asian features and slightly darker skin than the other Warriors Three. The Marvel Wikia says:

Unlike most Asgardians, he was not an Aesir, but stems from a land conquered long ago by Mogul of the Mystic Mountain. He was a very quiet man, combined however with a flaring temper

[SenorBeef]

@billfish678

And WHY do think they are doing that?

Because they’re striving to be racist and sexist in the opposite direction. If they were interested in hiring the best person regardless of gender and race - fantastic. But that’s not the case. They were literally looking to fill a quota. Sorry, 20 qualified white candidates, you’re being rejected for your race. We gotta take this proud disabled woman of color who may not actually be able to do the job.

[gotpasswords]

For those that haven’t been paying attention, I’m gay, and I saw Beyond last night. I’d only faintly heard of any issues with Sulu being (re)cast as gay. I have no issue with the portrayal, and can only echo the sentiments expressed above that George Takei doesn’t own the Sulu character in the Abramsverse or anywhere, really.

The scene in question is really “blink twice and you’ll miss it” short. Guy and kid wave to Sulu as he disembarks. He walks over, there are smiles and a quick hug, and the family walks off into the sunset.

[billfish678]

@SenorBeef

Because they’re striving to be racist and sexist in the opposite direction. If they were interested in hiring the best person regardless of gender and race - fantastic. But that’s not the case. They were literally looking to fill a quota. Sorry, 20 qualified white candidates, you’re being rejected for your race. We gotta take this proud disabled woman of color who may not actually be able to do the job.

And why are they doing THAT?

[Loach]

@Sampiro

I’m gay and I’ve been told that at auditions for gay characters. Most recently it was a play called Vanya & Sonya & Masha & Mike: the character is a pop-culture obsessed 50 year old gay man as am I and I was told I needed to be about 50% gayer. My responses is possibly also to blame with why I didn’t get cast.

I can see the marquee: Sampiro, now 50% more gay!

@Sampiro

I think being Asian is a major reason he hasn’t officially come out as gay. He does still have a foot in the water of show business, and while Hollywood will accept one or the other but a gay Indian actor, however “straight acting”, is going to play hell getting conventional leading man parts. Best he could hope for would be the romantic lead’s friend.

@Anaamika

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

I’m not sure what you mean. He left show business briefly to work in the Obama administration but then returned to acting. He is still very active in politics but makes his living as an actor. IMDB lists him as having 4 projects in post production and he is in the new Kiefer Sutherland series coming in the fall. I’m sure he wished that last year’s series Battle Creek hadn’t been cancelled since he was in that cast too. If he left acting he is doing a very poor job of it.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@Sampiro

I’m gay and I’ve been told that at auditions for gay characters. Most recently it was a play called Vanya & Sonya & Masha & Mike: the character is a pop-culture obsessed 50 year old gay man as am I and I was told I needed to be about 50% gayer. My responses is possibly also to blame with why I didn’t get cast.

Heh. In Michael Caine’s autobiography – the one with the famous quip about the house that JAWS IV built – he has trouble getting work as a young actor, and gets his situation patiently explained to him by the president of the movie studio.

Caine gets angry and leaves the office, thinking, “So I was too butch to play queer parts and looked too queer to play butch parts. What was I going to do?”

[billfish678]

@Sampiro

I’m gay and I’ve been told that at auditions for gay characters. Most recently it was a play called Vanya & Sonya & Masha & Mike: the character is a pop-culture obsessed 50 year old gay man as am I and I was told I needed to be about 50% gayer. My responses is possibly also to blame with why I didn’t get cast.

I’m envisioning some sort of meter with a swinging needle…

I assume they wanted you to give at least 110 percent. So if they were asking for 50 percent more, one can easily deduce that you are no less than 60 percent gay in your nominal state.

[Bricker]

In the wise[sup]*[/sup] words of Maurissa Tancharoen:

WITHOUT THE ASIANS IN THE MOVIES
WITHOUT THE ASIANS ON TV
WHO’D PLAY THE GOOFY MATHEMATICIAN
THE COMPUTER TECHNICIAN
A WISE OLD HEALER FROM JAPAN
A SHORT BUT WEALTHY BUSINESSMAN
SELL KOREAN GROCERIES
DO YOUR LAUNDRY THANK YOU, PRREASE
WE’RE THE VICTIMS OF A CRIME
WE’LL BE LOVING YOU LONG TIME
IF YOUR MOVIE IS A BORE JUST
WATCH THE GROUPIE IN THE CHORUS
THAT’S ME.

• Wise, in a tongue-in-cheek way.

[Miller]

@Maggie_the_Ocelot

Nitpick: Hogun has always been Asian, wearing clothing inspired by Mongolian traditions and generally drawn with Asian features and slightly darker skin than the other Warriors Three. The Marvel Wikia says:

Lee and Kirby specifically cited Charles Bronson as the inspiration for Hogun, and Hogun’s outfit isn’t particularly Mongolian - Mongolian fur hats tend to be peaked, while the flat-topped cap Hogun usually sports looks more like a traditional Scandinavian style.

Granted, “Hogun is a random Mongol who’s in Asgard for some reason,” has been a common enough misconception that it’s pretty much canon at this point, but that wasn’t the original intention behind the character’s design.

[Acsenray]

I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with the idea that making an Asian character gay is somehow taking something away from non-gay Asians.

However, yes, I’m on board with the idea that white hetero men get way too many slated roles, that is, roles that producers seem to mandate must be white hetero men.

And yes, if a white person can play a non-white role, why not the other way around?

I’m not sure I agree with Takei’s specific objections—

1. This is a reboot. The whole point is not to be completely locked in by the original parameters.

2. Making one of the six main characters gay is much, much more impactful than introducing a brand new gay character.

I also don’t think that Takei should get a veto.

[Peremensoe]

The really awkward part is that the character they picked just happens to be the one played (in his original version) by a gay man. If it’s kind of about Takei, maybe he should have had a veto. If it’s not about him, why is it Sulu? Why isn’t Bones or Scotty the gay one?