Maybe, but we live in a world where, when Sean Hayes was announced as the romantic lead in the “Promises, Promises” revival, people publicly wondered if he were “virile” enough for it, and where Newsweek said of openly gay actor Jonathan Groff in his role as Rachel’s boyfriend in the show Glee:
There’s no doubt prejudice exists and is a real thing. However, I’m talking about what actually motivated this particular decision.
Here’s an article about that:
[Emphasis added]
I don’t have any reason to doubt that was the intention.
The one TOS character is outed as gay BECAUSE he was played by a gay man.
Also, George Takei is an extremely prominent gay rights activist.
Nah, it’s way easier:
Sulu in both universes is bi. In the original universe, he happened to meet a woman and marry her. In the new universe, he never met that particular woman, and ended up with a guy instead.
I don’t think “outed” is being used properly here. Sulu isn’t being outed. He’s just gay. The Romulans aren’t going to blackmail him for Federation secrets. He isn’t hiding anything and has nothing to be ashamed of.
Now, as for Takei. His actual logic makes no sense–why would it hurt Gene if the character he talked about making gay got made gay? As for the other explanations here, all of them require assumptions that do not need to be made. Sulu may not have been gay in TOS, and, if he was, it doesn’t mean he was closeted. Just that they couldn’t show it onscreen. If anything, the fact that it was ambiguous points to him being gay rather than otherwise when Trek aired.
I also note that having a new character is pretty much impossible to do while making them a main character. The other characters are either a possible love interest, which doesn’t work without another gay main, or a villain, which has horrible history. So yo’ure otherwise stuck with supporting characters.
I do not in any way understand how having your character being used in a social justice thing would be a bad thing unless you were against social justice. I would regard such an attitude to be selfish. Society matters more than my personal feelings.
I am actually disheartened by finding out that Takei is against this. If any of the reasons given above were it, I’d be lambasting him the same way I do bigots who try to say that those against bigotry are the real bigots. But, since all he said was that it was a dishonor to Gene, I’ll just say it makes no sense.
Actually, the movement is to give him a boyfriend. Subtle but important distinction.
I get what Pegg was saying. But it does play into the unfortunate tendency of American TV fans to conflate actors and characters, a problem that’s been notorious in Trekkie-dom for decades. It is a bit like suddenly revealing that James T. Kirk is Jewish and wears a toupee.
So, I understand why Takei is not thrilled with it. Sulu’s been living in his head for longer than I’ve been alive. It’s got to be uncomfortable to have all his dreams of swashbuckling Starfleet officer Sulu tossed out for, “The gay guy who pilots the ship for Jim and Spock.”
In the final cuts of everything, Sulu as a supporting player hasn’t gotten to do much. But if Hikaru Sulu were real, he would have had his own career and moved on from the Enterprise, as Takei keeps saying. (George Takei was talking about his dream of a Captain Sulu spinoff when I was a kid.)
Oh, and I think Jim and Spock were, for all that they were ostensibly straight, played much gayer in the original series than Sulu; and even gayer than that in the movies, since Shatner & Nimoy were very aware of the K/S fandom and deliberately played up the ho yay. (Granted, Sulu’s characterization was basically “inscrutable.” 
)
So, yeah, this is a little weird.
It doesn’t matter. It still feels a lot like an insult.
If they had to honor George Takei, they could have given him a role in the film, maybe as a out homosexual.
IMHO, if Trekkies can ignore the existence of “Spock’s Brain”, they can ignore Sulu’s homosexuality.
Ok…from what i remember you’re missing both eps here.
In “The Host”, Bev says it’s all just too much too fast. She just can’t keep adapting.
In the Riker ep…she doesn’t “Choose” to be brainwashed…she’s forced to. Riker was going to kidnap her, but they got her first. Unless she did it quickly to save Riker’s career. Either way she was going to get brainwashed against her wishes.
What I meant to say was that they can ignore Sulu’s hetrosexuality. As in, the few times that Sulu showed an interest in women in TOS could easily be retconned away like so many other things before.
Man, I screwed that one up, didn’t I?
Just like the producers of the new film. And I don’t mean just the Sulu gayness.
They promoted Kirk from Ensign to Captain in how many minutes? 10?
Not even ensign. IIRC he was still a cadet.
Nothing like a battlefield promotion to jumpstart your career.
Zachary ‘New Spock’ Quinto disagrees with Takei, he thinks the use of a gay character is an important message, and though I didn’t see it explicitly in his statement I think he finds the message to me more important than the medium. I think there’s room for disagreement here, but I see it either way as an overall positive.
Also, I’d think in the Star Trek future we wouldn’t see this as an issue of strict alignment of sexuality anyway. We would see bisexuality or changes in sexual preference over a lifetime to be more common, as well as parenting relationships that aren’t necessarily sexually oriented.
Also with my recent acquisition of a real communicator and participation in this thread is making me look like a Trekkie, have to avoid falling over that cliff.
To be fair, he did save the entire planet.
Well, it’s not like they don’t have others…
I don’t agree with Takei, but I think I can grok where he’s coming from. (SWIDT?)
I wonder if, instead of presenting this as a “tribute” to Takei (which does smell a bit like conflating the character and the actor, something Spock–er, Nimoy famously used to get quite miffed about), they had simply said, “We wanted a gay major character, and chose the only one without a clearly established sexual identity,” that would have gotten his approval.
Well, since Zachary Quinto is gay I guess we need a gay Spock, too.