SJWs are malfunctioning, approaching self-destruct mode, over LGBT icon George Takei’s latest comments over the decision to make Sulu gay in the new Star Trek film.
“I’m delighted that there’s a gay character,” Takei told The Hollywood Reporter. “Unfortunately, it’s a twisting of Gene’s creation, to which he put in so much thought. I think it’s really unfortunate.”
It seems that Takei fits into the ‘make new characters to increase diversity’ camp as opposed to the ‘change old ones’ camp. Takei has immense respect for Gene Roddenberry and wants to leave his vision intact.
There are forces pushing for all aspects of pop culture to change iconic characters’ gender, race, and sexual preference. But others argue that it makes more sense to just use a bit of creativity and write new characters, leaving the existing ones the way they are.
Simon Pegg, the film’s screenwriter who made Sulu gay, attempted to “straightsplain” his decision to Takei in a statement released to The Guardian.
“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, and isn’t that tokenism?”
Or maybe it’s just bad writing. The problem with this whole tokenism idea is that diversity has to start somewhere. Tokenism seems to imply that having one of a certain group is always problematic. But does that mean you need two or three and that’s better somehow?
In reality, sometimes there’s only one gay guy or one black woman or even one dreaded straight white male in a given situation. This tokenism debate is frankly regressive.
And on the whole, assigning sexual preferences to Star Trek characters is pointless. The only one who gets laid in the original series is Captain Kirk. Everyone else is just competently doing their jobs, cleaning up after the path of destruction left by Kirk and his sexual escapades.
But I guess if this sacrilegious new film series already made Spock an emotional pansy with a girlfriend, they may as well just throw all the characterizations out of Roddenberry’s creations. Why not just make Kirk an asexual otherkin, turn Scottie Irish and permanently set the phasers to stun.
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