Indeed! And honesty is the key to working out problems in any relationship (slash or real).
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Took some searching but I had to find it to share here.
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As a (predominantly) gay man this annoys me.
It devalues and scandalizes the platonic friendship that Kirk and Spock enjoyed.
It trivializes genuine homoerotic relationships that exist and have existed.
There are identified gay characters in the star trek universe - showing some of them in a romantic moment would have been to show the true beauty of any form of mutual love.
It seems like an analogue of a straight man’s idea of lesbian intimacy.
Spectacularly tone deaf while attempting to be inclusive.
Thanks for the effort, but try harder.
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As a straight man, it bothers me for the same reasons. But also for the concept that if we flipped the scenario, depicting an established gay character doing something “straight”, all Hell would break loose.
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“O, Captain! My, Captain!” (Walt Whitman)
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My understanding is that George Takei was also annoyed by a “twisting” of a certain ST character sexuality, but for a different reason:
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Where you goin’ with this, MindySan? (Guessing there was a deleted post?)
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I agree with this stance. When JK Rowling announced “Dumbledore is gay”, Stephen King wrote a very thoughtful response, which pretty much boiled down to, “If it’s not in the books, it’s not canon; and if it’s not canon, it isn’t so”. Something like that smacks of pandering to the wishes of a certain segment of your reader/viewership, rather than establishing a character trait that is essential or even tangential to that character. I feel the same way with the recent “revealing” that in future “Solo” films Lando will be “pansexual”. There’s nothing wrong with any character having any sexual orientation that their creator wishes, but in this case Lucas never alluded to such a trait. The big problem is that the production company felt like they needed to “reveal” this well ahead of any subsequent films (whether they even happen or not), in order to “strike while the iron is hot” now that there is buzz about something (maybe, possibly, remotely) existing in the way of a romantic connection with Lando and his droid.
As much as I respect King, that’s an awfully audacious thing for one writer to say about another writer’s own creation.
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The difference being that straight folks are not subjugated to a lifetime of normative messages about how their orientation should not exist, from subtle (whose couple pics are on the parents’ mantelpiece), to the extreme (
).
Queer folks making gay slash porn is celebration of queer pride and resistance to homophobia. Straight folks straight-washing gay folks is homophobia.
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Yeah, some gay-bashing asshole decided to complain about the shirt and I figured I’d let him know what George thinks of gay-bashers.
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Some what related , Star Trek innuendo’s
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Clearly they’re just watching alien porn together.
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It’s not always easy to truly nail down when pandering is taking place and when it is not; sans evidence, all we’re left with are opinions.
Per the Takei article, a gay Sulu “was intended by writer Simon Pegg as a doff of the cap to Takei’s pioneering work for gay rights.” I have no reason to believe that Pegg did this for anything other than the reason stated and with good intentions. It may have made complete sense to him insofar ST fans across the board were totally okay (and more) with Takei’s being gay, and I believe that Pegg felt that Takei would have loved the rebooted Sulu, possibly even assuming that Takei would have preferred playing a gay Sulu in the original series.
That all said, what remains is an artistic disagreement between a writer and an actor (gee… that;s unique!). Me? I’ll take ST anyway I can get it.
All together now:
I’m a lumberjack, and I’m okay…
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The key to any great friendship is cheesecake.
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Well spotted. That was my alternate caption.
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From the headline I thought it might be a rainbow made from the coloured crew shirts.
Not disappointed, mind.
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