Pajiba

I'm torn. I appreciate that he wants to include more diversity and I'm happy that there'll be more gay on screen. Homosexuality has gotten such a shaky treatment in movies that I'd love to see a more even, thoughtful approach in the mainstream. But... yeah. A character's homosexuality is sort of a moot point and difficult to establish without it being a Very Special Episode sort of thing. Especially when you consider that it'll be an adventure movie where the romance is, at the most, a shoe-horned detail.

So. Yeah. I'm of two minds.

It is both illogical and unnecessary; don't make a thing of something that shouldn't be a thing.

1) Roddenberry didn't like to have conflict between his characters. Once he was not running STNG day to day, there were more interesting storylines.

2) Riker fell for a chick from a planet where they didn't have sexes, something like that. (I am a little rusty on these storylines.) That was actually a good episode (even though it featured the most wooden actor in the show).

3) Jadzia Dax had a little lesbian thing going, had to do with her symbiont's previous host.

There may have been more. Hopefully someone geekier than I will fill in the deets. It's been a long time since I was into ST. (And I didn't really care for the reboot, sorry.)

But yes, of course, it would have been cool to have a gay character, presented as the most normal thing in the world. And if it's done properly (not just to inspire fanfic) it would be even more cool for Abrams to include a major gay character in the reboot series.

Has he been reading the fanfiction again?

Personally, I think that by this point it doesn't matter at all-- humanity has bigger problems than who's sleeping with whom and what bits that they have. There are tentacle aliens out there. Andorians have four or five genders.

I'd love for there to be a scene in the next movie where one of the main characters is seen having a moment with someone of the same gender. If they do it, my bet is on Sulu, for less than optimistic reasons.

I would disagree that Star Trek has never been about its characters' sexual proclivities. Kirk had his bevy of intergalactic beauties, Spock and later Tuvok dealt with pon farr, and relationships were key to some of the later series. There are opportunities to make it happen.

The header pic makes a lot more sense once you know some of the kinds of fan fiction that is out there. I used to work at on office supply store that got to print off copies of what people were handing out at conventions.

So Ferenghey.

the funny thing about star trek is that it feels sexless because they were always absolutely terrible at depicting relationships. i'm more familiar with the show than the movies (all the shows except enterprise) but there were a fair share of relationships and sex and they were all terribly portrayed. maybe there also wasn't a lot of chemistry between the people they were trying to get together.

there have been storylines that feature relationships and longing: troi/riker, crusher/picard, wesley/older woman who's name i dont remember, tasha/data, worf/troi (alternate universe), bashir/dax (with two different hosts), geordi/practically any guest star, cisco/whats her name, kira/odo, worf/dax, obrien/keiko, janeway/chakotay, 7of9/the doctor. and other than the jadzia/previous wife incident, none of those relationships were gay, and there were no hints of there being gay relationships.

i have no real point though. if they make star trek gayer i wish they would just make it like any of the other relationships listed above, as just being because it just is.

Can one of the guys do a handsome green alien man while Kirk is nailing a beautiful green alien woman? Works for me.

I'm all for it...if it serves the story. If it's jammed in there just for marketing, then no. Because Star Trek is about space and the people who roam around and live in it, I am not interested in Earth-ly issues like discrimination, unless it's taken on like the Frank Gorshin black/white ep. Of course, that show was making a point about ignorance and fear, less about race than using black and white as a jump-off point. Based on the first Abrams movie, they are not interested in ideas. They are interested in dollars. If they throw in the gay for dollars (or use immigration or environmentalism and other "inflammatory" issues), then it's bound to suck (unlike ST 4, where that was the main idea). And if it's a Red Shirt who is gay, then it's just a big attention getting set-up. I have no feeling either way, add gay or not, but give it a real reason, like they find a planet where reproduction is only same-sex, and having sex with the opposite is shocking and wrong. But one gay character (which automatically means two) will distract from the story and waste valuable time on what would be the "real" plot. Can't have it both ways, Abrams, you jerkoff.

OH! I don't mean to say gay sex is shocking and wrong, btw. I mean it would be to the people on that planet and therefore a story introducing that topic. ALL I CARE ABOUT IS STORY! See, Abrams, now you have me shouting nonsense. GAH!

I see no way to make Kirk gay. On the other hand, going with a Jack Harkness style pan-sexuality would be TOTALLY believable.

I also think Sulu would be a good candidate for a non-straight sexuality, and I bet a certain actor would approve.

What ChickaBoom said!

Explore some strange new worlds Goddamnit!

And bring back the Gorn.

And he could be gay.

What I mean to say is, I can get Gay in real life.

What would I get with Science Fiction Gay? I'm in.

gp has a point. Making Kirk gay would fly against the canon they've already established in this first film -- making him pansexual, sure, that works because we've never seen him not turn down a handsome green dude, but strictly homosexual would not be true to either Abrams' first Star Trek, nor any of the previous incarnations. Nor would, sadly, making Sulu gay, as (nerd alert!) he was depicted as having a relatively heteronormative family life with the introduction of a daughter in Star Trek: Generations, despite his propensity for topless sword fights and being from San Francisco. I suppose his daughter could have been adopted, which would be why Kirk never knew about it -- but I always just interpreted that scene as more evidence of Kirk's self-involved dickishness.

That said, I don't think Chekov or Scotty ever had any romantic entanglements before -- possibly Chekov did in the series, but definitely not in any of the movies for either one (hell, Scotty even rebuffs Uhura's advances in Star Trek V). So, if any of the main characters can be made gay, or be revealed to be gay, it would be these two. Personally, I think Simon Pegg would make a great Scottish poof.

As long as his lover isn't that creepy little thing with the beady eyes from the first film. I don't know what sort of sexuality that would be...

if you Really Need a gay in there, just have sulu casually mention in passing something rather clever strongly hinting that yes, he's gay and as no one in the universe really cares, the scene moves on.

takei set it up to be so easy.

done and done.

This is technically a new continuity, so it's not out of the question for Sulu to be gay, but they'd have a hard time connecting ***SPOILER I GUESS*** the destruction of Vulcan to Sulu being gay.

"Vulcan's gone? Welp, time to start boning dudes!"

They could have a transporter "accident" and Kirk could turn gay that way. Then you could turn him back at the end of the movie. After of course he's learned important lessons about tolerance and stuff.

Logan, stop making me laugh!

Make Kirk gay? Uhm...no. It is fine to redo an entire franchise to update but change commonly know lead characters gay just to make a statement is ridiculous.
Wouldn't that be fun to see legions of already angry fans complain about changing a main characters sexuality? No.
I'm sorry but destroying the basis of original characters (confident heterosexual Kirk) just to have to go back and redo, again and again, like comics killing Superman, or making Spiderman black just to be trendy has proven NOT, to help revive interest in old franchises. More often it tends to make recovering public interest more difficult for sometimes decades.

I'm more bothered by the fact that he feels its necessary to have a gay character. It speaks more of agenda than anything. It speaks to him actively looking to market 'gay' to attract that gay audience. It speaks to a trend of 'needing' gay in it to be 'fresh', it speaks of needing to point out 'this guy's gay' in order to establish 'gay' in his film.

In the last Trek, there was one or two scenes that even spoke of relationships. Kirk chasing Uhura, Spock being with Uhura and Kirk boinking the green chick Uhura's rooming with. Any of the other characters in the film could have been gay. Any scene with any of those tertiary characters having sex or talking about sex would have been tacked onto the film like tits on a battleship. Why the need to establish gay? Agenda and marketing. Weakness.

"Damnit Jim. I am a doctor, not a homosexual!"

"Captain's Log, Stardate 411.7: The... Klingons have surrounded us and are... attempting to board the Enterprise. Mr. Sulu,.... take us to Warp Factor 8. Mr. Chekov! Nice dress."

Protoguy: Maybe he does have an agenda: the agenda of not being a heterosexist ass? Making sure that you don't discriminate against groups of people who are oppressed by the mainstream community (i.e., queer people) isn't "marketing" or making something "fresh," it's recognizing that gay people are people, that some people (or aliens) are gay, and that they are as worthy of attention as straight people. And that their gay relationships don't need to be kept secret or offscreen.

Because you point out three instances of exhibited (hetero)sexuality, but the scenes between Kirk and Uhura were multiple, as were the scenes establishing the relationship between her and Spock. More than three scenes, if only three pairs/potential pairs.

So to say "maybe everyone else is gay" is to raise the question of why only the heteros get to be filmed making out/chasing tail? Even if we assume that every single character in the film who isn't explicitly characterized as straight, is gay, then why are the only relationships shown the straight ones?

Also saying that making Kirk a little gay goes against canon is absurd. The man is a slut. Making out with women only makes you totally straight until you make out with a man, at which point you're a little gay. But obviously Kirk's not going to become Gaybo Queer McAssFuckALot, the point is that unless the dominant group takes specific, conscious, explicit steps to include or portray or not-oppress the non-dominant group (what seems to be labeled as some kind of "pandering" in some of the above comments), the dominant paradigm will continue unquestioned, unchanging. And that's sad.

Good for Abrams for at least realizing it.

Also: JGirl: Yes.

Omni-sexual Kirk would pretty much be Captain Jack Harkness wouldn't he? (Oops, JGirl already pointed this out) Damn the possible continuity questions. WHY HASN'T THIS HAPPENED YET?

Also gp is right, you can't just suddenly make a character a little bit gay to fill quotas.

I know we've all tried to forget Heroes, but remember when Mini John Connor first appeared and the character seemed, to a lot of people, to be gay.
A few episodes later, all that's dropped and everyone's denying he was ever gay.
It was bullshit and ridiculous.

To suddenly write Kirk as being gay is just insulting.

And I pointed out the scenes between Kirk and Uhura and Spock simply to say that there was minimal romantic whatever in the movie and it was between the two main characters. Inserting a tertiary and pretty much unnecessary romantic scene would have been almost as pointless as the original scenes themselves, except that one was used to show how Kirk learned about the Romulan attack and the other was to show the relationship between Spock and Uhura.

To imply that Kirk only goes after women because the "dominant paradigm" prevents his what? ego from swapping over is ludicrous. Like it's impossible to be a slut and just hetero? That's as dumb as saying gays just need to try women because it's just sex they want.

FUCK THIS MOVIE!

FUCK THIS MOVIE!

FUCK you...ROWLES..for advocating the rape of Gene Roddenberry's legacy. You better hope I'm not in charge when the time of reckoning comes, you WILL be judged, and disposed off, accordingly.

And I don't care who wrote this article, ANY article dealing with this is a another raping of Gene.

I just want to hi-five Cimorene's "Gaybo Queer McAssFuckALot," because that shit is hilarious and I wish I could work it into a casual conversation.

And my nerd cred isn't so great that I really remember the Generations movie, but is it actually stated anywhere that Sulu's daughter is the product of a romantic sexual relationship with a woman? Gay couples have children too; I know several in this thing we call real life. I mean, unless Kirk actually popped out with something like Lo! There Do I See the Product of My Former Helmsman's Throbbing Loin-Couplage With A Straight Chick, I really don't see the daughter's existence as probative. (Did I use that word right?)

Also when someone ANNOUNCES he's going to have a gay character I get some pretty nervous because I don't know if I think JJ is that like....good at his job, if i'm honest.
And I don't like his face. Or his hair. He kind of looks like the Steve Colbert President in Monsters Vs Aliens and it's not a good thing.

Like everyone is saying, if you plan to have a gay character DO LIKE TREK ALREADY DID AND HAVE A CHARACTER WHO THE ENTIRE CAST AND CREW KNOWS IS GAY WHO IS WRITTEN AND ACTED AS GAY BUT NEVER HAD TO HAVE A SCENE WHERE HE STOPS MID PHASER BATTLE AND IS LIKE 'OH RYKER, JUST FYI, i AM TOTALLY INTO YOUR BEARD IN A SEXUAL WAY BECAUSE I AM GAY! LOOK OUT, BORG *ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAP*'
They did it already so JJ Abrams needs to JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP, JJ. IF YOU'RE MAKING A SECOND TREK MOVIE AND STILL HAVE THIS LEVEL OF IGNORANCE YOU ARE A DOUCHE.

Ahem.

But no, the point stands, you can't suddenly decide Kirk has been gay all along and he's only SUCH a man ho out of a desire to 'prove' his sexuality to people, nor can you introduce a character who's like 'Hi, I'm bob, the redshirt, I'm gay and this is my life partner Gweeblax and our adopted venusian baby girl Pinkie' because it's obvious shoe horning and pandering.

UNLESS....Unless The Gay will save Kirk from Lizard Monsters, in which case we may need to establish the gay characters so they can save Kirk's flabby/taught and pert ass(depends which Kirk we're addressing here)

I will say THIS, Quinto and Pine have an astonishing amount of natural chemistry which I can state as a fact fuels the entirety of Tumblr's interest in the films, and if JJ feels he needs to expand that, I wouldn't say no to a DVD extra to that effect. For science. Science in my bunk.

How is it possible for people on both sides of this to be wrong?

Clearly changing important aspects of any character is not necessarily a bad thing.
It breaks canon, and it upsets people who liked the character, as people don't like things that they like to change. But that doesn't matter, the past does not own the future and fans do not own the franchise. As has been said, making Starbuck a woman worked out very nicely in most people's eyes. The people who object to the change are wrong.

On the other hand, while it is true that some people, homophobes and those blinded by privilege, will be protesting this change for those reasons it's clearly not the case for everybody who doesn't like the change. As I just said, lots of people just don't like change. Give Kirk a peg leg and they will protest the same, even though they have nothing against people with peg legs. The people who call the objectors heterosexists are wrong too.

p.s. All of the relationships shown in the first new Star Trek were shit, creepy and a waste of time and the film was sexist. Those be objective facts.

Ender, this isn't the same as giving Kirk a peg leg, not even remotely, and it's not about people fearing change.

If you want to introduce a gay character to something as mainstream and far reaching as trek, you can't just suddenly make a character who has, for decades, been straight, into a gay character.

It's not...okay, I'm hoping you know what I mean here by this; it's not a natural progression of existing canon. If Kirk lost a limb and the limb was replaced, that's plausible and realistic because hey, Kirk is a starship captain who comes under heavy fire every fucking week, he's gonna get hurt.

Suddenly deciding to gay things up just because you think you're helping is pathetic. You either just have gay characters who exist and are there, or you dont. You don't make a big deal out of praising yourself for being THE ONLY ONE to think of it and promising to introduce a gay character. It's pandering. Gay people aren't children or easily led morons who'll cheer in the audience because they see a flash of gay.
This isn't like when they had Scottie talk at pathetic length about the crap he did to Scott Bakula's fucking BEAGLE, which was thrown in so the hardcore trekkers had mastubatory fodder, this is changing a fundamental aspect of a characters existence forty years into the franchise.

How frustrating is it when pilots air and characters races are changed or played with, just because some producer somewhere panicked?

"If you want to introduce a gay character to something as mainstream and far reaching as trek, you can't just suddenly make a character who has, for decades, been straight, into a gay character."

Why not? According to what rules?

"It's not...okay, I'm hoping you know what I mean here by this"

I'm afraid not, I had no idea that you meant "it's not a natural progression of existing canon". I agree with you there. I just don't see this mystical rule that prohibits changing canon.
It worked when they made Starbuck a woman. It didn't work when [bad change in something]. Change is not the problem, doing it poorly is the only problem.

"Suddenly deciding to gay things up just because you think you're helping is pathetic. + the rest of your paragraph, i.e. it's pandering"

That's your interpretation of why they're doing it, and there's no reason you have to like their reasoning. But that has no impact on whether it will be a good change, or whether changing canon is ever acceptable. He could be doing it because he loves Hitler and that wouldn't make the act of changing canon any better or worse.

"this is changing a fundamental aspect of a characters existence forty years into the franchise."

But why is this a problem? You don't have to like it, I'm not saying it's a change I would like, but there is no rule that makes changing canon 'forbidden', it just upsets a lot of fans who feel entitled to not see things they like change. They are not entitled to demand that.

"How frustrating is it when pilots air and characters races are changed or played with, just because some producer somewhere panicked?"

I can't say I've ever seen that.

"By the way, I am aware JJ didn't actually say he'd make specifically make Kirk gay, for some reason that's become my sort of default position but I hope it's coming through that I am aware of that?"

Yup, ditto.

Socrates, fair point, while scenes did exist establishing it and while the cast/characters would have known, yeah, we didn't technically.

And yes, exactly, absolutely there needs to be more representation of gays in more media, but yes, how to do it without it being insulting.

Ender, I think my issue might be more HOW Abrams is approaching it, and going back to Socrates point, how to actually do it without it being silly or insulting.

Going back to our oh so useful Kirk example, lets say this film around JJ decides Kirk is Bi or a repressed homesexual or something...it wouldn't work. If he wanted a gay Kirk he should have Made It So in the first film, that's just a given.

Gah, I'm having one of those moments when I can't articulate my point they way I'd like to...

I think it's more...if you make a decision to make a major character, or any character in a show openly gay, you have to approach it in an appropriate way and I feel like he hasn't and wont . To just thrust a gay character because you think you're the sole person in the world to notice something(and you're WRONG about it JJ) and want to correct it feels...preachy and insulting and patronising to me.

No, what's screwed up is you assuming that I thik a gay character in a Trek universe is abnormal.

A straight character suddenly going gay is as ludicrous as those who think being gay to begin with is a choice. You could argue that Kirk was fighting his 'gayness' all those years, hiding behind macho bullshit, but the very nature of the Roddenberry Universe makes such 'hiding' unnecessary. Mankind is supposed to have overcome those sort of petty things centuries earlier, and tacking on our own centuries tired-ass insecurities flies in the face of that Universe. That's what people mean by canon. Not that Kirk or any other character can't be gay, that being gay is no big deal and therefore the stigma which would cause someone to be closeted doesn't exist.

It has nothing to do with not wanting to see gay people in a film. It has everything to do with bolting a gay character into a story simply to include a gay character into the story. Announcing it beforehand is the "out" that screams it is a conscious decision to play to the gay audience.

Either you hate gay people and don't want them in the future, don't want to see them in movies.

Or you don't think it's necessary to show gay people in the movie.

Or you think it's pandering or something to show gay people in the movie.

Or you think it's anti-canon to show gay people on the Enterprise.

That sequence of narrow, playing-to-your-argument statements right there tells me that you are far more militant in your feelings about heterosexuals than anything I've read so far from supposed "heterosexists" on the other side of the issue.

You cry about labels and prejudice yet your fucked up assumptions about what people think and feel are just that - fucked up assumptions based on very nearly nothing but your own prejudices.

You want to have a gay character in your film? Put a gay character in your film. There's no need to make a show about how 'forward-thinking' you are to have a gay character in your film. That's why it's pandering, not simply because you include gay characters. There's the difference.

This reminds me of that asshole who produces Glee, when a band declines to be included in his show, he runs to the press and declares that they're homophobes and the reason they don't want to be on the show is because there are gay people on the show. He did this at least twice. He made asshole assumptions about people he doesn't even know. Is it possible that one or two of them feel that way? Absolutely. Does it absolutely, irrefutably mean that they're homophobes? Not one fucking bit.

Get a fucking grip on yourself before you start accusing people of what is essentially a hate crime now, thanks to attitudes like yours.

I've lost track a bit here about whether we're talking about including a gay character in general or making Kirk gay in some fashion.

If we're talking about Kirk, I think Protoguy's point is a good one. If he's really growing up in a society where homosexuality is a non-issue, why would he feel the need to suppress it? Suddenly making him gay or bi when there's been nothing to suggest this in 3 seasons of a TV show, 6 previous movies, and one reboot would smack of poor story telling to me, and sacrificing part of the storytelling just to shoe-horn a gay character into it would be insulting to both the heterosexual and (I imagine) homosexual audience. Seeing as he's explicitly said it's not pandering to simply include a gay character, I don't think it's necessary to try and defend him here.

Still I think in order to properly represent a gay character in this universe, the director is going to have to tell the audience about it, because none of the other characters are going to notice. If the characters don't notice how is the audience supposed to? To quote Herr Dr. Strangelove,

"Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*! Why didn't you tell the world, EH?"

(Note: I don't think homosexuality is a "Doomsday Machine" that just happens to be what they were talking about in the movie.)

No, I assumed you were gay when you were so quick to label people heterosexist based on almost nothing. Also where the militant vibe came from. I'm not pulling shit out of thin air like you are.