Still not interested, Uhura? I could change your mind!

Tim Cavanaugh | November 10, 2005

I'm enough of a George Takei fan that anything that gets people praising the star of PT 109, The Green Berets, and Return From the River Kwai is OK by me. But the hubbub over Mr. Sulu's emergence from the closet suggests one social skill has started to atrophy in the era of general acceptance of homosexuality—apparently nobody has gaydar anymore.

I'm not saying you would have assumed Takei was gay from his Star Trek days (well, come to think of it, he did swing that fencing foil around with a little too much panache), but nobody who heard Kidd Chris' prank phone call with Takei a few years back could have been in any doubt that the actor was queer as a French Horn. Good on him! Takei and his companion have been at most lightly closeted, and if this "revelation" gets a few more butts in the seats for his run in Equus, well, that's what actors are supposed to do. So congratulations, George. Hearing this news item is a little like when I heard that Burgess Meredith died after years of assuming he'd actually died in Rocky III, but it does add texture to the reverse-Enterprise Sulu's aggressively het lechery in the classic "Mirror, Mirror" episode.

Comments

|11.10.05 @ 4:09PM|#

Nerd!

|11.10.05 @ 4:12PM|#

"...it does add texture to the reverse-Enterprise Sulu's aggressively het lechery in the classic 'Mirror, Mirror' episode."

Best...episode...ever!

Cavanaugh, it took Star Trek geekery for you to, once, make sense on pop culture. It's a start.

|11.10.05 @ 4:15PM|#

There was a Salon or NY Times article recently on the death of gaydar. Something about new categories of straight, gay-vague, and gay, and all the gay-vague guys confusing people's gaydar. It was more informative in a "this passes for journalism now?" way more than anything else.

|11.10.05 @ 4:16PM|#

When I heard this story, and decided to blog it myself, that Sulu-with-epee picture was the first thing I went out and grabbed. It will come to be known as the ur-Sulu-is-gay moment.

[GEEK] Although, in continuity, he's got a daughter. She even shows up in Generations.[/GEEK]

|11.10.05 @ 4:23PM|#

Hearing this news item is a little like when I heard that Burgess Meredith died after years of assuming he'd actually died in Rocky III.

Just thinking of Stallone's anguished gibberish in that scene has me giggling at my desk.

|11.10.05 @ 4:28PM|#

[GEEK] Although, in continuity, he's got a daughter. She even shows up in Generations.[/GEEK]

<Cartman>This shows that Sulu is not straight in real life, only in tele-vision.</Cartman>

|11.10.05 @ 4:33PM|#

I have a friend who was a hardcore, convention-attendin', dressin'-up-like-a-klingon fan (most of whom refer to themselves as 'trekkers' although I've always preferred the much older and, IMHO, classier 'trekkie' to describe myself).

He told me Takei was gay about 15 years ago so I was not surprised at all.

Following in the gaydar theme, he also told be about a rather interesting sub-class (read: alternate universe) of Star Trek fan fiction whereby Kirk and Spock are gay and hot for each other carrying on an interstellar sex romp in each story.

|11.10.05 @ 4:34PM|#

David,

I can hear it. "Waa-uh-uh-c'maww-duhh..."

|11.10.05 @ 4:34PM|#

Oh, my.

Jeff P.|11.10.05 @ 4:39PM|#

Who do I have to blow to see Klingon porn?

"Show me that you have no honor!"
"Respect my painstick!"
"K'Plaaaaaaggggggh!"

|11.10.05 @ 4:44PM|#

Who do I have to blow to see Klingon porn?

A Klingon with a camera.

|11.10.05 @ 4:50PM|#

Well, Klingons do eat those squiggly worm things, but the real question is this: who's gayer, Sulu or Darth Vader?

|11.10.05 @ 4:51PM|#

joe,

You can make out one "Meegeee!" and something that sounds like "we got more to do" before he degenerates into total gibberish. The roar that he lets out at the end is too much.

|11.10.05 @ 4:54PM|#

He also had a thing for tribbling, according to the segment on Conan's show, "Takei: Secrets"

"I took a tribble home for the weekend... They didn't want it back."

Jeff P.|11.10.05 @ 4:55PM|#

I like it Targ style...

|11.10.05 @ 5:00PM|#

hello tim? last week called and they want their blog meme back yo.

|11.10.05 @ 5:07PM|#

"nobody who heard Kidd Chris' prank phone call"

Of course, some people have never even heard of "Kidd Chris" let alone some prank phone call he made....

|11.10.05 @ 5:39PM|#

"who's gayer, Sulu or Darth Vader?"

Trick question, Vader was not gay, but Anakin surely was.

"Just thinking of Stallone's anguished gibberish..."

The correct term is "blubbering."

|11.10.05 @ 5:40PM|#

Anyone Howard Stern listeners would have caught a great phone interview this morning with frequent guest Takei.

You can dance like Sulu...

|11.10.05 @ 5:46PM|#

SPD,
The best Takei interview ever was the Daily Show exposee on racism in the porn industry and him being asked if he was called to perform in "Hot, Wet Bitches."

Jeff P.|11.10.05 @ 5:59PM|#

Go look up the band Warp 11 and find the lyrics to their song Suds Me Up Sulu. Almost prophetic. I believe it's on thier CD "Boldly Go Down on Me."

clarityiniowa|11.10.05 @ 6:14PM|#

You mean there was ever any doubt? Very convenient that Sulu had a carnivorous plant-thing in his quarters that looked like it could give pretty excellent handjobs. I always assumed he was both gay and botanosexual.

|11.10.05 @ 6:26PM|#

I think I found out Takei was gay when Sci-Fi picked up the original episodes the first time and was playing each episode completely, with some interviews with cast and crew for 90 min. each weekday. It must have been sometime in 1999 or 2000. He mentioned that he was gay in one of his interviews, so this just isn't very surprising.

CNN--yesterdays news tomorrow.

|11.10.05 @ 6:34PM|#

Pardon my geekiness, but in the one where Sulu had the sword he grabbed Uhura and said "I'll protect you, fair maiden"

Her best line in the whole series came next: "Sorry, neither!"

|11.10.05 @ 6:58PM|#

Dude.

Equus is about a kid who fucks horses.

Let me repeat that: Equus is about a kid who fucks horses.

|11.10.05 @ 7:25PM|#

some of my coworkers and I used this as our Halloween costumes this year

|11.10.05 @ 9:00PM|#

Equus is about a kid who fucks horses.

It's been years since I read the play or saw it in college but I'm pretty sure he doesn't fuck any horses in it.

He does want to fuck a girl (human...not horse) and in his dillusional mind (polluted by confusing religious caca by his hopelessly mismatched parents) he believes six horses are watching and judging him because of it.

So blinds them with a metal spike.

But I don't think he fucked them. He did ride them naked, though.

Like I said...I could be remembering it wrong. I googled to see if I could find any specifics on the kid fucking horses but couldn't.

|11.11.05 @ 1:03PM|#

I googled to see if I could find any specifics on the kid fucking horses but couldn't.

That sounds... dangerous.

|11.11.05 @ 3:16PM|#

Sulu's gay? Why is everyone else not surprised? Did I miss something? Was there a story about "one time at internment camp" that I missed?

What with Roddenberry nailing half the staff and Takei's revelation, one wonders just what the heck was going on at Desilu.

|11.11.05 @ 7:21PM|#

Takei's interview on the Howard Stern Show yesterday was great. Except for him saying how when he was 8 or 9 years old he was turned on by his classmates trousers riding up. Good for him, but...