Simon Pegg 'Respectfully Disagrees' With George Takei's Opinion on Sulu Being Gay in 'Star Trek Beyond'
On Thursday, the Herald Sun reported that John Cho’s character in Star Trek Beyond, Hikaru Sulu, is gay. Cho himself said it was intended by the movie’s writers, Simon Pegg and Justin Lin, as a tribute to the original series’ Sulu, George Takei.
While many fans expressed excitement over this development, Takei did not. The actor and LGBTQ advocate told The Hollywood Reporter, “I’m delighted that there’s a gay character. … Unfortunately, it’s a twisting of [show creator] Gene [Roddenberry]’s creation, to which he put in so much thought. I think it’s really unfortunate.” Takei also told the Reporter that he had pushed for a new gay character to be created rather than reveal Sulu as “closeted.”
Now, Simon Pegg is reacting to Takei’s reaction. In a statement to the Guardian, Pegg said he “respectfully disagrees” with the iconic actor. It was lengthy, so let’s use bullet points:
Pegg feels that if they had added a new gay character, it would have been easy for that person to be defined as “the gay one,” and that would be tokenism.
He refuted that Sulu was closeted, saying, “It just hasn’t come up before.”
Pegg said he felt that Gene Roddenberry made the Enterprise’s crew straight out of “necessity” given the time it aired, but said that his vision was always “infinite diversity in infinite combinations.”
And finally, Pegg pointed out that the new movie franchise is on an “alternate timeline,” meaning that in this universe, Sulu happens to be gay. He said he likes this because “it suggests that in a hypothetical multiverse, across an infinite matrix of alternate realities, we are all LGBT somewhere.”
Later on Friday, Zachary Quinto, who stars in Beyond as Spock, seemed to echo Simon Pegg’s sentiments. He told Pedestrian.TV , “As a member of the LGBT community myself, I was disappointed by the fact that George was disappointed… . My hope is that eventually George can be strengthened by the enormously positive response from especially young people who are heartened by and inspired by this really tasteful and beautiful portrayal of something that I think is gaining acceptance and inclusion in our societies across the world, and should be.”
Previously: John Cho Reveals Sulu Is Gay in ‘Star Trek Beyond’:
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