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George Takei is probably best known for his role as Lieutenant Sulu on Startrek. It's the kind of career defining role that fanboys will be screaming about until there aren't any fanboys left in this world. I have a dirty confession to make. I've never seen any of the Star Trek shows. I did however see one of the movies. Not by choice.
I'm not a science fiction, fantasy kind of gay, but I've always loved George Takei. And, by always I mean the past five years. |
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I don't know what it was, but my father and I lived for this commercial he did. It was for a TV and it had 4 colors instead of 3. I still don't understand what that means, but apparently it's really cool. And, when you turned the TV to the side, George Takei looked at the camera and said, “Oh, my!”
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Anyway it was one of the most important parts of my childhood and one of the few times that my father and I have actually bonded over something. That and Gwen Stefani's "Sweet Escape"
George Takei is such an important part of pop culture. He was an Asian American playing a lead role on a national television program. American culture still likes to pretend that white is the default for characters and it really shows props to Star Trek for displaying such a three dimensional character in SPACE. |
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George Takei is such a role model. He lived through the Japanese internment camps that the United States created during World War II and to watch him drag our republican presidential nominee for filth for all of his xenophobic and racist remarks is the best thing that's ever happened to me.
It's so important to be able to see yourself in the media you consume and George Takei has done that for so many people. He was also gorgeous in Star Trek. I've seen the video clips. I've seen the pictures. I was like damn George is bringing it in all this shirtless realness. I would have been a geek boy back then just so I could watch George sparring on national television. It was really good. |
George Takei is also an ardent supporter of LGBT rights, which is really not that surprising after his marriage to his partner Brad Altman in 2008. They'd been together for at least 18 years at that point and they were the first to apply for a marriage license in West Hollywood. It just shows how real the struggle was for marriage equality.
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I find George Takei to be one of the best celebrities with a wikipedia page. He's a gay, Japanese American, and that's an amazing public figure for us as a generation to have to look up to. Television shirks the gays and anyone who isn't white, so the fact that we do have someone who's a gay Asian American is amazing.
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Representation is incredibly important and the only people who say it isn't are the ones who are represented. Young members of the LGBT community would have significantly less self hatred if they could see themselves and see that there's nothing wrong with being who you are. George Takei is a trivia fact from pop culture, but he's so much more important and representative than just a footnote in a book.
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