TO THE STARS: The Autobiography of George Takei, Star Trek's Mr. Sulu

TO THE STARS: The Autobiography of George Takei, Star Trek's Mr. Sulu
GEORGE TAKEI
Pocket Books
$8.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Best known as Mr. Sulu, helmsman of the Starship Enterprise™ and captain of the Starship Excelsior, George Takei is beloved by millions as part of the command team that has taken audiences to new vistas of adventure in Star Trek®—the unprecedented television and feature film phenomenon.

From the program’s birth in the changing world of the 1960s and death at the hands of the network to its rebirth in the hearts and minds of loyal fans, the Star Trek story has blazed its own path into our recent cultural history, leading to a series of blockbuster feature films and three new versions of Star Trek for television.

The Star Trek story is one of boundless hope and crushing disappointment, wrenching rivalries and incredible achievements. It is also the story of how, after nearly thirty years, the cast of characters from a unique but poorly rated television show have come to be known to millions of Americans and people around the world as family.

For George Takei, the Star Trek adventure is intertwined with his personal odyssey through adversity in which four-year-old George and his family were forced by the United States government into internment camps during World War II.

Star Trek means much more to George Takei than an extraordinary career that has spanned thirty years. For an American whose ideals faced such a severe test, Star Trek represents a shining embodiment of the American Dream—the promise of an optimistic future in which people from all over the world contribute to a common destiny.

I RECEIVED THIS BOOK FROM THE GOODREADS M/M GIFT EXCHANGE. THANKS!

My Review: The fascistic turn new Trek has taken has a hard job erasing the original series' legacy, as there are still some dollars to be extracted from the nostalgia for those bygone, halcyon days of TOS (The Original Series in Trekspeak), of inclusion and celebration of human decency over disgusting, primitive violence and hatred of Others.

Thirty years ago, this book stood out. Nowadays, it's a bloody unicorn. See my review of They Called Us Enemy for the expanded and more self-focused story of Takei's childhood experiences with US racism and exclusion.

This is the story of Takei the man, the actor, the ground-breaking Asian role model. What it isn't, to the moaning of superfans of TOS, is a gossipy tea-spilling tell-all about the shenanigans behind the scenes of TOS. I was mildly miffed by this on my 1990s read; but this is a re-read, and it's been an entire generation for news to have filtered out about this fact, so no pearl-clutching from me.

Takei does not shy away from discussing his on-set conflicts with Shatner, of course, because they're part of his ground-breaking for actors who aren't white. He stood up for the integrity of his vision of Sulu. That would've been unthinkable even ten years earlier. Better contracts for actors! Imagine! The entertainment industry, like all capitalist enterprises, demands workers sacrifice for the profits of the owners. Takei stood against that; his actions might be small, but they were in concert with others, and had a real impact on the well-being of those across the industry who were also not white.

I mostly reveled, if I'm honest, in the opportunity to hear Takei's voice in my head as I read his conversational writing style. Of course, in the 1990s, the conversation didn't include even a whisper of his now-public gayness. He came out when the legalization of "gay marriage" was vetoed by Arnie the Terminator; around the was when Proposition 8 began being mooted. Never think, babyqueers, that straight people are your friends. Anything "granted" to you by their charity is something they can, and will, take away. May take them a long time, may take them a week, but anything they can take away they will eventually.

Would his very open (in fandom, anyway) secret have caused a stir had he discussed it in 1994? You bet! Remember how very different the landscape was then: AIDS was still a death sentence, though it was now deferrable to those who could afford the meds. There was the travesty of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" that the inexperience and indifference of the Clintons gifted us with wreaking havoc; also the indefensible "Defense of Marriage" Act. The social landscape was not such that the revelation to the normies that George was a big ol' 'mo would've done more good than harm...to the book, to the franchise, to his inclusion in the Star Trek/industrial complex of convention appearances and tat-sales.

I understood that then, I'm more clear than ever about it now, and I urge those unhappy with this decision made by a stranger they do not know personally to accept a perspective check from one who was there, who knew that landscape intimately.

He had our backs when the chips were down and his voice really counted. Let go of judgment, let the past be the past, accept that now things are different in part because of a brave man who's lost it all more than once in his life.