{"id":91480,"date":"2016-07-23T06:48:08","date_gmt":"2016-07-23T06:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/07\/23\/john-cho-is-the-hero-we-deserve-the-hero-we-need\/"},"modified":"2016-07-23T06:48:08","modified_gmt":"2016-07-23T06:48:08","slug":"john-cho-is-the-hero-we-deserve-the-hero-we-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/07\/23\/john-cho-is-the-hero-we-deserve-the-hero-we-need\/","title":{"rendered":"John Cho Is the Hero We Deserve & the Hero We Need"},"content":{"rendered":"

fandomshatepeopleofcolor<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

AVC:<\/b>\u00a0Could you walk people through how Simon [Pegg], Doug [Jung], and Justin [Lin] first told you that Sulu would have a husband? What was your reaction? How did you first learn it?<\/b><\/p>\n

JC:<\/b>\u00a0I learned it first from Justin. Simon had pitched it. I heard from Justin early on in preproduction. I was concerned for a few reasons. I was concerned that George wouldn\u2019t like it, and it turned out to be true. But I was actually concerned that he wouldn\u2019t like it for a different reason. I thought that George would object because he\u2019s a gay actor who was playing straight. I know that was difficult, that he couldn\u2019t come out and that he had crafted a straight character. Then, now, because he\u2019s an activist and he\u2019s out of the closet\u2014clearly, this is an homage a little bit to him\u2014[I worried] he would object to us taking that from his life and say, \u201cHey, I was a gay actor who created a straight character, and now you\u2019re making him gay because I\u2019ve come out of the closet?,\u201d that we were just seeing him for his sexual orientation. So I thought that would be where he would object. It turns out not to be his objection. But that\u2019s what I was worried about.<\/p>\n

And secondly, I was concerned that Asians and Asian Americans might see it as a sort of continuing feminization of Asian men. Asian American men, Asian men have been basically eunuchs in American cinema and television, and I thought maybe it would be seen as a continuation of that.<\/p>\n

Thirdly, I was concerned that because this is the same genetic Sulu\u2014although we\u2019re in an alternate timeline\u2014that we would be inadvertently implying that sexual orientation was a choice. So those were my areas of concern. Having said that, I was convinced that the message was pure and that it was coming from a really good place, and I thought that it was handled correctly. People would buy it. And I think we have handled it correctly, and I think people are not worrying about the issues that I was worried about.<\/p>\n

\u2026<\/p>\n

JC:<\/b>\u00a0You know, I had requested that my husband be Asian.<\/p>\n

AVC:<\/b>\u00a0Why was that?<\/b><\/p>\n

JC:<\/b>\u00a0The reason was that I grew up with some gay Asian male friends. You don\u2019t really see Asian men together very often. It\u2019s very rare in life. I\u2019ve always felt that there was some extra cultural shame to having two Asian men together, because it was so difficult to come out of the closet, so difficult to be gay and Asian, that they couldn\u2019t really bring themselves\u2026\u00a0It\u2019s easier to run away from people that look like your family. I wanted the future to be where it was completely normal and therefore, aside from the gender, they look like a traditional heterosexual couple. So that relationship, to me, the optics of it are that it looks very traditional on the one hand and very radical on the other.<\/p>\n

Submitted by\u00a0<\/p>\n

when-did-this-become-difficult<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

fandomshatepeopleofcolor: AVC:\u00a0Could you walk people through how Simon [Pegg], Doug [Jung], and Justin [Lin] first told you that Sulu would have a husband? What was your reaction? How did you first learn it? JC:\u00a0I learned it first from Justin. Simon had pitched it. I heard from Justin early on in preproduction. I was concerned for … <\/p>\n

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