The downside of having this pause between the other Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage month and the George Takei spotlight is that I have come up with so many more thoughts than I expected.
Waiting was a matter of necessity. In addition to wanting to catch up on daily song posts, two of the books were only available through Inter-Library loan and it took a while for the requests to come through.
Therefore (in a big departure for me) this post may wander.
After reading his graphic novel account, They Called Us Enemy (2019), and his children's book, My Lost Freedom (2024), I started wondering what else there was:
To the Stars: The Autobiography of George Takei, Star Trek's Mr. Sulu by Geoge Takei (1994)
Oh Myyy! by George Takei (2012)
Lions and Tigers and Bears: The Internet Strikes Back by George Takei (2013)
To Be Takei (2014)
Allegiance (Original Broadway Cast Recording) (2016)
I don't usually include years for books, but timing is somewhat relevant here.
First of all, for the regular autobiography, To the Stars, there is a big gap between it and the other writings.
It is such a big gap that he was not publicly out yet. It was a really entertaining book and there is so much that was interesting, but it is also weird because he is so publicly out now that you keep waiting for a mention; it just doesn't happen.
Then, at some point, he starts having a real social media presence. That inspired the two books and the documentary, which is largely about his activism and awareness raising. A lot of that is for LGBT issues, but it is also for issues of racism and remembering Japanese internment, so also the genesis of the stage play, Allegiance.
It is after that when we get the books related to internment but geared toward younger audiences.
That is all a logical progression. I also discovered a couple of other movies that will relate to the Pride month reading, so in fact Sulu is the bridge.
Here is where my thoughts become somewhat messy.
First of all, the two books about internet use are not great. Part of that is simply that they are outdated; that is a thing that happens with technology. An older person figuring out the internet is likely to be more interesting to him than to almost anyone else.
The books are not as amusing as his posts, though he does replicate many of them.
There is also one point of frustration for me.
When I first became aware of his posting, it related to a clip of a person in a store getting up from a wheelchair to get something off of a shelf, and people were mocking that person for using a wheelchair when they didn't need it.
Many people who use wheelchairs and other mobility devices can stand and even walk. They may not be able to do it for extended periods without heart strain or dizziness, or perhaps they are at high risk of dislocation. There may be a lot of pain involved, but there are lots of types of disabilities and health issues. Thinking that every person in a wheelchair is totally paralyzed at least from the waist down is ignorant. Mocking that is cruel.
He got some push back. I don't think he handled it quite as badly as William Shatner, but he didn't come around either. In the books he talks about offending people. He defends humor and freedom of speech, but he got why mocking Japan after the tsunami was wrong.
It doesn't make him different from many other celebrities. I don't think he's a bad person and I don't dislike him, but I do wish he was better in that way.
The next point of messiness is about Allegiance, though he didn't write that.
Admittedly, I have not seen it; I have only read about it and listened to the soundtrack.
You have a very close brother and sister falling on different sides of the loyalty question, where the sister resists and marries another resister, and the brother joins the army and serves heroically, but the white woman he fell in love with is killed in a scuffle.The brother and sister are estranged for sixty years until her death.
There are a lot of things that are unrealistic with that. First of all, there was one person shot in an internment camp, and it was an old Japanese man. I don't think it makes sense to make the martyr a white woman.
Most families seemed to stay close. There are a lot of different experiences, and I don't know them all, but that didn't seem right.
Also, they make a real person the villain, but in what seems to be an exaggerated way. That feels irresponsible and wrong.
I did find some other thoughts on that issue, from people who actually saw it and are closer to the issues, so I am going to let them comment:
https://www.nichibei.org/2015/11/a-jaclers-perspective-of-allegiance/
I'm sure some of it is for dramatic effect, but I still think there could have been a better story there. Maybe it would have better if it were based more on the Takei family.
For more about the internee experience, They Called Us Enemy really is excellent.
I also recommend We Are Not Free by Traci Chee. She came from a large family, and maybe that made it easier for her to depict multiple different attitudes but where connections persisted.
Finally, in reading about Takei's early acting career, the same names kept popping up. This was fun in a way, because I have my own fondness for Keye Luke and Nobu McCarthy. Then it was a reminder of how much their ethnicity limited their roles, and they were relatively lucky in terms of finding work.
That reminded me of Nancy Wang Yuen's Reel Inequality, but other things as well.
There is still a long way to go.
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