Let’s fix this once and for all: it’s pronounced te-KAY not te-KIE. Thank you.
The original Star Trek’s Mr. Sulu, George Takei, is a fascinating man. He’s a respected activist now, having turned his acting career on its end when the roles dried up. He’s the eternal optimist who sees nothing wrong with always speaking the truth, even when it’s not sought. He’ll pat a fellow actor on the belly and say, “You’ve put on weight. You should really do something about that”, and reacts with a shrug when he’s told later that he might have hurt the man’s feelings.
To Be Takei is the 2014 documentary about his life. It’s on Neflitx. I had no idea Takei appeared in so many movies and television shows before and after Star Trek. I’ve heard him on The Howard Stern Show, where he’s the official announcer who appears quarterly to dish on his days on Star Trek and talk about his activism. He’s a champion of gay rights and for educating Americans about the internment of Japanese-Americans after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Takei was a little boy who had been born in the US, and he and his family, along with more than 100,000 others, were forcibly transported from California to Arkansas where they lived in warehousing before they were transferred back to California to live in another camp. Families lost their businesses, their bank accounts were frozen and racism against Japanese-Americans was fuelled to a disgusting degree. Internment finally ended in 1945. Takei is credited with helping to convince then-President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to officially apologize on behalf of the American government and disperse compensation payments to heirs.
There are plenty of light-hearted moments in To Be Takei, many supplied by George’s devoted husband Brad who has been forced into the limelight and is visibly awkward and candid about it. William Shatner comes off as a jerk and he does it all by himself. Takei told a story on Stern’s show last week about how Shatner prevented a photo shoot on the Star Trek set involving only Leonard Nimoy and held up production for nearly an entire day. In other words, he threw a jealous temper-tantrum. Seeing George land some zingers during the 2006 Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner is sweet, whether or not the testy relationship between them is entirely accurate. To Be Takei is a fascinating portrayal of a pop culture icon. Some say Takei rules social media. He doesn’t have as many followers as some others, but they number in the millions – me among them. He curates his content to include only the best material and elicits a good laugh every day. I kind of wish we were neighbours. He’d be fun to run into on the street now and then.