Although he hadn’t really given thought to the issue, J.J. Abrams is open to the idea of a gay character in Star Trek 2.
Star Trek has always been considered to be progressive and groundbreaking, but there has never been an identifiable gay character, although there were stories which dealt with homosexuality in an oblique way.
Abrams confessed to being surprised that during the years of the televised Star Trek, that there was never a gay character in any of the shows. “You know what’s funny? As someone who was never a huge Star Trek fan and I didn’t watch the shows,” he said. “And my experiences with the movie was the first series and then watching and re-watching some of the movies that I’ve seen. I’m frankly shocked that in the history of Star Trek there have never been gay characters in all the series. In Deep Space Nine and all the Enterprises that that’s never come up.”
According to Abrams, it’s a bit trickier to have a gay character in a movie than in a television series, due to the time and story limitations. “Where in a movie when you got those two hours, it usually is a broader stroke thing, and the question is how do you do it in a film that doesn’t feel like you’re shoehorning in something that has meaning to you in a piece of entertainment that doesn’t otherwise have room for it,” he said. “So that’s the trick. So honestly I’m stunned that it’s not been something that’s been overtly, you know, dramatized. What an ideal opportunity on one of those shows to have that be an ongoing storyline.”
But now that he’s aware that of the lack of gay characters, will Abrams do something about it for Star Trek 2? “Well, thank you for bringing this up for me,” he told AfterElton, “because honestly this was not in the list of my priorities to try to figure out how to make this movie in the best possible way. But it will now be in the hopper. And it’s one of those things I’ll bring up with the writers next time we meet.”
Source: AfterElton
