Finally! After 50 years there’s been a gay kiss in Star Trek
After over half a century since it first aired, the iconic series Star Trek has finally shown a gay kiss.
The kiss was during the mid-season finale of Star Trek: Discovery, which has been streaming on Netflix since September.
You can watch the romantic moment here.
This was the cutest thing! And the first gay kiss in @startrekcbs am I right? @wcruz73 @albinokid ā„ļø pic.twitter.com/QHccNuDL5r
ā Lewis Peters (@lew_and_i) November 14, 2017
The kiss was between Lieutenant Paul Stamets, the shipās top scientist, and Dr Hugh Culber, Discoveryās medical officer, who have had a blossoming romance throughout the season so far.
Stamets is played by Anthony Rapp, and Culber by Wilson Cruz, both of whom are openly gay actors.
The show has received criticism from homophobic fans, but Cruz came back with the best response.
“You can turn your TV off, sure, but youāll only be cheating yourself. LGBTQ people arenāt going to just disappear because you put your head in the sand.”
āWe share the planet with you. We have always been here. We will always be here. You just donāt want to see us. Iām happy to tell you we wonāt be invisible anymore. Not for your comfort.”
Anthony Rapp has recently been in the news, after he accused actor Kevin Spacey of sexually assaulting him in 1986, after which Spacey came out of gay.
The Original Series, which first aired in 1966, made waves in the 60s by featuring an interracial kiss, between Kirk and Uhura.
However the often-groundbreaking show has been criticised in the past for its lack of LGBT+ representation.
However the show has always had LGBT+ fans, with historians believing Kirk and Spock to be one of the first āslashā pairings in fan culture.
They have made some steps in recent years. In Star Trek Beyond, the third in the movie franchise, Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu, played by John Cho, was shown as a married gay man. However a scene with the husband and child, and a kiss, was apparently removed from the final cut of the film.
Prominent LGBT+ activist George Takei, who played Sulu in the Original Series, criticised the move, calling it āa twisting of Gene’s creation,ā referring to Gene Roddenberry, the shows original creator, though he later walked back the comments.
George Takei and John Cho (Photos by Michael Loccisano and Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)
However Roddenberry had always intended for the show to push boundaries.
āBy creating a new world with new rules, I could make statements about sex, religion, Vietnam, politics, and intercontinental missiles,ā he said.
Roddenberry’s son said his father would have been “100 percent in favour” of making Sulu a gay character.
Takei has recently been accused of sexually assaulting a 23-year-old model in 1981, though he denies the allegation.He then had to apologise, for ‘joking,’ about the alleged assault.
Star Trek has also had prominent gay figures Patrick Stewart, and Zachary Quinto, star in reincarnations of the franchise, as Picard in The Next Generation, and Spock in the 2009 reboot film.
