The news this week that the forthcoming film Star Trek Beyond would portray Enterprise helmsman Hikaru Sulu as gay set off a pop-culture brouhaha that spanned several of the topics I address in this blog – entertainment, politics, public relations and social media.

George Takei, who played Sulu for decades before becoming a prominent gay-rights activist in recent years, expressed unhappiness with the movie’s writers making the character gay because it contradicts Sulu’s established backstory.

Takei’s comments drew a response from Simon Pegg, who took part in writing the screenplay for Beyond in addition to playing Chief Engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott.

I think Pegg has a point when he says: “We could have introduced a new gay character, but he or she would have been primarily defined by their sexuality, seen as the ‘gay character,’ rather than simply for who they are, and isn’t that tokenism? … I loved the idea of it being someone we already knew because the audience have a pre-existing opinion of that character as a human being, unaffected by any prejudice. Their sexual orientation is just one of many personal aspects, not the defining characteristic.”