u/New_Girl3685

Hi all, hope this is ok to post in here. I was watching some old episodes tonight and it occurred to me that while I can name a few famous people who were inspired by Uhura (Whoopi Goldberg, Sally Ride), I can't think of anyone who has specifically mentioned being inspired by Sulu. A lot of people seem inspired by George Takei and his life in general, but I can't recall ever seeing someone famous say that seeing Sulu onscreen as a kid impacted them.

That seems weird, but I couldn't find anything (after a little googling) that explained it. Uhura's impact, particularly with the Civil Rights movement and MLK, is really well documented, and I'm not sure why it seems like Sulu didn't have a similar impact on Asian-American kids watching Star Trek in the sixties.

The one thing I thought of that might explain it is there was such a huge lack of opportunities for Asian actors in the 70s through—well, now, that maybe any kids who were inspired by Sulu to go into acting just didn't become famous enough to give interviews and credit him as an inspiration. That seems like a feeble theory, though.

Curious to hear if there are people who were inspired by Sulu who just didn't show up in my (brief) search, and if there aren't, what people think the reasons behind that might be. Thank you!