Lions and Tigers and Bears: The Internet Strikes Back

by George Takei

  It was this personal touch that made the difference. To my astonishment, hundreds of thousands of fans followed my lead, setting off a wave of change across Facebook. It was amazing to watch a tide of pink gather and form, with our straight allies making up so much of our force. I couldn’t have imagined a stronger virtual showing. For a few glorious days, everywhere I looked I saw those two equality bars in pink, each saying “I’m a supporter of love and equality.” It was our own “March on Washington,” and we had indeed overcome. By the end of the tide, millions had followed suit, and Facebook was awash with pink.

  Online antics being what they are, the Equality Symbol began to morph as users laid claim to or included various genres, symbols and icons. One of my favorites, naturally, arose from the sci-fi community and appropriated the rallying cry of a beleaguered human race on the run, as portrayed in Battlestar Galactica:

  Other sci-fi fans soon weighed in. The vampire lovers (thankfully, fans of the real ones, not the sparkly sort) had their fun, too. With vampire rights and gay rights so brilliantly analogized by the popular series True Blood (even to the point where opponents carried signs reading “God Hates Fangs”), this was an easy fit:

  Bacon lovers also had their say, as they always do with anything that even remotely resembles bacon, whether it be road signs or equality signs:

  And not to be outdone, butter lovers rallied with their own emblem, playing off the then-popular and now-somewhat-disgraced Southern personality, Paula Deen:

  People wondered whether, as a gay man, I was in any way offended by these posts. Not one tiny bit. For me, those heady days were a raucous celebration of diversity and humanity, the best kind of spontaneous outpouring. And so anyone who wanted to join, however they wanted, was welcome to it.

  The equality symbol apparently has legs. In the late summer of 2013, the CEO of the pasta company Barilla was embroiled in one of the biggest PR controversies in recent corporate memory by going on a radio show in Italy and stating that his company would certainly not be showing gay families in their advertising, and that if gay people had a problem with that, they could eat another kind of pasta. Now, if there’s anything companies should have learned in 2013, it’s how not to piss off groups of people or communities who are incredibly tight on social media. Within minutes of this statement, it was all over Facebook: Dump Barilla. Links to the translations of the radio interview immediately popped up on popular LGBT blogs; angry queens (who didn’t want the carbs anyway) snapped Instagrams of their garbage cans filled with Barilla pasta; mock-ups of Barilla boxes with “Bigotoni” pasta flashed up on Pinterest and Tumblr; and then this profile pic resurfaced:

  Just. Brilliant.

  But back to March and the Supreme Court. After the hearings were over, we and the rest of America waited, and waited…and waited. We knew that the marriage equality cases would probably be the last ones announced in the session because the Court prefers to leave the most important decisions for the very end, in part because their importance means the hubbub around them would drown out anything announced afterwards, and in part because the justices probably don’t want protestors near the Courthouse for the remainder of the term.

  So uncertain was the outcome that I actually prepared three different status updates for my Facebook page — one which celebrated, another which expressed satisfaction with some reservations, and another which excoriated the Court. Happily, it was the first of these that I joyously posted, praising Justice Anthony Kennedy for joining again with his socially liberal colleagues in a 5-4 decision striking down DOMA, and marveling that I had lived to see the day when marriage equality was recognized by the federal government, 44 years after the Stonewall riots began the LGBT civil rights movement in 1969.

  Edie Windsor became an instant hero to us all, her name forever associated with the case that ended official discrimination against gay and lesbian couples on the federal books. The decision, Windsor v. United States, struck down Section 3 of DOMA and required the IRS to repay Edie the money it had levied as taxes on her wife’s estate. Now, to no one’s surprise, a host of other questions immediately emerged around immigration and naturalization rights, health benefits and all of the financial benefits and privileges enjoyed by straight married couples. The government and its various agencies are busily sorting all of this out, and I am confident it will all be ironed out fairly.

  As expected, Prop 8 was tossed out on a technicality. It turned out, since the Attorney General and Governor of California had refused to enforce Prop 8, or appeal the ruling by the District Court striking it down, no one had any real “standing” to continue to appeal the case up the chain to the Supreme Court. That meant that the District Court’s decision stood, and that marriages were free to resume in California. It wasn’t a decision, therefore, “on the merits,” but for those of us who had been in limbo all this time, it was a win. Prop 8 was done, marriage equality was once again the law of the state.

  Indeed, since the DOMA ruling, one by one states have been passing marriage equality in their legislatures, or state supreme courts have ordered the government to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. As I write this, that number this very day has risen now to 17, as the New Mexico Supreme Court has just issued a unanimous ruling that expands marriage equality to all its citizens, including same-sex spouses. A map of America reveals what you might expect — that the more liberal New England and West Coast states, with a scattering of “blue” states in the Midwest like Illinois and Iowa, have taken this step.

  But I caution that LGBT equality is not—and should not be—a partisan issue, even though it is often treated as such. Some of the staunchest supporters of our rights happen to be arch-conservatives, including for example the late Senator Barry Goldwater, who was among the first in Washington to endorse a law protecting LGBTs from discrimination in the workplace. Also from the state of Arizona is Senator (and former presidential nominee) John McCain, who recently voted “Yea” on the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, along with Senator Rob Portman from Ohio, a staunch conservative. It bears noting that Messrs. Goldwater, McCain and Portman share something in common—a beloved family member who came out. In Goldwater’s case, it was his grandson; in McCain’s case, it was his daughter; in Portman’s case, it was his son. This demonstrates to me that fair-minded people of good conscience cannot help but be moved by the personal experience of knowing someone they love is gay or lesbian. It makes a difference. It lifts that “rainbow veil.”

  As an astonishing symbol of how much things have changed, the week before I wrote these words I saw an article on the first same-sex wedding performed at Westpoint. This struck me deeply. I had recently been asked to write a forward for the book, Soldier of Change: From the Closet to the Forefront of the Gay Rights Movement by Stephen Snyder-Hill. You might recall, during the Republican primaries in September of 2011, Stephen had the courage to say he was a gay solider serving in Iraq and wanted to know whether the candidates would allow soldiers to continue to serve openly without fear of losing their jobs. For this question, he shockingly was booed by the audience, and Senator Rick Santorum went on to respond that he stood opposed to the “social experimentation” going on in the military, and that as President he would reinstate “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” because “sex has no place in the military.”

  But it’s now two years later, and we’ve come so far that there simply is no going back. And why would we want to, when there is so much love, acceptance and promise ahead?

  A group of California children were recently asked to watch two viral videos of marriage proposals, one by a man to a man, and another by a woman to a woman. The links to these are here:

  http://ohmyyy.gt/marrybus and http://ohmyyy.gt/homedepot

  The children were, like most adults watching the videos, at first surprised by the fact that these were same-sex couples. But nearly all of them said that the proposals were touching, and that it doesn’t matter that these are LGBTs. The video of the
ir reactions can be found here, and it is worth a view:

  http://ohmyyy.gt/kidsreact

  These children represent the future, a bit of which we are glimpsing today. It gives me great hope for our country, and it reminds me that every day we continue to fulfill the dream so eloquently articulated and launched by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., that we will one day judge people not by the color of their skin — or the kind of love they have — but by the content of their character.

  Dippity Duped

  You may have noticed, I am something of a prankster. Unsurprisingly, then, one of my favorite holidays is April Fools’ Day — a day on which I have successfully, and definitively, shown that many people simply do not pay attention to their calendars. Just how do so many forget about this marvelous day when, year after year, we pranksters clobber them on it? I’ve sometimes wondered if the fact that the holiday falls on the first of April, when many haven’t yet realized that March is over, contributes to the general amnesia of humankind. We’d all be prepared if it fell in the middle of the month.

  Now, of course, the business of April Fools’ is the duping of others. Many others, if possible. This tradition has notable variations, including the practice of the Italians, French and French Canadians of the poisson d’avril — literally the “April’s Fish.” In those cultures, it appears the point of April 1st is to stick a paper fish to someone else’s back unnoticed, rather like our “Kick Me” signs which are always hilarious.

  Now, paper fish may not seem very funny in the abstract. But my Italian-born producer of Allegiance, with the highly mellifluous and curiously soothing name of Giovanni Lorenzo Thione, insists that the day is a hoot: “You can imagine people walking around with fish taped to their backs, and everyone else seeing them. But they don’t know. That is so funny! And when you see two or three people with fish, it is even funnier.” (Imagine that in his accent. It’s quite convincing.)

  I suppose it would have been quite funny had one of Il Duce’s generals tagged him with a paper fish on pesce d’aprile, perhaps right before some fiery speech about conquering poor Ethiopia. It’s hard to be taken seriously with a paper fish on your back.

  Victor Hugo — or Disney, depending on your taste — immortalized in The Hunchback of Notre Dame a subversive medieval French custom of crowning the least likely individual the village “lord” for the day, giving names such as Archbishop of Dolts, Abbot of Unreason, Boy Bishop, or Pope of Fools. The parody might tip dangerously towards the profane, mocking the church and the nobility for added fun.

  Flemish children celebrate April 1st in a Lord of the Flies fashion, by locking their teachers and parents out of schools and homes, and in theory only letting them “back in” if they promise to bring back treats. This seems to work every year without fail. So I’ve got an email into the White House to try this with Congress. Lock them out, and don’t let them back in until they’ve hammered out a compromise on the budget. And if certain members try to sneak back in, you can tack a paper fish to their backs. Or just kick them.

  In the Takei household, April Fools’ Day is celebrated by spreading rumors. The Internet is a deadly weapon in this war, for in a single swoop, thousands or even millions can be fooled, all by one status update. In my last book, I briefly recounted how I broke the hearts of many Star Trek fans with an April 1st announcement of Excelsior, a new movie that was to star yours truly as captain of that notable Federation vessel. (If you haven’t seen Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, you probably don’t know what I’m talking about, and have missed one of my best cameos. And shame on you for that.)

  That false Excelsior rumor worked because it was plausibly true. After all, at age 76, I’m still in my acting prime, and there certainly was a story to be excavated regarding my captaincy of a new starship with such an epic name. Perhaps it worked because it touched a nerve in many fans, who longed for the “ol’ gang to make one more film.” Indeed, it took nearly a year for some fans to figure out that Excelsior was a ruse, despite the fact that I’d outrageously “cast” Gilbert Gottfried as a Ferengi First Officer and Lisa Lampanelli as a Bajoran security officer. Can you imagine how that would go over? Still, to this day, in fact, I get asked “what happened” with Excelsior.

  This past April Fools’ Day, I decided to “punk” another part of my fan base — the Star Wars geeks. You see, I do have some cred in that franchise as well, and for a long time was the sole actor to have worked in both franchises. Many fans are surprised to learn that I voiced the part of General Lok Durd in the animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. In early 2012, I believe Simon Pegg, who played Montgomery “Scotty” Scott in the Star Trek movie in 2009, also “crossed over” to do some voiceover work on that same series.

  Add to this the fact that I did share a video calling for Star Trek and Star Wars fans to cease their interstellar squabbling and unite in a “Star Alliance” against the common enemy to all of science fiction, Twilight. In fact, this recently became a meme that fans shared on my wall:

  It seems my “Star Alliance” credentials were solid enough that I was able to pull off yet an encore April Fools’ Day gag targeting Star Wars fans, declaring the following on April 1, 2013:

  FRIENDS, I AM THRILLED TO ANNOUNCE THAT I’LL BE STARRING IN THE STAR WARS REBOOT DIRECTED BY J.J. ABRAMS. I’LL BE PLAYING MASTER CETI MARU, A MEMBER OF THE JEDI HIGH COUNCIL. THE NEW FILM, ENTITLED “STAR WARS: GALACTIC EMPIRE,” IS GREENLIT AND WILL BEGIN FILMING SOMETIME EARLY NEXT YEAR. IT IS TRULY A MOMENT FOR THE STAR ALLIANCE. THANKS TO ALL MY FANS FOR THEIR DECADES OF SUPPORT.

  I had my staffers put together a photoshopped image to drive the joke home:

  If that looks familiar, that very image is the inspiration for the cover of this book.

  “Ceti” of course was a play on SETI — the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. And “Maru” was an homage to the infamous Kobayashi Maru — the unwinnable training simulation at Star Fleet Academy, which a young Kirk beats by cheating — reprogramming the simulation in advance so it is beatable. Star Trek fans who were paying attention saw through my joke quickly. But the name was “Star Wars-y” enough to fool many, many others.

  In fairness, I did put that announcement out right as the clock struck midnight on the East Coast in the U.S., so for those unfortunates on the West Coast, it technically was still March 31st. As thousands of fans took the bait, my wall was flooded with congratulations and excited messages. “So cool.” “Amaaaaaazing.” “Only you could cross franchises, George.”

  Naturally, there were many who were not fooled, and wanted to spoil the fun, but my trusty staffers stood at their battle stations, ready to torpedo their comments as soon as they appeared, so that the ruse would not be revealed by spoilers and trolls and overeager overachievers. This left anyone who bothered wading through the now one-sided comment stream with the distinct impression that this was quite real.

  It didn’t take long, however, for the Internet to confirm that no such film would be happening. And in case some still didn’t understand, I posted a simple “Gotcha” as a Facebook status later that day. Fan sites and message boards filled up with dismayed threads: “This is the meanest April Fools joke ever.” “Some of my friends on FB have already bit it.” “April Fools’ Day = worst day on the Internet.”

  Fortunately, the media and my fans quickly forgave me. After all, I wasn’t the only Hollywooder out fooling that day. Director Bryan Singer nearly caused fans to riot when he released this amazing tweet:

  As an aside, Star Trek apparently birthed Gaga long ago, according to Trek fans at fiveyearmission.net:

  On April Fools’ Day, it is caveat emptor — buyer beware. If you “buy” what people like me are selling on this day, you have only yourself to blame — which I understand is the same criteria utilized by anyone wiring money in response to an email from a Nigerian prince.

  The best April Fools’ pranks involve weeks of set-up. No paltry day-of inspirations here. My friends on Allegiance are ma
sters at this. The composer has been known to plant the seeds of a rumor as early as February, talking for example about how he’s been thinking about how much he misses China. And by the time April Fools’ Day actually rolled around, why would anyone doubt his announcement that he decided to return there for good, when they’d been hearing rumors of this for weeks. In fact, if you can lead others to come to a conclusion on their own, by carefully plotted hints, you’re golden; no one wants to admit how deeply and long they’d been duped.

  So my April Fools’ Day successes lately got me to thinking: Why exactly do we all so love a good prank? What is it about the set-up and the payoff that feels so satisfying?

  For starters, once you’re “in” on the prank, there is the simple thrill of having information that others do not. This stirs in us the same delight we might have in, say, watching a poker match on television, with the benefit of seeing what cards everyone has, gasping as the ballsy better with the losing hand pushes his chips all-in, seeking to bluff his way into victory. We are in awe at the sheer audacity of the move, asking ourselves whether we would have the courage to pull that off, or how we would react if we were on the other side.