#ngl i could say more about shatner but that gets into speculation. just remember: his contemporaries were rock hudson & tab hunter

[favvn]

I really am tired of how the Star Trek fandom on here (hell, on other sites, too) talks about Shatner. It is always, always some post with a qualification attached to it, "Shatner is an asshole, but--" and then it is a funny anecdote of something he's done at a convention or a post about how attractive he was. Like, okay? You hate Shatner. Shatner is such an asshole. Cool. Should we throw a party? Should we invite George Takei?

Like. I take issue with these posts because:

1. If you have to type out a qualifying statement before getting to your point, why bother posting? Are you afraid to endorse something ~problematic~ if you didn't include the "Shatner is an asshole/is a jerk/whatever" disclaimer? Does your post matter if the disclaimer isn't included?

2. Do you care about anything else that the other cast members have done or said in the past, or is Shatner the only one who is not allowed to be a human being capable of making mistakes, capable of change? Did he sign away his right to complexity and nuance by daring to pursue an acting career? Is he the only big ego in a cast of other actors with their own big egos given how charged Star Trek: TOS's production became over the years?

3. If you're upset about his Twitter posts, consider the reality: he is in his 90s. He is still attending conventions, releasing his spoken word albums, writing, raising horses, etc. Do you really think he's spending what time he has left on the bird app? Or is it not possible that someone else has been hired to manage his social media accounts? (My honest opinion is that some of his tweets are genuinely from him and some are from whoever has been hired to run his account, but, frankly, I am not going to comb through his tweets to pick out examples to prove my point, which is that Shatner is a complex of a human being as you or I. The other thing to keep in mind is: we have no way of knowing what the set up is for said hired sns manager. Did Shatner himself hire them or did someone else do it? Does Shatner read and sign off on every tweet? (highly unlikely if one considers time stamps, but again, I am not combing through those details just to reinforce my main argument that is: Bill Shatner is just as complex of a human being as you or I. You do not have to like him or agree with him, but he is hardly the asshole that exists in fandom's perception.) And so on.)

Consider also: did you read what was being said in a Shatner tweet or did you just react? I ask this given the "Kirk was not Bi" tweets:

“If Kirk were bisexual Star Trek would have never have happened. It would not have influenced Star Wars & it would be a blip in the history of the Roddenberry family. How is it you don’t understand the social constructs of the 60’s? Why did Stonewall happen in 69 if all was ok? “I am so tired of presentism & moronic people who continue to place today’s value systems on the past to judge. They cannot comprehend that the fact they have the freedom to judge is because of what brave people did in the past. Education needs a wake up call.

These claims are true. Harshly phrased, but true. A bisexual character would never made it into a finished television show in the 1960s, at a time before Stonewall, when states were only beginning to decriminalize sodomy and so forth. That would have been cut and left behind in the writer's room, long before filming or casting began. The character of James Tiberius Kirk was written to be straight for all overt intentions, especially where having a series green-lit and funded is concerned. (If you are familiar with Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, the unnamed narrator has long been understood to be gay; Holly Golightly in the book expresses attraction to other women. In the 1961 film adaptation, the narrator is made straight and in an affair with a married woman, both to adhere to the Hays Code--he's not gay! No "perversion" to be had here!--and to take the spotlight away from Holly Golightly's profession--he is having an affair! Horrible! Pay no attention to the men coming and going to Holly's apartment or what $50 for the powder room means. Holly's attraction to women exists as a mere blip of a look to the dancer at a bar.)

Tweet from another person: You're offended by suggestions that Kirk was bisexual. You think being bisexual is wrong, bad. You most likely feel the same way about being gay. It's 2022. To to catch up or slink away, quietly. Shatner's response: Dear, no one is offended nor is anyone saying bisexuality is wrong. The theory has been rebuffed by Gene👇🏻& I didn’t portray the character that way. All the pontifical theories people publish are manifestations of their own minds Now you may go “slink away” whatever that involves

Does it sting that Shatner later cites the novelization to The Motion Picture later in another tweet as supporting evidence? Yeah, as a biased believer in The Premise and shipper of K/S or Spirk, it does. But that nuance is exactly why Roddenberry wrote the footnote the way he did: people who ship Spirk can find vindication in it. People who view the two characters as no more than coworkers and friends can also find vindication for their belief.

Of course, this does not even get into Shatner's long history with Spirk, be it interviews in the 70s or his own book. Once more, nuance, complexity, etc. Is this a case of Shatner changing his tune because Nimoy is no longer with us? Or is this the sign that these tweets are not from Shatner himself? (Even in the Bill Boggs interview, Shatner cracks a few jokes but then offers a thoughtful answer as to why fans ship the pair. It's certainly not an answer that supports the idea of K/S as lovers, but it does earnestly answer the interview question.)

Anyways, I leave you with Mind Meld (2001), if only because it is fascinating to see how Nimoy and Shatner both differ and share overlaps in how they approach acting, their characters, and so forth: