This past Friday, I contributed my $10 to the $22.3 million that Star Trek Beyond collected at the box office towards the $56 million it is estimated to rake in by the end of the weekend. Like the many others who attended screenings of the film, I was excited for the next chapter to play out in one of my favorite series.

After watching 20 minutes worth of previews, the movie finally started and for two solid hours I was entertained and enthralled by signature Star Trek space travel, aliens, conflict, and Bones' southern sarcastic humor. Despite the films usually high level of action, there were plenty of moments that contributed to making Star Trek Beyond more than just an entertaining film, as it acknowledged self-purpose, mortality, loyalty, and sacrifice.

However, throughout the films duration, it was not the continual nods to the passing on of Leonard Nemoy and Anton Yelchin or the plea for unity to make us stronger that stuck out to me the most--it was the few moments that Hikaru Sulu was seen picking up his young daughter and putting his arm around another man, presumably his husband or partner, in an embrace after returning from a long mission.

While the brief moment has gotten much attention from fans who stand with George Takei in the belief the making Sulu gay was the wrong choice and Star Trek should have just introduced a new character who was gay, I believe it's less important to focus on the character in question and more important to focus on the way that Star Trek addressed having a major character in a homosexual relationship--perfectly.

So often mainstream media and major films have a lack of LGBTQA+ representation or simply tease with the possibility of LGBTQA+ characters but give no on-screen representation. Take the recent Deadpool movie for example. Despite Deadpool being canonically called omnisexual by the comic writers and pansexual by the film's director there was no reference to or representation of his sexual orientation in the film.

Let's just say that while this may have disappointed fans, no one was really surprised as Marvel--along with most of the other major filmmakers in mainstream Hollywood--are notorious for a bring-your-own-baggage take when it comes to character sexualities. In other words, rather than having any sort of casual representation as Star Trek did, they like to allow the viewer to decide for themselves what sort of sexual orientation they want to assign to characters that fall into a gray area. Cute, but all that does in reinforce the already heteronormative view that major films perpetrate.

This heteronormative view is evident in the surprise that Sulu's sexuality reveal brought to viewers who, rather than waiting for his sexuality of being represented on screen--as Sulu never had any love interests during the TV show, the '80s and '90s films, or the rebooted movies up until this point--simply assumed he was straight as a default and then were surprised when the reality was otherwise. It is this straight-until-proven-otherwise mindset, the definition of heteronormativity, that is the reason we need more casual LGBTQA+ representation like Star Trek presented in mainstream media.

Star Trek has always set an example for diversity; casting an African-American woman and an Asian-American man in major roles that went beyond the stereotypes of the time during the late 1900s in the original series, broadcasting the first interracial kiss on TV in 1968, and then most recently casually featuring a gay character in a major role like it was no big deal--because it shouldn't be a big deal, not in the year 2016 and certainly not in the year 2263.

As a franchise that has continually pushed the envelope for the representation of minorities and marginalized groups in mainstream media, Star Trek's effortless demonstration that a major character can be something other than straight and not have their sexuality consume the storyline, or even be anything more than just a representation of the world we live in, serves as an example that other movie makers and studios in Hollywood and around the world would do well to follow.

It is not only the fact that Star Trek has taken the bold step of finally highlighting a community of people that has so often been left out of mainstream media but also that they did so in a way that reflects positively on the LGBTQA+ community, an aspect of representation that can often be overlooked. Sulu is a strong, crucial, and intelligent character that shows you can have a major character who is gay and not have their sexuality be the sole defining feature about them, rather it is an important aspect of them that makes them unique, just as it should be.

As Star Trek boldly shows how popular franchises are able to successfully incorporate racial, sexual orientation, and gender diversity in our ever evolving and changing world, we can only hope that things will continue to progress to the point where seeing casual representation of LGBTQA+ persons on screen and in media becomes as normal as seeing heterosexual cisgendered characters. Let us allow for this brief glimpse of LGBTQA+ representation in mainstream media to become more frequent and more normalized as it helps us progress into a kinder, more tolerant, more accepting world.