J.J. Abrams Says Gay Characters Are Coming to Star Wars

[JimB]

Does owning the property give him moral right to destroy characters dreamed up through collaborative effort?

Since the only way he can "destroy" characters is to implant microchips in my brain forcing me to view my memories a specific way, no, he does not have that moral right. However, since he has not done that thing, and has only put out material that I as a free-willed human being am free to contextualize or to ignore as I see fit, the Special Editions are one hundred percent within his moral rights. He owns the prints, so he gets to decide what to do with them.

*blinks* Um, my response was meant to be as serious as SA's to mine, as in to say, not at all serious.

Sorry. I'm a veteran of the RUINED 4EVAAAR wars, and this is a point I've heard expressed sincerely often enough.

 

[Erttheking]

The internet. You can't announce your intention to put a certain type of character into a movie without everyone loosing their minds.

Those SJWs, amirite?

 

[Erttheking]

It's gonna be Finn and Poe. I'm calling it right now, it's gonna be Finn and Poe. Not only has Tumblr been aggressively pushing the idea of it, because Tumblr is cancerous in its pandering to fanbases and their whims, but also there is the more reasonable and realistic fact that both Oscar Isaac and John Boyega were playing their characters with the idea that they were, in fact, gay and going to end up together. Or, at least, that's what I've been lead to believe.

Now I really hope it's not them, simply because if Tumblr wants it, I don't.

Oh well, that'll show them.

Tumblr also seems to want Dark Souls III, and the new pokemen games so I also guess you hope that those get canceled at the last second.

 

[Erttheking]

Okay, here's a point I want to make, if they made a character in a film and reveal after some time it's gay, then that would have least be an effort, but by announcing it they already doom the character to be "that gay character" and in general it has the condescending tone of "look at how progressive I am!!!".

If someone reduces a character to "The gay one" because someone announced that there would be gay characters eventually in the Star Wars universe...well. Let's just say I would struggle to maintain a polite tone if I was in the same room as that person. Because that person is officially a ****.

And condescending? Who the hell is he being condescending to? How is answering someone's question about gay characters condescending?

 

[the December King]

the romance and 'heteronormativity' in the Prequels were the worst acting and writing, wooden as hell, and lots of us complained about it. It really did almost feel like the movie was cramming a heterosexual agenda down out throats, though admittedly this could have been softened by a better story.

But there you have it. You answered it right away in your own post. You didn't have an issue with it because heterosexuality was involved, you had an issue because it was shit writing.

Looking back on it, I see what you mean. I certainly can't deny that I usually do accept a hetero-normative narrative at face value.

What JimB responded to, what is being said in this thread, is a reaction not to how the gay romance is conducted, or that there's a gay romance, or that a character has been made gay or a gay character has been announced. It is a reaction to the very fact that a guy no longer involved in the franchise offered the opinion that gay characters would one day arrive. When asked.

Yeah, to be fair, I wasn't really interested at all in the thread initially, because I just assumed there were going to be gay characters in the canon universe, and very soon. As I said, it only makes sense that a multitude of levels of acceptance/tolerance/ignorance of different states of being among different races would be in the mix. If this indeed was just JJ responding to a question, I think I would have liked more content to go with the article.

You don't have a problem? Great! But clearly a lot of people do. And they're not objecting to a specific instance of bad writing. They're objecting to a hypothetical gay character. They can't even wait to see how said character is portrayed.

A shame, really.

Not "why do they have to rub their heterosexuality in our faces?"

Actually, I do get this distinctly from Anikin and Padme- that, at some base level below chemistry and emotion, or lack thereof, they simply have to be a couple.

 

[the December King]

I'll add my voice to the aether now on those points you mentioned: "Look at Anakin saying reeeeally creepy and patently stalkerish things to a girl who could be his teen mom, that's messed up, he looks like he's four." "Look at their relationship later on, can you buy that they are in any way attracted to each other? Are we supposed to?" "Why don't their declarations of feelings for each other ever reach their doll-like, empty eyes?"

I like you, the December King, so I'm not trying to aim my dickishness at you. You're the only one of the two of us who can speak for your motivations, but I'm just saying, these complaints don't make it sound like you object because the straight-ness of all the characters I named (and I forgot Lando and Jabba) actually fails to add to the story or is rubbing heterosexuality in anyone's face. These complaints sound like you think two specific characters were badly written, badly directed, and badly acted.

My apologies, I do concede that in looking back on it, I was just riffing on how horrible that romance was. It seemed like a ham-fisted way of getting us all on board with mommy and Darth daddy making some babies by movie 3, but to be fair, I wasn't really thinking about the hetero nature of the relationship at the time of viewing it, only now in hindsight, and from a different frame of reference.

(And as I said in my response to Something Amyss, I personally have no qualms with some gay characters in any upcoming Star Wars.)

 

[Politrukk]

Happyninja42
Something Amyss

So now am I allowed to say they're doing it on purpose?
Or do we need to wait for another grand reveal that fits a certain denominator

JJ didn't even confirm there would be a gay character, he only said that there was no reason that there would not be. So what exactly are they doing on purpose now? Not being exclusionary bastards for the hell of it? Not categorically banning LGBT representation from Star Wars? Daring to have a casting chart that isn't 90% straight white male? Why is that so bad? What do you think you are catching them doing? And why do you care?

No the thing is if you want to include them include them, but they are using this as a PR stunt, they are parading every new person of colour/persuasion/sex as a grand revelation.

"Oh we totally cast a female in the lead". "our new lead is black isn't that edgy!","PS One of our characters is gay!"

The fact that they specifically have to mention it is what proves that it is a problem.

They're marketing it and you're falling it.

 

[Bocaj2000]

I don't care. Just don't sacrifice good writing or retcon lore for the sake of an agenda (I'm looking at you Bioware).

This shouldn't be news. This shouldn't be a reveal. This shouldn't be abnormal.

 

[Callate]

Is it rude for me to point out that there were only five characters in the original trilogy whose sexuality in any way mattered to the plot? And that's stretching by including Lando?

...Okay, six, I guess, if you want to count Jabba... But I'd just as soon not go there.

I'm perfectly content to have LGBT characters in the new movies; I'd just prefer we not derail the plot to introduce and highlight their presence. At this point, there are zero romantic entanglements enmeshed into the plot, and if it stayed that way, that would also be perfectly fine.

 

[RJ Dalton]

Hey, whatever. As long as the gay character doesn't turn out to be C-3PO in a surprise twist, because that would make absolutely no sense at all.

 

[Thaluikhain]

The fact that they specifically have to mention it is what proves that it is a problem.

I would agree with that, but not in the way you seem to mean.

 

[Something Amyss]

Am I censoring the voice of the artist, or ensuring the voices of the other artists who originally worked on the project are heard?

In order to do the latter, you must do the former.

And condescending? Who the hell is he being condescending to? How is answering someone's question about gay characters condescending?

By saying diversity is good, he's automatically saying that the alternative is bad. It's just science.

 

[Jack Action]

It's like the whole Harry Potter "Dumbledore is gay" thing. What [does] it matter? It in no way informed the story.

What did the whole "Harry, Ron, Hermione, every Weasley, Malfoy's dad, Harry's parents, Harry's aunt and uncle, and anyone else I'm forgetting are straight" thing do to inform the story? What does their sexuality matter? Shouldn't Ms. Rowling have left all their sexual orientations undefined for gay, bisexual, pansexual, and otherwise queer people to project onto?

Dumbledore is a really bad example, because he had to go and get a crush on Wizard Hitler mk1. And then turning on Grindy when he finally realized the guy was kind of a dick got his sister killed, which led to his crippling Atonement Syndrome, which ended up getting him killed at the worst possible moment (I can only assume that a fear of falling back into old habits is also why he didn't let the Order kill Death Eaters).

The moral being, don't think with your dick, folks. It fucks everything up for decades and it may or may not extend WW2.

 

[Nurb]

I'm not straight, but I don't like checklisting tokenism. It's great if one happens to be gay as PART of their character, but JJ isn't subtle at all and there's a habit of some people to show how "forward thinking" they are by shining a spotlight on a character for that one and only atrribute, which is really annoying. The flaming or extremely campy trope is equally irritating, but that doesn't fit star wars' style.

Of course he answered a question so it'll be a wait-and-see situation.

I think this is what people are assuming they'll see:

Spoiler

 

[infohippie]

It's gonna be Finn and Poe. I'm calling it right now, it's gonna be Finn and Poe. Not only has Tumblr been aggressively pushing the idea of it, because Tumblr is cancerous in its pandering to fanbases and their whims, but also there is the more reasonable and realistic fact that both Oscar Isaac and John Boyega were playing their characters with the idea that they were, in fact, gay and going to end up together. Or, at least, that's what I've been lead to believe.

Now I really hope it's not them, simply because if Tumblr wants it, I don't.

Oh well, that'll show them.

Tumblr also seems to want Dark Souls III, and the new pokemen games so I also guess you hope that those get canceled at the last second.

Meh, I'm indifferent to that. But if that cesspool of the internet (yes, 4chan has lost the title to Tumblr) wants something, then it is very nearly by definition a bad thing.

 

[Fox12]

You know, it's easy to coast on good publicity when you don't have to do anything. You're not breaking boundaries by including gay characters anymore. Plenty of people were quiet about homosexuality when it was a controversial movement. Now that the stigmas are gone, all these companies and businessmen are coming out of the woodwork to preach about inclusivity. For you're just now jumping on the bandwagon, that's great, but don't act like you're on the bleeding edge of human rights.

I'm not saying Abrams is doing this, since he was just answering a question, but I've noticed this a lot lately.

 

[Politrukk]

The fact that they specifically have to mention it is what proves that it is a problem.

I would agree with that, but not in the way you seem to mean.

I would be perfectly fine with it if they have gay characters.

To me this however is like going "Star wars! all new all star! all wars! now including!: Gays!Women!and POC'S!".

I don't need to see it advertised everywhere, at the very most after the dust has settled and the movie is out we can drop all the articles of how the new starwars had a strong and divers cast.

But then that's critics/fans pointing that out and not the producers of the movie.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

Nothing quite like stereotypes and generalization huh?

 

[FirstNameLastName]

...

I think this is what people are assuming they'll see:

Spoiler

I'm ... I'm okay with this.

 

[Politrukk]

It's like the whole Harry Potter "Dumbledore is gay" thing. What [does] it matter? It in no way informed the story.

What did the whole "Harry, Ron, Hermione, every Weasley, Malfoy's dad, Harry's parents, Harry's aunt and uncle, and anyone else I'm forgetting are straight" thing do to inform the story? What does their sexuality matter? Shouldn't Ms. Rowling have left all their sexual orientations undefined for gay, bisexual, pansexual, and otherwise queer people to project onto?

What a silly thing to say...

Harry and ron's parents are parents in the traditional sense M/F stereotype meaning they had to be heterosexual, same goes for draco's

Harry ends up with Ginny
Ron ends up with Hermoine

All characters are straight, the Harry-Ginny thing is big in the story.


Relationships were a big thing in Harry potter, the only excuse you could make for Dumbledore is that in that sense when comparing him to the rest his only heterosexual counterpart would have to be Mcgonnagal and the Grindelwald thing was equally unclear.

It's ridiculous to say that heterosexual relationships did not matter in the Harry Potter stories because they mattered a lot.