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

[the December King]

Am I allowed to be pulling my hair out over this as a writer and ask what a character's sexual orientation brings to the story? Am I allowed to do that at any point?

Please do not pretend anyone can stop you from having whatever reaction you want. You can pull your hair out and ask questions whenever you want, just as I "am allowed" at any point to pull my hair out and ask why people it is when people say "sexual orientation," they actually seem to mean "non-straightness," because for all the ranting about how sexual orientation doesn't make a difference and detracts from the story, no one ever seems to argue that the form of sexual orientation which is heterosexuality detracted from the previous two trilogies. I never hear the audience complaining, "Look at Luke being all straight! Look at Han being liking girls, it adds nothing to the plot! Look at Leia being into guys, that's such pandering! Look at Anakin and Padme cramming their heterosexual agenda down our throats! Look at Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, pandering to straights with their token straight relationship!"

It always comes off very disingenuous to me when people say the problem is introducing sexual orientation, and then act like heterosexuality is not a sexual orientation.

While I don't mind the inclusion of gay characters in the Star Wars franchise (what with aliens, and what must be some non-binary sexual orientations amongst them, and the interesting degrees of racial/gender normative tensions that simply must exist with so many different races and creatures in such a huge and dangerous universe), 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.

In fact, I'll dd my voice to the aether now on those points you mentioned: "Look at Anikin 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 mean, I didn't even get a sense of sexual tension between them that felt in any way plausible, let alone anything else.

 

[ccggenius12]

I don't know why, but it seems to me that the best way to go about this would just be inverting the whole Slave Leia thing. Just get a Hutt they've firmly established as male, and give the cast a reason to have to traverse his All-Male pleasure dungeon. Probably in one of the side movies that isn't part of the new trilogy, but still.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I love the hypocrisy in this thread. It's glorious. Probably the most I've ever seen in one thread.

"Don't make a big deal of it"

....He answered a question, so who's REALLY making the big deal of it? I guess it's only partially your faults since you're not the ones who felt the need to post an article about it, but still.

 

[JimB]

It always comes off very disingenuous to me when people say the problem is introducing sexual orientation, and then act like heterosexuality is not a sexual orientation.

Thing is, a lot of the time they don't even notice. They're not being disingenuous, we're just so culturally inundated with heterosexuality that people don't think about it. It's not disingenuous, but it tends to be indicative of a systemic problem.

Intellectually dishonest or cognitively dissonant, then, if you prefer those terms.

I should point out that the event was not a Star Wars one, but an Oscar Wilde Award ceremony Abrams himself hosted.

Huh...I was sure it said "Star Wars." My mistake.

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.

 

[VoidWanderer]

While reading the varied reactions is amusing, I figure that the openly gay thing will be handled like they did on Jessica Jones. The gay partner will be established as being in the relationship and have some other connection to the character. That's it.

 

[Something Amyss]

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.

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.

And nobody was tearing their hair out because there was going to be a hetero love story in Star Wars. Or heterosexuals in general. Nobody asked why Luke and Leia and Han and several other people's sexuality mattered, or martyred themselves like this "straight white guy" did.

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.

"Why don't their declarations of feelings for each other ever reach their doll-like, empty eyes?"

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

I love the hypocrisy in this thread. It's glorious. Probably the most I've ever seen in one thread.

"Don't make a big deal of it"

....He answered a question, so who's REALLY making the big deal of it? I guess it's only partially your faults since you're not the ones who felt the need to post an article about it, but still.

I think there's more of it in general than you give credit. This is usually how these things get spread.

Intellectually dishonest or cognitively dissonant, then, if you prefer those terms.

I don't know, it's more like having blinders on. People are very content to not upset the status quo, to the point that when it's pointed out, they will get very protective of it. But part of that reasoning is they're not aware. That's not really intellectual dishonesty or cognitive dissonance.

Huh...I was sure it said "Star Wars." My mistake.

In fairness, I had to read the original source article because this one makes it sound like two separate events.

 

[Floppertje]

Apart from when it's an issue that is actually important to what is going on, not paying too much attention to it is almost always the way to go. I like how they did it in borderlands 2, when Jack threatens the wife of a scientist he's pushing into doing something against her will. He's the most disgusting thing you ever scraped off your shoe and even he doesn't think being gay is a big deal.
Game of Thrones was good at it too.

Spoiler

Spoilered for the one person who hasn't seen that yet... Renly and Loras being gay was something they paid attention to but in both their cases it was actually important to the plot, what with Renly maybe getting to be King and having to produce an heir, and Loras being imprisoned by the sparrows.

And it's not like Abrams said it to bang some kind of hype drum either, he was answering a question while talking about diversity at an awards show. That seems pretty on point to me.

 

[Something Amyss]

Han shot first, last and only. Anything else was the fevered historical revisionism of a madman.

Ah, but now you're censoring the voice of an artist. This sort of cultural Sithism should not be tolerated, and I will support free speech, even if I have to silence you to protect your right to speak!

 

[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.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

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?

 

[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.

 

[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.