Lit Ignorance is Bias: The Diversity Manifesto

Recently finished Last Shot (audiobook). I really enjoyed it. Sana’s role was a real plus, I hope she continues to appear in the novels, and that we’ll get some Aphra appearances too. Aphra could carry a novel easily (even better if its Aphra/Sana starring).
Having comic characters starring in novels too is really fulfilling the new canon promise. Sana was a real hoot too, fun, reckless, glamorous and flamboyant. The new comics have really introduced some great new characters.
It makes me really wish Sana and Aphra were in the movies too.
Unless I missed something though, they never directly referenced Sana being gay, which was a little disappointing.
It was nice that Kaka being non binary was very normalized.

 

You know what would be cool for a Aphra novel? Do something similar to this and jump around between different explorations she has done. So like some stuff with Sana, some with Vader, some with Tam, and maybe stuff with Luke or Lor post rotj

 

The running joke about Han's crush on Sana made me think her orientation would be the final punchline--but yeah, it never went there. TBH I don't remember precisely what her past with Han was said to be in the comics; maybe she's bi?

 

From what I remember it was just that they posed as a married couple during a heist.

 

AFAIK Sana has never been shown to have an interest in men. We have as much evidence than Sana is bi as Han or Luke are.
I was also expecting Sana being gay to be the punch line to Han’s blind conviction that she was into him. I also thought that maybe Chewie knew (and that Chewie has flawless gaydar would be hysterical).
Still, now that she’s made the crossover into novels I hope we see more of her.
Last Shot had a really great set of supporting characters.

 

What a trip this thread has been.

 

holy **** I never even knew Sana was supposed to be gay. That makes the whole thing with Han in Last Shot so much funnier in hindsight

 

You must not have read all the comics.

 

This is the look Han has on his face the last time he sees Luke in The Empire Strikes Back:

He never even looks at Leia with that much smolder, hence I would argue that we have more evidence that Han is bi than that Sana is.

 

This is the best thing I’ve seen all day.
I’m still absorbing the (shameless queerbaiting) news about Lando.

 

So the original idea for Solo included Lando being openly-pansexual, but while those scenes were cut, the creators still think of him as pansexual

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainmen...veal-lando-calrissian-is-pansexual.print.html

 

The original article on Huffington Post doesn't say anything about moments being cut, so I think that's something Fox News has made up or misinterpreted. Good to hear there are some lines that could be taken as suggestive, but the Kasdans saying "maybe, maybe not" and "we would have liked to show more representation but didn't" isn't all that great.

 

I didn’t read anything about lines being cut.

 

heh. So they get some credit for diversity to people who care but by keeping it on the DL they avoid the controversy it would cause by having it openly in the actual film

Clever political play

 

All I'm gonna say about this right now is those comments are being reported poorly.

 

"Ok Lando, we're going to need you to start hooking up with a few more blokes ok?"

. . . "This deal is getting worse all the time"

seriously though this is a nothing story. Watch people on both sides of the spectrum get upset and fight about it.

 

Kasdan's comments sounds less progressive politics to me and more like Richard Pryor's widow's comments regarding Marlon Brando.

 

http://www.news.com.au/entertainmen...e/news-story/6afb8ad73d544f10f936ff38f424f16f

 

"I didn't know you liked males, too, Lando."
"Baby, you're a cephalopod."

 

While I haven't started analyzing the recent novels yet I had cause to score TLJ earlier this week, and I'm happy to announce that it has a Diversity Score of 75 (highest for a film since RotS) and a Parity Score of 31 (highest for film or TV since AotC). TFA was 63/29, respectively.

I was prompted by the below tweet (click it for a thread with more details) where someone actually broke all the films down for total female screen time.



Here are my film parity scores alongside her numbers:



While RotJ through TLJ roughly track, the contrasts are interesting--more female characters in TPM and AotC but less female-centric screentime, and the opposite for RO and ESB.

 

I'm pretty sure the reference to Lando's "pansexuality" is the stuff about getting it on with L3.

 

Indeed. And while I did like it generally I think it's a far cry from "pansexual". I think Jon Kasdan means well but just got ahead of his skis in that interview.

 

Well in ESB the Han and Leia stuff is given almost equal screentime as the Luke stuff (and the film has only two main plotlines for most of it, and then Leia plays a role in saving Luke in the end as well). And the main protagonist of RO is a woman.

 

That's why they rank relatively highly.