TV Discussion Homosexuality in Star Wars Television

How about a gay Imperial Officer?

That would be something quite different for Star Wars..

 

It could serve to make the Empire seem a bit more accepting than it should be, a little kinder. I'm not sure that would be a good thing, but depending on how it was presented it could work.In that scenario I'd likely prefer it be a secret of some sort instead of common knowledge.

The Empre being more accepting of same sex relationships than our own governments would be an interesting political commentary though, wouldn't it?

 

I agree there should be no romance in the show, straight or gay, however that doesn't mean all characters have to be hetro. For example, Satine could be later presented in Rebels as a lesbian/bisexual without having a relationship shown on screen with another girl.

Just curious, for those that want Satine to not be hetro, do you want her to bat for 1 or both teams?

Personally I think that if they chose Satine to not be straight for reasons, then a better option would to make her bisexual. One of the reasons is that in fiction when it comes to homosexual characters, gay or lesbian characters share more spot light then people who are attracted to both sexes.

And still she would not fall for that Aladdin wannabe

Hopefully.................

Though hetro, gay/bi are not the only options for Satine. After all there are people out there that are asexual, have no feelings/sexual attraction toward either sex.

That would be another interesting option for Satine, a female star wars character that can't have any attraction to boys, but the reason is not homosexuality.

 

That would be interesting. I wouldn't mind her being bisexual. Don't worry though, Sabine probably won't fall for Ezra, the writers might just be doing that for laughs or something. So here's hoping yeah?

Even if she did/does play for both teams, maybe she could just prefer girls over guys. Like she might feel some but not much attraction to guys, but prefer girls based on her experience.

 

Sabine.

 

My bad.

 

You know I wouldn't mind the idea I mean people as a culture are changing and while we are still campaigning for gay rights in a lot of places now the bans are being lifted so that's a plus and you know kids are gonna grow up and learn about things and most of these things they'll learn about from either their parents or a show they watch that teaches them life lessons mostly simple ones but I think its time they introduced more gay characters not in your face or anything but more so subtly like a lot of people have said or even if you want to make it obvious make it a dramatic focus of an episode where a character comes out and then the society they are in shuns them for being that way and maybe if they are an alien like Zeb it also adds another prejudice on top of that against other species and I think with a right smart team of writers they can tackle the issue well and show people its okay to be like this because kids will come across people like this eventually in their lives or hell they might turn out to be this way themselves they don't know and kids won't know how they should react and through their parents and a positive portrayal of a gay character and not some horrible stereotype then they'll learn to respect them as human beings and will eventually respect themselves should this be their lifestyle they'll lead. I don't know if this makes any sense but point being I wouldn't be against the idea if its done well and I do wonder how many gay characters exist in the Star Wars world and have they been interesting and portrayed in a positive light?

 

Yeah, after that, I don't want to hear a word about my walls of text. That one could have been used to divide Berlin...

 

Or it would help us defend ourselves against whitewalkers....

 

It is always disappointing to see people react so hatefully and ignorantly. Well done on pulling the thread back round to a civil manner.

I think it is important to have characters on the LGBT spectrum in all media. We non-heteronormative types make up between 5 and 10% of the population, yet we grow up with little to no foundation or understanding of the diversity of human sexuality through our media. Whilst most of the younger viewers of Rebels will have no inklings one way or the other towards their sexuality, as it develops later on in life they will have points of reference to counter any feelings of abnormality or degeneracy that get instilled from other, less enlightened sources. Putting out the message that 'Gay is Okay' is not going to destroy any aspect of society that is worth being proud of.

My choice for non-hetero character in Rebels would be Sabine, if only to avoid any overtly mushy romance between Ezra and herself. It would also stand as a fine example of a girl telling a boy 'No' and not having her recant on it later on. There aren't enough examples of that either. She already subverts the idea of traditional gender roles and to my mind it is the reinforcement of Gender roles that is the foundation of hate towards LGBT people. If gender roles were not seen as so sacred, there wouldn't be the controversy there is when they are challenged or subverted. A lot of kids will grow up into more confident adults, more at peace with themselves if they weren't pigeon-holed into a certain way of thinking, behaving and loving from a young age.

One of the great things about Star Wars is that Sex has never been a big deal. It has mainly been to satisfy character development or plot devices. Anakin had to be attracted to women in order for Luke and Leia to be born, Luke and Han both had a thing for Leia who reciprocated their feelings. Obi-Wan had a past relationship with Satine to show a contrast to Anakin's relationship with Padme. Ahsoka had a crush on Lux Bonteri... and that is it for relationships in established canon. For all we know Mace was gay but celibate as per the Jedi Code, or that Hondo was Bisexual who was just as into Jango Fett as he was Aurra Sing. Ventress was part of a clan of female dominated force users who only used males for reproductive purposes. The closeness of the sisterhood on Dathomir could have been very encouraging of romantic relationships between Nightsisters. R2 and C-3PO may be droids but they do behave like a typical married couple and both have male personalities.

When a character in any show mentions a past relationship with someone of the opposite sex no one bats an eyelid, but when someone mentions a previous same-sex relationship in exactly the same tone and context, the show is suddenly accused of all sorts of agendas and perversions. Just look at the revival of Doctor Who which has had a lot of flak for throwing in one off lines about characters being gay or bi. These voices need to be ignored if we are to move forward. Don't worry about alienating people who hate because hate needs to be excluded as much as possible. It cannot survive without the oxygen of acceptability. The voices that slander LGBT folks today are the voices that shouted down interracial marriage, womens' suffrage, the end of racial segregation, the end of Jim Crow laws and the end of Slavery. All TV shows, Rebels included, have a duty to their audience to reflect the reality of humanity, whether directly or through metaphor, and not to try and reinforce the agendas of those who believe in racial or social 'purity'. I can't help but wonder sometimes if we should change the wording from heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual etc. to hetero-romantic, homo-romantic, bi-romantic, pan-romantic and the like. The dirty word seems to be 'sex'. If we focussed on the love it wouldn't be so 'edgy'. Sex is an abstract in the Star Wars narrative anyway, it is the romance that drives the characters, as it is romance in real life that drives our relationships (sex is more the punctuation than the overall text).

One day we won't need to be making conscious decisions about representations of race, gender identity or sexual orientation. We'll be so normalised to this diversity that old TV shows and movies will seem odd to us for their almost exclusive portrayal of heterosexual couples. Yet we need to reach that first. We need to make sure that there is something for everyone to relate to... for them to look at something and think 'that's like me' or 'I can relate to that'. Rebels is the prime opportunity for Star Wars to push us a little further towards that goal.

 

The thing I'm still concerned about is how they would be able to maintain the sensitivity needed to explain this stuff to kids without it turning into a "very special episode" in which all other plot lines are derailed in order for Kanan to say "well you see Ezra, approximately 10% of the population are born with a benign psychological anomaly that bla bla bla yadda yadda yadda".

The tricky situation with explaining LGBT people to kids is that unlike with race where you can just say "they're a different colour, that's all", it requires more complex level of understanding that kids might not be able to get from a cartoon about samurai space wizards.

The worst case scenario is if wingnuts on both sides see it as an opportunity to use it in their poodoo flinging contests.

 

LGBT relationships are not an anomaly and we do not need some long-winded, patronizing explanation of why, biologically speaking, some people are attracted to other members of the same sex. All that's needed is a realistic depiction of an environment where LGBT individuals and their relationships are treated fairly and equally. That alone would speak more volumes than any "very special episode" could.

 

Yeah, sorry if that came out wrong I meant "anomaly" as in different because they're in a permanent state of minority I'm not saying it's bad by any means. My point was that it would be difficult (not impossible) to be sensitive about this stuff and keep the story together. Most homophobia is cause by confusion and misunderstanding which is why it's important not to screw up when explaining it to kids.

 

I've seen worse. That's no wall of text.

 

I'm with you on most of this post, however I have to say I know what a conservative "poodoo flinging" reaction would be but I can't really imagine what a liberal/progressive "poodoo flinging" reaction would be. Not demanding equal rights in a polite enough fashion?

 

You compare it to race? Natural bio-diversity accounts for all natural changes, be they eye colour, skin colour, sexuality whatever. Children won't be the ones having the issues, it'll be parents objecting to their children being shown LGBT people as normal... and the regularity in which same sex attraction occurs means it is perfectly normal. It is not the agenda of the LGBT community in pursuit of equality that damages society, but the agenda of those who seek to dehumanise us that are the problem. The amount of times I hear that people like me can't be accurately and fairly treated in media for fear of offending the hateful and bigoted, is absolutely infuriating and upsetting. It is as if people that hold those views mean more to studios and producers than 5%- 10% of the entire population.

 

Okay, I really don't like repeating myself. But please refrain from talking politics in regards to the LGBT community on this thread. Were talking about how it will and if it could be incorporated into Rebels and what it would be like. There is a thread ( Link Below) if you wish to dicuss the politics of it. We don't need this thread to be closed, please and thank you.

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/homosexuality-the-thread.22965104/

 

Sorry. I was just making sure that it didn't go overboard I guess? I thought that the discussion of politics in regards to the LGBT community wouldn't be allowed and had to be in the proper thread. Well, carry on I suppose.

 

Okay, can you tell me how can you separate the prospect of LGBT representation in Rebels from the politics behind such a decision? Said politics will influence who would be represented as on the LGBT spectrum, how many characters, how much of a relationship is shown, how subtle or blatant it can be portrayed as well as how easily those scenes can be altered or edited for certain foreign markets or pre-watershed broadcasts (because gays kissing is STILL treated by a lot of censors as the same amount of appropriateness as heterosexual fornicating).

Do they make a lead character gay to show that gay people can be in positions of leadership with strong moral grounding? Do they make a bad guy gay and risk being accused of using it as a negative trait? Would they just be sidelined as a minor character? What other personality traits would this person have and how could those be read as pertaining to their sexuality, such as cowardice, deviousness, corruption etc.? The inclusion of same-sex attractions in a show that will be targeting a younger audience will ALWAYS be seen by a certain small but highly vocal group as immensely political. People will always throw up the absolutely fatuous arguments that it will have a negative effect on children, despite all evidence to the contrary and that is a political issue that has to be addressed.

Is this meant to be a grown up discussion on possible LGBT representation in Rebels, or just a list of people saying "I wanna see Sabine kiss girls coz girls kissing is hawt!" or "I don't wanna see no boys kissing, coz dat's gross!!!!"?

Like it or not, a huge amount of politics is involved in these decisions, and stifling them from the discussion about LGBT representation in the series just hobbles the conversation from the get-go.

 

Tammy Mac I completely agree with you. Any Disney executives discussing the possibility of an LGBT character in Rebels is going to be addressing all of the same issues you are bringing up, so I don't really see how we could discuss the issue without getting into that ourselves. The OU implications matter just as much with this kind of subject, like when Captain Kirk and Uhura had the first televised interracial kiss.