TV Discussion Homosexuality in Star Wars Television

If he is Neimodian or one of the other CIS members, to play into Sato to being a Separatist, that would be doubly amazing.

 

Just a line that isn't thought about twice, so Sato mentioning a husband would work.

Sabine also disappointing Ezra with her sexuality would also work.

Of course, it doesn't have to happen and I wouldn't be bothered if it didn't, it would just be interesting to see.

 

Boba Fett confirmed to be a homophobic hillbilly!

 

If they do go for a homosexual character, I hope it's not Sabine.

I kind of think that would be conforming to a stereotype. They are already making a greater effort to make Star Wars appeal/more mainstream for women.

In the movies we had a princess and a queen. In TCW, we had Ahsoka who was a Jedi and moved away from the female royalty trope. Sabine is taking this a step further. She is a girl in armor, ex-bounty hunter, explosives expert, soldier training, etc. With her, they are putting a female character in a position that would stereotypically appeal to boys. She and Ahsoka are like the flagship characters that show that it's OK for girls to like action, get messy, etc.

To make Sabine gay I think would conform to a stereotype. That oh, this girl is "masculine," ergo she must like women.

There have been homosexual characters in Star Wars before, but any character depicted as such on screen is pretty much going to be the most high profile case for the franchise. I'd rather see a character that's more expectation shattering. E.G. Hera is the mother figure, and she's also homosexual. Or Kanan is the mentor and male role model for Ezra, and he is homosexual. Kallus is this career man and respected figure in the Imperial system, and he has a husband. Etc.

Making the tomboy gay I think is lazy. I think they should leave her asexual as Freddie speculated she was. Because at her age, or what I perceive her age to be, there's slim pickings for her in her age group, except Ezra, and I'd rather not see some awkward romance between them.

 

Maybe she would have a crush on someone just like Ahsoka with Lux but in the end, she moves on. That would be the best case scenario if that has to happen.

 

Whether or not it's 'stereotyping' if Sabine is homosexual shouldn't matter in the long run though. What does matter is that she is a fantastic role model. She's tomboyish yes, and while I agree that not all tomboy's are lesbian I don't think it would hurt if she was gay because that wouldn't ultimately be what defines her. So she might like girls or boys or maybe even both? That's perfectly alright and we shouldn't be trying to stereotype her because Sabine is her own person/character.

I don't like stereotyping myself, that's why I think a character; whatever there sexuality is should be defined by their personality and actions instead.

As long as it doesn't turn into another love triangle.

 

Ugh, my worst nightmare.

 

Mine too. It's just cringe worthy.

 

I prefer the love pentagon personally.

Sorry, Zeb.

 

She really is. She's so inspiring, especially in her sketchbook.
http://d.pr/i/17Tmg

 

Sabine isn't really an stereotype tho, she fights and she's tough but she's also interested in art and likes to have fun. The trouble with thinking a type of character can't be done because it would be a stereotype is that this type ends up not happening at all. People keep saying that tomboys are stereotyped as lesbians, but there are very few lesbian tomboys in TV/Movies, and representation is important - maybe a girl that kept being called a tomboy as a kid ends up thinking that she can't REALLY be gay, because that's a stereotype but you never really see lesbian characters like that.

And Sabine could be a good representation for that, a good role model. Kids don't really think in sexual terms, obviously, but you can have a crush as a kid, seeing gay characters in cartoons can help kids feel like their crushes are validated even if it's not talking with the other guys one of the girls looks nice.

I may just be rambling too much, sorry.

 

Wow, there is actually a thread for this. Well two things, one: How would homosexuality add anything to further the actual story? And secondly, I don't have anything against gays, but I will say this. All the recent publicity for gay "rights" and equality is just a fad. Kinda like vaping. A lot of people do it now cause their friends think it's cool and it's the trend at the moment. But in a few years, nobody is gonna care about it. homosexuality will be a minority again, and no one will care that it is or isn't. Life will go on as normal.


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To an extent, I agree with you. But I'm 28 and well past the age of making fun of girls for liking "boy stuff." But apparently that's an issue. There have been several cases of girls being made fun of for liking Star Wars, and you've got people like Ashley Eckstein pushing to make sci-fi more accessible for girls. So you have girls that don't feel like Star Wars is a girl thing, and a counter effort to show that it can be just as much of a girl thing as a boy thing. So if that's already an issue, I'm not sure I'd make my first openly gay character on screen a female to drop a potentially divisive issue on a character meant to expand the smaller female fan base. I'd go after the male fan base first then as additional gay characters crop up, it wouldn't matter as much.

You have Ahsoka as the female Jedi that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Anakin and Obi-Wan, and who even seems poised for a confrontation with Vader.

Then you have Sabine who is basically putting all that Boba Fett appeal onto a female character, with these characters helping to make Star Wars less on an exclusive "boy thing" into an everybody thing. Is there anything wrong with making Sabine or Ahsoka gay? No. Are there effeminate gay males and tomboy gay women? Yes. But these aren't real people. They are whatever they are written to be, and I think making like the most arguably "badass" woman to hit the screen in Star Wars gay has its cons.

Again, I feel it's just lazy, because her breaking the gender barrier perhaps more so than any female character in the films and television series makes her too obvious a target.

Second, when it comes to social statements, I think female homosexuality/bisexuality is much more easily accepted as is. Many women I have as friends that identify as heterosexual, have "made out" with another woman at least once in their life to see what it's like. It of course varies from culture to culture, but largely in my experience such behavior isn't viewed with revulsion.

In contrast men seem to be much, much more strict with maintaining an image of heterosexuality. I.E. if such experimenting goes on, on average I wouldn't expect it to be as socially acceptable to discuss it.

Thus, if I wanted to make an effective statement about homosexuality being OK, I think I would make a male character gay. If homosexuality was common place in Star Wars universe, then it wouldn't matter to me. But Sabine is already making a powerful statement to girls. Also making her the first openly gay character on screen I feel is lazy to make the tomboy gay, and less of a powerful statement than a male homosexual character.

There's nothing to say there can't be more than one homosexual character among the core cast, but if I had to pick one, it wouldn't be Sabine.

I would pick a character popular among boys, not address his sexual orientation for awhile, then reveal it. It would be like making Darth Maul gay. He is a wildly popular character, he is a badass, and then you add that he is gay years later. I'm sure that would have a much more powerful impact than making Sabine gay. The bigots would quickly identify themselves as the ones protesting the move, then you'd have those that don't care because it doesn't define him and those that applaud the decision.

People are going to decide whether they care that he is homosexual, and if it did take them aback then they have to decide whether they still think he's awesome despite that, or are they bigoted and let his sexuality affect their opinion of him?

 

It would add to the story because there are many people who watch Star Wars Rebels that are part of the LGBT community. It adds to both the diversity being shown on the show, as well as homosexual people feeling connected to a character(s) on a more personal level. There are already a number of individuals in the new canon that identify as homosexual, so I expect it's going to happen eventually.

Gay rights is not a fad, but people; human beings that are not being treated equally in society who are now being heard and want the same rights as everyone else. They don't want to be second class citizens, but want the same rights (marriage etc) that straight people have.

It's also not going to just simply vanish after a few years. I mean, the LGBT community and their supporters aren't ghosts you know.

However if you are going to get political I suggest you go to the official homosexuality thread.

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/homosexuality-the-thread.22965104/page-397#post-52715414

TaradosGon

That makes more sense, thanks for explaining more of your viewpoint.

 

TaradosGon That's a very good point actually.

 

I wasn't getting political. And yes there will always be gays, I'm just saying that all the publicity they get is gonna stop because people won't care about that triviality. If gays want to marry I'm fine with it, they just need to stop flaunting it and be relaxed about it. As for a gay character in Rebels, it doesn't make sense at all for the overall plot. If a character was made known as homosexual, then some people would grumble that the character didn't get enough attention or that too much attention was put into it. Star Wars should be about Wars in space, not about throwing lines to get more fans just because the show now has a homosexual character. With only 22 minutes per episode, there isn't enough time to bring something that deep into the show. I would strongly expect characters like that to be in the live action Netflix show, which is a much more suitable place for it.

Btw, I really hope like I'm not coming across as a homophobe or gay hater, cause that's not my intent or position on the subject at all. If I have offended, please let me know and quote the post so I can change the wording!


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Alright. But I still believe it might be best to take the gay rights thing over there so we don't get too far of topic here since this is about homosexuality in Rebels.

They aren't 'flaunting' anything though. They do demonstrations to be heard; similar to how African Americans protested their unfair racial segregation by white people.

Just because a show only has about half an hour in terms of air time per episode doesn't mean they shouldn't have homosexual characters. It can be worked into a plot rather well, for example we could have Sabine mention that her 'mothers' would be proud of her sticking up for herself and other people and fighting against tyranny for example. That's a good way to show it. I'd rather have diverse characters in the show then bland ones.

 

I truly don't understand why people thinks it needs to be a be a big thing if it happens at all, attention to it could be nice, but learning a character's sexuality should be like learning their favorite food is Space Waffles. It doesn't need to come up all the time, it's just a part of the person. Especially in Rebels, where literally the only thing to do with sexuality to have ever come up is that Ezra has a crush on Sabine. Even the fact Kanan is into women has only ever been mentioned in A New Dawn.

 

But to gay people their sexuality is typically a large part of their identity. Hence why we have massive Gay Pride festivals etc.

 

What does the Q stand for?

 

It stands for Queer.

 

I'd rather a characters sexuality not become a big part of them that ends up defining them.

For example, in Mortal Kombat X a new character called Kung Jin. He was ever, EVER so slightly hinted to be gay and then it became a huge part of his character to the community. I don't like that.