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Forums - Movies & TV - J.J. Abrams: "I'd Welcome Gay Characters In STAR WARS"

gintama on 27 February 2016
JWeinCom said:
gintama said:
is it essential to the story ? i don't think so

Ehhh... how do you know it isn't essential to the story, when you don't know that character's role in the story?

Character relationships are very important in stories, so their sexuality can make a big difference.  If Anakin had been gay, the stories would have turned out very differently.

maybe luke is gay , so he don't have any child  . i really hope it is part of the story not marketing thing 



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Jon-Erich on 27 February 2016
Torillian said:
vivster said:
Of course because people only believe that you're not racist, sexist or homophobe when you overrepresent every tiny minority.

I just hope he will also include a Jedi with down syndrome or else it would mean that he hates people with down syndrome.

This seemed like a fun math excersise to think about so I decided to find out how many movies have gay characters and whether that fits with how many there should be statistically.  

According to this article: http://variety.com/2015/film/news/glaad-report-gay-movie-characters-2014-tammy-get-hard-1201471698/

"The report, which studied releases from the seven major studios in 2014, found that 20 of the 114 movies (17.5%) that bowed last year had characters who identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual."

So 17.5% of movies in 2014 had a gay character of some sort.  

 And according to this article: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-22/americans-vastly-overestimate-size-of-lgbt-population 4% of the population is gay.  

That means 96% of movie characters should be straight.  Assuming that an average movie has 10 characters that would mean .96^10 chance that all the characters should be straight statistically or 66.48%.  So 31.52% of movies should have a gay character, but only 17.5% actually did in 2014.  Therefore if anything LGBT community is still underrepresented in movies.  

In my opinion, none of this matters. I think unless you're making a documentary or something based on historic fact, the movie makers should not have an obligation to represent anybody, especially when the movie is set in a fictitious universe where Earth's statistics and population figures have no relevance.

That being said, if they want to put gay characters in Star Wars, fine. But they shouldn't do it in a way where the character has to spell out that they're gay, especially when it is not vital to the plot. I hate it when movies and TV shows do that. This is why in 50 years, all the shows an movies that we see as classics right noware still going to hold up while the new shit we have today will be seen as dumb and unintelligent. 

Btw, has anyone else noticed that? The ONLY time we've seen any on-screen romance in the Star Wars movies was when it was essential to the plot? Gay or not gay, they should keep it that way.



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teigaga on 27 February 2016
IkePoR said:
vivster said:
Of course because people only believe that you're not racist, sexist or homophobe when you overrepresent every tiny minority.

I just hope he will also include a Jedi with down syndrome or else it would mean that he hates people with down syndrome.

Because there's only 8 billion people and MOST of them aren't another race, women or gay.  Jeez.  Such a small, tiny, small minoity.

!!!! 

I don't know why people are acting like he's forcing representation some 0.1% minority. The fact that people are offended by an active push towards reasonable diversity is truly tragic.

And theres no reason for it be "essential to the story". Just as most characters races and sexualities aren't essential to the narrative. One of the best cases of a gay character being executed was in The Last of US and they could have easily switched Bill's boyfriend to a girlfriend and it would have zero affect of the outcome of the story.



Aerys on 27 February 2016

I think it's discriminative, the gays get everything ,there is almost one gay guy by movie/tv show ( i dont joke, i watch 20 tv shows and each one has a gay couple, arrow, the flash, the 100, the walking dead, black sails(oh this one even more), etc. ) , but what about the transexuals ? They should be represented as much if we are fair



Predictions for end of 2014 HW sales:

 PS4: 17m   XB1: 10m    WiiU: 10m   Vita: 10m

 

nuckles87 on 27 February 2016

Gay characters exist in real life. There are currently zero in the CURRENT Star Wars canon. Certainly no prominent gay characters anyway.

So yeah, there ought to be a gay Star Wars character. Or two. That's not "overrepresentation" that's acknowledging their existence.

It's estimated that homosexuals make up roughly 5-10% of the population. So they should be roughly 5-10% of the characters in any work of fiction.

What's more, in something like Star Wars, it ought to be completely incidental (I mean, unless the Empire is homophobic....which it probably us) to the character. He/She's just "gay," and ought to just have chemistry with a potential love interest just like any straight couple.

It's crazy to me that people can be against something as innocuous as this.

 

Edit: So I've been seeing a bunch of different numbers regarding the percantage of gays in the US. Some are close to the low end of my number, some aren't. Apparently the 10% number came from an old Kinsey book. But also, apparently that number may actually be 20%

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-percent-of-the-population-is-gay-more-than-you-think-5012467/?no-ist

But regardless, what I'm getting at is that gays exist, they aren't some tiny abberation that only makes up a few thousand people. It's something worth just "being there" in somthing like Star Wars.



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Aeolus451 on 27 February 2016

From what I remember, the only time the viewer actually knew any character's sexuality was with Anakin and Padme but either one could have been bisexual because nothing was ever said about it. The star wars series/story has never been about anyone's sexuality. In order to have a homosexual character in anything, they have to be known as that. It's silly to be honest.

A person is who they are regardless if others know anything about them. There was already homosexual and bisexual characters in the series but that's never been a focus and it shouldn't be now just because hollywood is playing at being progressive.



StokedUp on 27 February 2016

Yeah but do not do it just for doing it or because you think you have to because there isn't one in the story yet, Only do it if it's essential.



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nuckles87 on 27 February 2016
gintama said:
JWeinCom said:

Ehhh... how do you know it isn't essential to the story, when you don't know that character's role in the story?

Character relationships are very important in stories, so their sexuality can make a big difference.  If Anakin had been gay, the stories would have turned out very differently.

maybe luke is gay , so he don't have any child  . i really hope it is part of the story not marketing thing 

Luke had a pretty clear attraction to his sister in the first two movies, so he pretty clearly wasn't gay.

KingofTrolls said:
CGI-Quality said:
Thread title updated - Mr. Abrams never confirms any sort of move. His sentiments are: "I'd welcome it".

Thank God ! I dont know why sexuality is even bring on the table in SW.

Yeah, I mean,it's not like Star Wars has ever represented sexuality before. Every single character in the franchise has always been assexual, representing no preference for either gender in a romantic way whatsoever.

I mean, aside from the heterosexual relationships represented by Luke, Leia, Han, Anakin, and Padme.

Obviously, I am being sarcastic. I'm trying not to come off as mean, but this sort of sentiment tends to frustrate me. I apologize in advance. But my point is, we already have several heterosexual relationships in Star Wars, two of which produced a child and one of which is incredibly weird in hindsight. Only one, between Anakin and Padme, was genuinely essential to the plot. Oddly enough, it's probably also the relationship in canon Star Wars with the least amount of chemistry.



Aerys on 27 February 2016
Aeolus451 said:
From what I remember, the only time the viewer actually knew any character's sexuality was with Anakin and Padme but either one could have been bisexual because nothing was ever said about it. The star wars series/story has never been about anyone's sexuality. In order to have a homosexual character in anything, they have to be known as that. It's silly to be honest.

A person is who they are regardless if others know anything about them. There was already homosexual and bisexual characters in the series but that's never been a focus and it shouldn't be now just because hollywood is playing at being progressive.

Your signature, where does that come from ? It's annoying me since months



Predictions for end of 2014 HW sales:

 PS4: 17m   XB1: 10m    WiiU: 10m   Vita: 10m

 

Aeolus451 on 27 February 2016
Aerys said:
Aeolus451 said:
From what I remember, the only time the viewer actually knew any character's sexuality was with Anakin and Padme but either one could have been bisexual because nothing was ever said about it. The star wars series/story has never been about anyone's sexuality. In order to have a homosexual character in anything, they have to be known as that. It's silly to be honest.

A person is who they are regardless if others know anything about them. There was already homosexual and bisexual characters in the series but that's never been a focus and it shouldn't be now just because hollywood is playing at being progressive.

Your signature, where does that come from ? It's annoying me since months

haha. I like that sig. It's from Parasyte.