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

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

Is being straight essential to the story? i don't think so

Are people openly straight in Star Wars? Maybe I watch these movies for other reasons, but I can't think of many characters where any of it is implied or mentioned.



"We'll toss the dice however they fall,
And snuggle the girls be they short or tall,
Then follow young Mat whenever he calls,
To dance with Jak o' the Shadows."

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JWeinCom on 27 February 2016
chakkra said:
JWeinCom said:

Yes, we are all aware of bisexuality.  

Apparently nuckles87 is not.

I can't speak for him, but he probably is.

First off, gay is not bisexual.  They're two different terms.  Nobody said Luke isn't bisexual, although there is no evidence to suggest he is.

The conversation was about Luke being gay being the reason he didn't have kids in a hypothetical scenario.  If Luke was bisexual, that would not impede him from having children, so bisexuality was irrelevant, which is probably why nuckles87 didn't acknowledge it.



JWeinCom on 27 February 2016
outlawauron said:
spemanig said:

Is being straight essential to the story? i don't think so

Are people openly straight in Star Wars? Maybe I watch these movies for other reasons, but I can't think of many characters where any of it is implied or mentioned.

There is a love triangle with Luke and Han both wanting Leah, and incredibly awkward love between Anakin and Natalie Portman is basically at the center of the prequels.  

None of these characters have specifically ruled out being attracted to the same gender, but why would they? there's no indication they are.  So, I'd say they are openly straight.



outlawauron on 27 February 2016
JWeinCom said:
outlawauron said:

Are people openly straight in Star Wars? Maybe I watch these movies for other reasons, but I can't think of many characters where any of it is implied or mentioned.

There is a love triangle with Luke and Han both wanting Leah, and incredibly awkward love between Anakin and Natalie Portman is basically at the center of the prequels.  

None of these characters have specifically ruled out being attracted to the same gender, but why would they? there's no indication they are.  So, I'd say they are openly straight.

So, across 7 movies there's 5 openly straight characters with Anakin and Padme's relationship being integral to the plot of the series (unsure Kylo Ren will be foundational or just flavor). I just don't how that can't be used as an actual response.



"We'll toss the dice however they fall,
And snuggle the girls be they short or tall,
Then follow young Mat whenever he calls,
To dance with Jak o' the Shadows."

Check out MyAnimeList and my Game Collection. Owner of the 5 millionth post.

milliniar on 27 February 2016

I thought R2 and C3p0 were already a Gay robot couple.



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Wagram on 27 February 2016

I'm all for it if it makes sense and that's what the writers truly want to do. I'm not for it if it's simply for the sake of hitting a check box.



Torillian on 27 February 2016
Jon-Erich said:
Torillian said:

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.

Movie makers don't have any obligations to represent realistic diversity, but the post I was replying to seemed to state that minorities were being overrepresented in media which I wanted to look at from a math point of view since I was curious.  Any given single movie does not require a gay character but overall the trend seems to be that LGBT community if underrepresented and not overrepresented in movies.  



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JWeinCom on 27 February 2016
outlawauron said:
JWeinCom said:

There is a love triangle with Luke and Han both wanting Leah, and incredibly awkward love between Anakin and Natalie Portman is basically at the center of the prequels.  

None of these characters have specifically ruled out being attracted to the same gender, but why would they? there's no indication they are.  So, I'd say they are openly straight.

So, across 7 movies there's 5 openly straight characters with Anakin and Padme's relationship being integral to the plot of the series (unsure Kylo Ren will be foundational or just flavor). I just don't how that can't be used as an actual response.

Well, there are more than five.  Jaba the Hut for example is straight and has a thing for humans... I'm not sure how that worked out.  Luke's Aunt and Uncle are presented as straight.  Jar Jar is also straight so far as we can tell, as he comments about how hot the princess is (I think when she's 14, so that's interspecies paedophelia).  We can be sure Anakin's mom is attracted to men at the very least.  Lando shows attraction to Leah, and Han sees him as a threat, so he's at least outwardly straight.  Finn and Rey seem to be straight, although they have pretty poor chemistry.  

That's just off the top of my head.  I'm fairly sure there are more. 



Cobretti2 on 27 February 2016
spemanig said:
gintama said:
is it essential to the story ? i don't think so

Is being straight essential to the story? i don't think so

well it kind of is or episode IV to VI wouldn't have happened the way they did.



 

 

chakkra on 27 February 2016
JWeinCom said:
chakkra said:

Apparently nuckles87 is not.

I can't speak for him, but he probably is.

First off, gay is not bisexual.  They're two different terms.  Nobody said Luke isn't bisexual, although there is no evidence to suggest he is.

The conversation was about Luke being gay being the reason he didn't have kids in a hypothetical scenario.  If Luke was bisexual, that would not impede him from having children, so bisexuality was irrelevant, which is probably why nuckles87 didn't acknowledge it.

You're right.  Looking back at his post, he never ruled out the posibility of Luke being bisexual.

But even so, I have openly gay friends who have admited to me that they have felt attraction for a leat one girl when they were younger.  So if Luke turns out to be totally gay now, that wouldn't be too shocking for me neither.