Star Wars: The Rise of LGBTQ Representation?
I will always love Star Wars. My formative years were surrounded by it. I remember lightsaber battles in the garden with my brother, spending Christmas vouchers buying the VHS versions, pixelated video games and rare cinema visits whenever new or remastered editions were released. Star Wars was an escape for me as a young, oft-confused gay kid; it offered an expansive world full of characters who, like me, were all different in some way, whether it was marginalised and misunderstood humans or great and fanciful aliens from the outer reaches of the galaxy, this was a universe that surely encompassed and accepted all.
But it never crossed my mind that there weren’t actually any LGBTQ characters in Star Wars. And why would it have? The cinema landscape was regrettably different 20+ years ago when The Phantom Menace was hitting screens around the world. Representation just wasn’t as important because mainstream society itself was only coming to terms with the issue itself, so the expectations of a young gay boy to see himself reflected in blockbuster movies just wasn’t there, no matter how much of a melting pot the Star Wars universe seemed.
Now, over 40 years after the release of A New Hope, not addressing the inclusion of LGBTQ characters seems both regressive and statistically absurd given the vastness and colossal nature of Star Wars. As Esquire so neatly explains: “it’s borderline comical that across nine movies no one has managed to bump into one outright LGBTQ character.” And it seemed like current director J.J. Abrams agreed. In an interview with Variety ahead of the release of Rise of Skywalker, he heralded the inclusion of LGBTQ characters for the first time, stating that: “in the case of the LGBTQ community, it was important to me that people who go to this movie feel that they’re represented in the film.”
Even amidst the atmosphere of excitement surrounding the conclusion of the saga, nestled in amongst questions I had about of Rey’s heritage and Kylo Ren’s capricious allegiances, I was genuinely intrigued to see how they would handle their first foray into LGBTQ representation. But let me tell you reader, it was nothing short of unfulfilling.
(Not that this scene deserves a spoiler warning given that it is a literal micro-moment, but just in case — spoiler alert.)
In the background of the immense celebration scene at the end of the movie, we see two female Resistance members embrace and kiss. One is named in the series as Commander D’Acy and had a minor speaking role in The Last Jedi, the other is unknown. That’s it. That’s the representation that J.J. Abrams so boldly thought was worth flagging. Honestly, if it hadn’t been something I was actively looking out for, I would have missed it in the pandemonium of the scene.
While it is a step (and I use that word very tentatively), it’s just not enough anymore. This shrouded kiss between two tertiary characters is an example of the watered down, throw-them-a-scrap, queer baiting mentality that pervades modern Disney. We see it in the meagre glance between LeFou and another male character in Beauty and the Beast, the unnamed lesbian couple in Toy Story 4 and a brief mention of a boyfriend in Avengers: Endgame by a side character in a support group. This kind of tokenism should no longer be accepted in large scale movies, or at the very least, hyped in the manner that Abrams did.
This kind of pandering and under-delivering gets exhausting and only perpetuates the idea that a mere glimpse of representation is sufficient and worthy of praise. It’s not. By compartmentalising such an “important” scene so it doesn’t affect the story in any way, Disney still had the option to abandon it if things got too dicey, and in the Middle East and Singapore, this is exactly what the company did. It’s disingenuous to state that representation is important only to disregard it when you come up against opposition. As Vanity Fair rightly pointed out, this “has a way of making us look like a potential liability, rather than part of the family” especially when the series was primed to include actual, substantial LGBTQ representation in the form of Finn and Poe.
Finn and Poe was an opportunity missed. While it was the divisive fandom that vehemently “shipped” the two characters together after The Force Awakens, there was no denying the on-screen chemistry. Although it may have been an unintentional by-product, in hindsight, it was probably the pairing that would have made the most sense in the entire trilogy. Even the actors themselves saw the potential, with Oscar Isaac stating that “it seemed like a natural progression, but sadly enough it’s a time when people are too afraid…but if they would have been boyfriends, that would have been fun”.
It’s fair to say that the trilogy itself was never overly romantic, but the LGBTQ community wasn’t necessarily looking for a great romance. Instead, it was noteworthy representation that couldn’t be deleted or missed, that made sense in a universe and in a story that preached acceptance for all. And this is where the disappointment in the false promise lies, especially when we consider that Star Wars has always been a beacon for the concept of the other.
Star Wars has trailblazed for a variety of things in its immense history, and it would have been a suitably fitting and bold end to the main series to properly acknowledge the LGBTQ community. There is no denying the impact it could have made, giving another little boy hope that if it’s okay to be gay in Star Wars, perhaps it’s okay in real life. It is impossible to undersell the importance of moments like this when it comes to representation.
I was given a plethora of heroes from Star Wars to look up to over the years — from the courageous and wise Princess Leia to the plucky and powerful Rey. I’m very thankful for that. It just remains unfortunate that at no point have I ever been able to look at a significant character and truly say, “they’re like me”. In the end, the franchise chose to do the bare minimum, and while this is better than nothing, I’m getting a bit tired of accepting this.
