Queer Representations In STAR WARS
More and more franchises have recently embraced non-heteronormative characters. And while queer plot elements are often blown way out of proportion by the media (Power Rangers), they are welcome steps towards a more inclusive entertainment industry.
When it comes to Science Fiction, Star Trek famously depicted Hikaru Sulu greeting his husband on the big screen in 2016’s Star Trek Beyond. This makes you wonder: what about the second massive Scifi franchise? What about Star Wars?
You probably cannot remember any queer representations in the galaxy far, far away, but there have been a few, especially in recent years. Let’s take a look at the non-heteronormative inhabitants of the Star Wars galaxy that we’ve been introduced to so far.
Queer Representations In The Star Wars Movies
The movies have always been the core of the Star Wars franchise. There have been no fewer than ten so far, counting the full-length Clone Wars movie and the illustrious Holiday Special that introduced us to Boba Fett.
If you now find yourself struggling to remember a distinctly non-heteronormative character in any of the movies, there’s a simple reason why: there haven’t been any. At least not yet.
In the case of the original trilogy, that makes sense to some extent. Episodes IV to VI were meant to be traditional fantasy stories set in space. That’s why there are princesses, emperors, knights, and sabers in the Star Wars galaxy. It’s also the reason why the plot of the original trilogy is — let’s be honest — hardly revolutionary.
However, that doesn’t explain why the prequels and sequels, as well as the Clone Wars and Rebels TV series, are heteronormative down to the core. (There are certainly numerous fan theories about Poe Dameron’s sexuality, but nothing has been confirmed as of yet.)
Consequently, the only characters featured in the Star Wars movies one could describe as somewhat queer may surprise you: we’re talking about the Hutts. What is it that makes Jabba and co. so interesting, you wonder? Read on and you’ll find out.
Gender In Star Wars Legends
Since the 80s, official Star Wars stories have been published in the form of novels, comics and games. Then along came Disney and decided to start over again, using only the movies and TV series. That is why all other stories from before the Disney era are now called Star Wars Legends, while those texts published by Disney form the new Star Wars canon.
Let’s take a closer look at the older Star Wars Legends material first. This leads us back to the Hutts, those big and lazy slug-like creatures we all love to despise. While their gender identities have never been addressed in the movies, we learn about them in some of the Legends novels. Jeff Grubb’s Scourge in particular, which is set in the Hutt underworld, sheds light on the species.
Biologically, every Hutt has both male and female characteristics. Yet, all Hutt characters are referred to with either male or female pronouns in the Star Wars universe. This suggests that Hutts actually pick a gender to their liking. They then perform their freely chosen gender by, for instance, wearing certain accessories. Hutts are born naked and the rest is drag, right?
“The idea of calling one [Hutt] male or female was usually left to the observer. The Hutts themselves seemed to be unconcerned about whether they were male or female at any moment.” (Scourge, p. 40)
Scourge tells us that Hutts don’t even care about gender distinctions. Their language, Huttese, is mostly gender-neutral, so that gendered pronouns are only used because of our human obsession with strict gender categories. Consequently, Hutt culture is a particularly interesting example of queerness in the Star Wars galaxy.
Sexuality In Star Wars Legends
Alright, so Hutts are gender-queer. But what about sexuality? For decades, there was no non-heterosexual character in Star Wars. Then, in 2006, Karen Traviss published Boba Fett: A Practical Man.
The e-novella introduced us to Goran Beviin, a married Mandalorian soldier working closely with Fett. Beviin’s partner was called Medrit Vasur, but their gender wasn’t specified. It was only in Traviss’s 2007 novel Legacy Of The Force: Bloodline that we learned that Vasur is a man, making him and Beviin the first openly non-heterosexual couple in Star Wars.
It’s important to note that the Mandalorian couple are a far cry from stereotypical gay characters. Beviin is a warrior. He’s also one of the most influential Mandalorians and one of the very few people the legendary bounty hunter Boba Fett truly trusts. His husband Vasur is a blacksmith and described as a mountain of a man.
The two of them have adopted a female war orphan and help her raise her kids. They’re a good example of the Mandalorian family model as invented by Traviss. For the warrior people, trust and care are more important than bloodlines, species, or, indeed, sexuality.
The lack of stereotyping and the fact that Beviin and Vasur’s sexuality doesn’t affect their plotlines at all make this a particularly laudable representation of non-heteronormativity in a successful franchise.
Sexuality In The Star Wars Canon
Disney’s fairly recent restart of the Star Wars franchise has already given birth to more queer characters than Legends ever did. The man who is responsible for this feat is author Chuck Wendig — with a little help from Claudia Grey.
While Grey’s brilliant novel Bloodline (not to be confused with Traviss’s book) briefly mentions a male Rebel pilot who’s having an affair with a Corellian man, Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy actually has an openly gay main character — a first for Star Wars.
Sinjir Rath Velus is a former Imperial loyalty officer, who joins the New Republic. He’s an alcoholic, a cynic, and a skilled torturer. He also happens to have no interest whatsoever in women, as we learn in Aftermath, the first book of the trilogy. In the sequel Aftermath: Life Debt, Sinjir finds a boyfriend in New Republic slicer Conder Kyl.
“Sinjir stops and kisses him. His long-fingered hands pull the other man’s scruffy face into his own. The moment lasts forever. And it still doesn’t last long enough.” (Empire’s End, p. 249)
Conder only has a small role in Life Debt, but returns for the finale of the trilogy, Aftermath: Empire’s End. That novel details Sinjir and Conder’s relationship, openly showing their affection for each other as well as their struggles. Just like Karen Traviss’s Mandalorian couple, neither Conder nor Sinjir are stereotypical gay characters. Sinjir, for instance, says about himself that he’s “more used to causing pain than soothing it” (Empire’s End, p. 263).
Chuck Wendig’s embrace of queer notions doesn’t end with Sinijr and Conder. In Empire’s End, for instance, Imperial Grand Admiral Rae Sloane tells New Republic agent Norra Wexley, “I never had a husband or a wife to die in my hands” (p. 401), acknowledging non-heterosexual relationships.
Gender In The Star Wars Canon
Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy not only details a gay relationship. It also features the first non-binary Star Wars character that’s addressed with gender-neutral pronouns.
That character is the pirate Eleodie Maracavanya, who debuts in Life Debt and reappers in Empire’s End. The alien is mostly addressed with the gender-neutral pronouns zhe and zher, although they as well as both she and he are also used at times. The fact that Eleodie’s non-binary gender identity is reflected in the language used to describe zhem marks a leap forward from the depictions of Hutt gender identities in Scourge.
“Soon the New Republic will have a present from his highness, her glory, his wonder, her luminous magnificence…” (Empire’s End, p. 374)
In addition to zher gender identity, Eleodie’s plotline is fascinating as well. Zhe is in command of the former Imperial Super Star Destroyer Annihilator, which zhe renamed Liberty’s Misrule. From the bridge of the Misrule, Eleodie rules over a newly set-up pirate Empire in Wild Space.
Characters like Sinjir, Conder, and Eleodie make the Aftermath trilogy the by far most inclusive addition to the Star Wars canon, catapulting the diverse Star Wars galaxy into the 21st century. Not only are queer characters included in the Aftermath trilogy (and in Claudia Grey’s Bloodline), but none of them are, in fact, a collection of stereotypes. Instead, they are complex, well-thought out protagonists that just happen to be non-heteronormative in one way or another.
Should Disney finally decide to include queer characters in the Star Wars movies, this is how it should be done.
