Han Solo is - according to modern lights - a misognyist and a sexist. He had several lines to Leia that would make him a "problematic" character. Does Star Wars going forward need to reform him or are we going to keep on enjoying the lovable scoundrel? Is an Alpha Male like Han acceptable now? Can he still wonder if things would go better if they can avoid taking any more female advice? Do we need to sit our kids down and talk about the "problematic" things they will experience before exposing the next generation to the movies?

Can we add "diversity" to Star Wars without throwing out what's already there?

Wow, what a way to misrepresent what people have said...

My point is, that there really isn't much sexuality in SW in the first place. Put in one lesbian (or two? I don't know if the character is single or in a relationship) and suddenly it is a thing.

And why on earth would a women having a wife or being in love with another woman make it “a thing”?

The whole fall of Anakin can be attributed to love. Han and Leia end up together. Obi Wan has the hots for a Mandelorian Senator. Asoka thinks the boy rebel is cute. Lando hit on Sabine. Jabba digged Leia. Kanan loves Herra. And on and on the list goes…. Did that ever occur to you as problematic? Why would a girl liking a girl do?

Edit: I know you don’t think of the character as problematic so I am really curious as to why this one stands out for you.

DanteRotterdam,

I'm not trying to steer the conversation away from anything I said.

I have NOT said that merely having a *** character is politicizing Star Wars. I said that I hope that this (politicization) is not where things head. I've been pretty clear about what I think that looks like and why I don't like it. And it's not as you portray it. And you pointedly seemd to avoid answering my questions.

So maybe you should heed your own warning about misconstruing what you are saying.

And I explicitely mentioned that I may not be referring to your views on this but rather the views I have seen out there that jump on things like this.

This is an example of what I'm talking about. It's space opera. You want to shoe horn your pet political and social theories into the framework of the story and I want to just enjoy a unique brand of space opera. I want to leave all the acrimonious cultural and political stuff at the door.

Han Solo is - according to modern lights - a misognyist and a sexist. He had several lines to Leia that would make him a "problematic" character. Does Star Wars going forward need to reform him or are we going to keep on enjoying the lovable scoundrel? Is an Alpha Male like Han acceptable now? Can he still wonder if things would go better if they can avoid taking any more female advice? Do we need to sit our kids down and talk about the "problematic" things they will experience before exposing the next generation to the movies?

Can we add "diversity" to Star Wars without throwing out what's already there?

Wow, what a way to misrepresent what people have said...

Just asking where this is going.

I don't have a problem with a gay character but a lot of people - you too? - seem to want that gay character to advocate for something.

This is an example of what I'm talking about. It's space opera. You want to shoe horn your pet political and social theories into the framework of the story and I want to just enjoy a unique brand of space opera. I want to leave all the acrimonious cultural and political stuff at the door.

What's the 'this' is was referring to? Hint: it wasn't the gay character in the novel.

I appologize. I went back and it seems I indeed missed some subtleties in that conversation and jumped to conclusions.

Han Solo is - according to modern lights - a misognyist and a sexist. He had several lines to Leia that would make him a "problematic" character. Does Star Wars going forward need to reform him or are we going to keep on enjoying the lovable scoundrel? Is an Alpha Male like Han acceptable now? Can he still wonder if things would go better if they can avoid taking any more female advice? Do we need to sit our kids down and talk about the "problematic" things they will experience before exposing the next generation to the movies?

Can we add "diversity" to Star Wars without throwing out what's already there?

Wow, what a way to misrepresent what people have said...

Just asking where this is going.

I don't have a problem with a *** character but a lot of people - you too? - seem to want that *** character to advocate for something.

Actually, I don’t. I stated earlier that if it makes you feel anything other than “fine” then that is a bad thing. Meaning that finding it “GREAT” and finding it “TERRIBLE” are two sides of the same coin and both show understanding of sexuality still has a long way to go.

But he didn't say "homosexual" he said "homesexual behaviour",

Pretty much one and the same thing, isnt it?

he did say it just didn't belong in a fantasy genre that really isn't the greatest vehicle for expression of an opinion of it.

I completely disagree with this - science fiction is at it's best when it's about something. Rod Serling wrote the Twilight Zone to be gonzo, out-there science fiction for the sole purpose of airing social commentary in a format that the censors (who would normally put the kibosh on many things he was trying to say) would ignore. Science Fiction has always been a platform for people speaking out - from Roddenberry to Asimov to Bradbury. Why should Star Wars be any different?

Also, up until recently genre fans were the ostracized outsiders. Nerd was not always a hip, cool, desirable thing to be. Admitting that you played D&D would get your ass kicked at school on a daily basis. If there's a group that should be open to the infinite diversity of the universe - it should be us.

I say it again, you want to preach about tolerance, you need to practice it.

Tolerant with the guys that beat Matthew Shepard to death and left him tied to a fence? Tolerant of the men who murdered Emmett Till and then threw his body in a river for just talking to a white woman? Absofuckinlutely not.

I'm not saying to rise up all Malcom X style and fight fire with fire. However if I see someone spouting bulls#it, I will call them on that bulls#it - bigotry is wrong, regardless if it's white on black, man on woman, straight on ***, black on white, human on martian - that s#it is wrong, wrong, wrong and we should not stand for it in ANY form.

No one should ever hate anyone, ever.

Yeah, well I gotta say that there is plenty of hatred in my system. I hate child abusers, rapists, racists, mysogonists, bigots, dictators, genocidal maniacs, slavers, serial killers, etc. no amount of forum folk telling me to tolerate any of them will ever make me change my mind on those issues.

The fact that you state that no sexuality has any place in Star Wars while it has been in all six makes realize the problem. For some reason people think:

Heterosexual relationship = love

Homosexual relationship = sex

Also I asked you about your stance when the word LGBT would be replaced with black... Should we have been tolerant of that as well?

I'm glad you two feel better about yourselves for confronting things but your approach solves nothing. Any social injustice, doesn't matter what cause, LGBT, race relations etc, is about advancing the cause and not how you feel personally. If you actually want to advance a cause, any cause, you need convince people that don't agree with you, not the people that do agree with you. So if you make a habit of calling people names or hating them that don't agree with you, it's not likely you're going to advance any issue one inch. You may feel good and tough personally but at the end of the day you've probably at the very least stalled a cause or more likely hurt it with that approach.

We aren't discussing acts of violence either, that's a complete red herring, any unjustified act of violence is always an unjustified act of violence.

If hating people and calling them names solved anything explain why is the middle east a mess, or why we still struggle with this? Human beings self segregate and we are tribal by nature, we seek sameness and shun difference. Frankly when you two scream insults and talk about hate, all you're doing is giving in to the very racial motivations that lead to prejudice and intolerance in the first place.

Tolerance doesn't mean acceptance, tolerance means being able to live with people having different opinions and in a truly diverse culture it's not a good idea, it's an absolute necessity. To think that everyone is always going to have the same opinion is simply not even remotely realistic.

You two want to actually help the LGBT cause, don't scream at, insult, and hate the people they're trying to convince to accept them.

I appologize. I went back and it seems I indeed missed some subtleties in that conversation and jumped to conclusions.

Cool. Happens to all of us. =)

Han Solo is - according to modern lights - a misognyist and a sexist. He had several lines to Leia that would make him a "problematic" character. Does Star Wars going forward need to reform him or are we going to keep on enjoying the lovable scoundrel? Is an Alpha Male like Han acceptable now? Can he still wonder if things would go better if they can avoid taking any more female advice? Do we need to sit our kids down and talk about the "problematic" things they will experience before exposing the next generation to the movies?

Can we add "diversity" to Star Wars without throwing out what's already there?

Wow, what a way to misrepresent what people have said...

Just asking where this is going.

I don't have a problem with a *** character but a lot of people - you too? - seem to want that *** character to advocate for something.

Actually, I don’t. I stated earlier that if it makes you feel anything other than “fine” then that is a bad thing. Meaning that finding it “GREAT” and finding it “TERRIBLE” are two sides of the same coin and both show understanding of sexuality still has a long way to go.

Then it sounds like we're at least a little closer in our views than I originally thought.

My point is, that there really isn't much sexuality in SW in the first place. Put in one lesbian (or two? I don't know if the character is single or in a relationship) and suddenly it is a thing.

And why on earth would a women having a wife or being in love with another woman make it “a thing”?

The whole fall of Anakin can be attributed to love. Han and Leia end up together. Obi Wan has the hots for a Mandelorian Senator. Asoka thinks the boy rebel is cute. Lando hit on Sabine. Jabba digged Leia. Kanan loves Herra. And on and on the list goes…. Did that ever occur to you as problematic? Why would a girl liking a girl do?

Edit: I know you don’t think of the character as problematic so I am really curious as to why this one stands out for you.

Yeah, I may have been a bit vague on that one.

What I meant was that sexuality and/or procreation is virtually non-existant in SW. They have kids but it is very much in the Disney vein. We know how these things work, but it is all off-screen. But now, suddenly, it is the center of attention and people all over the world are discussing it, myself included. To me, it seems like gay men in the end 90'ies. Everyone wanted to have one as a friend to show the world how open-minded they were. I have heard many people say things like: "A friend of mine, he is gay by the way..." Who the hell cares?! Is he your friend or some show poodle?!

That is what i mean by it being "a thing" - the internet makes it so. Or we, the users, do.

@2p51: We will never see eye to eye on this. Ever. I am letting it go.

I do agree with that, however Lovecraft spouted racial slur and prejudice, Star wars did neither.

I wasn't implying that it did! I thought it was fine on that front.

The OT just didn’t push the boundaries it could have and stayed safe within the confines of its time this doesn’t make Lucas wrong or shortsighted it just didn’t propel him as the one going over and beyond social conventions, that’s all. We’ve come a long way since then. You have to agree with me that if it were released as such today there would be a shitload of complaints about it (well, you don’t “have to” anything of course….)

I do agree that it would get complaints, but more on the grounds that everything generates complaints these days. I actually don't recall any racism or sexism in the films. Admittedly it's been a long time since I saw them, but nothing springs to mind as a serious issue. I suppose the two obvious things are the fact that Lucas used real world foreign languages and accents for some of the aliens and that could be construed as caricatures (though I don't think anything was meant by it and the worst offenses of this by far are in the PT with those Nemoidians, rather than in the OT). And I suppose Princess Leia ends up in a gold bikini. But I don't find that necessarily sexist. Yes, Jabba wants to show off his status by having a princess displayed as his trophy - Jabba's like that. But Leia is never shown as some helpless damsel in distress. Quite the opposite in fact. If anything she's a pretty strong female role-model for the time. I think the only area you could pick on the OT (imo) is that the cast were mostly Caucasian. Though Lando wasn't and iirc, James Earl Jones is Black, as well. And in any case, it's not as if the black actors in the parts were put into any stereotyped rolls. Am I missing something - because I don't see the OT has especially culpable on any front.

Han Solo is - according to modern lights - a misognyist and a sexist. He had several lines to Leia that would make him a "problematic" character. Does Star Wars going forward need to reform him or are we going to keep on enjoying the lovable scoundrel? Is an Alpha Male like Han acceptable now? Can he still wonder if things would go better if they can avoid taking any more female advice? Do we need to sit our kids down and talk about the "problematic" things they will experience before exposing the next generation to the movies?

Can we add "diversity" to Star Wars without throwing out what's already there?

I'm not seeing this at all. What about Han Solo makes him misogynist / sexist?

Guys - this thread is pissing me off WAY too much, and I don't come here to be angry - so I'm bowing out. Have fun.

EDIT: There was originally a post here which was a reply to JediRonin. I've decided to remove it (it's only been up five minutes) because it's just pursuing a line of argument against someone I don't at all think is homophobic, just someone who is (and I have no problem with this), not the greatest fan of shoe-horning in things for the sake of political correctness or enticing new markets. I don't dispute that. I just don't see any reason to consider a lesbian character in this novel to be a case of that. But subtlety and tone get lost on the Internet - I'm not interested in falling out with someone over a difference in conclusion. I will cheerfully argue all day long with someone who is prejudiced, but that's not JediRonin, I believe. We just disagree on whether or not this is a case of being done for marketing reasons. I still see no evidence of that, but unlike actual prejudice, it's certainly not worth arguing over. Especially online where it's easy to read everything as worse / larger than it is.

So peace!

Oh, the issues with the OT would have to do with the 1 or 2 woman among hundreds of men. And the 1 black man among hundreds of whites and being portrayed as an untrustworthy (yet highly likeable) scoundrel.

Tolerance doesn't mean acceptance, tolerance means being able to live with people having different opinions and in a truly diverse culture it's not a good idea, it's an absolute necessity. To think that everyone is always going to have the same opinion is simply not even remotely realistic.

You two want to actually help the LGBT cause, don't scream at, insult, and hate the people they're trying to convince to accept them.

Um... what about my response to you where I didn't scream at, insult, or hate on anyone?

Tolerance doesn't mean acceptance, tolerance means being able to live with people having different opinions and in a truly diverse culture it's not a good idea, it's an absolute necessity. To think that everyone is always going to have the same opinion is simply not even remotely realistic.

You two want to actually help the LGBT cause, don't scream at, insult, and hate the people they're trying to convince to accept them.

Um... what about my response to you where I didn't scream at, insult, or hate on anyone?

Did I quote you? If you got caught in the midst of some quotes my apologies. My point is directed at those that think hating people or calling them names is the way to open eyes and change opinions, not to those that understand rational, mature, reasoned disagreements that put forth valid points are how you should influence any issue if you're actually selfless and interested in advancing an issue, as opposed to satisfying a self need for negative expression.

My point is directed at those that think hating people or calling them names is the way to open eyes and change opinions

I said I wasn’t going to react but this is just nonsense.

Not once did I say I was trying to change opinions, I was pretty upfront about that from the start I am never having a reasonable debate with a bigot. I am not one to do that. I will not tolerate intolerance, and the fact that I am unwilling to deal with people who judge others for the way they were born, whether it’s the color of their skin, their gender, the color of their hair, their sexual orientation. That does not make me intolerant and I resent the semantic games you in all your feigned loftiness try to portray here. “Calling them names” Yeah, that “moron” really was one heck of an insult.

Tolerance doesn't mean acceptance, tolerance means being able to live with people having different opinions and in a truly diverse culture it's not a good idea, it's an absolute necessity. To think that everyone is always going to have the same opinion is simply not even remotely realistic.

You two want to actually help the LGBT cause, don't scream at, insult, and hate the people they're trying to convince to accept them.

Um... what about my response to you where I didn't scream at, insult, or hate on anyone?

Did I quote you? If you got caught in the midst of some quotes my apologies. My point is directed at those that think hating people or calling them names is the way to open eyes and change opinions, not to those that understand rational, mature, reasoned disagreements that put forth valid points are how you should influence any issue if you're actually selfless and interested in advancing an issue, as opposed to satisfying a self need for negative expression.

You didn't quote me at all. You seem to have passed it up entirely.

I actually thought Desslok's response to you was very well measured--not that it had to be. You seem to be positing this argument that in order for one to self-describe as "tolerant" that one must tolerate intolerance.

That is pretty much what I am trying to convince you away from. While tolerance, as a word, does mean having to live with and have an objective attitude to differing opinions, it also means to advocate for freedom from bigotry. One word means both. (It also means other things but that's beside the point.)

The Star Wars franchise has historically been exclusively heterosexual which is to say it excluded other sexual preferences and orientation. It is now becoming more inclusive. I think we can all say that this is a step in a positive direction. Advocating the continued or renewed exclusion of a group would be, by the very nature of the word, a regression .

Such a regression should not be tolerated because there is only so much exclusion that a person that identifies with that orientation can tolerate.

(edit, addition) Hence the metaphor of the "Kick Me" sign in my original post.

Tolerance doesn't mean acceptance, tolerance means being able to live with people having different opinions and in a truly diverse culture it's not a good idea, it's an absolute necessity. To think that everyone is always going to have the same opinion is simply not even remotely realistic.

You two want to actually help the LGBT cause, don't scream at, insult, and hate the people they're trying to convince to accept them.

Um... what about my response to you where I didn't scream at, insult, or hate on anyone?

Did I quote you? If you got caught in the midst of some quotes my apologies. My point is directed at those that think hating people or calling them names is the way to open eyes and change opinions, not to those that understand rational, mature, reasoned disagreements that put forth valid points are how you should influence any issue if you're actually selfless and interested in advancing an issue, as opposed to satisfying a self need for negative expression.

You didn't quote me at all. You seem to have passed it up entirely.

I actually thought Desslok's response to you was very well measured--not that it had to be. You seem to be positing this argument that in order for one to self-describe as "tolerant" that one must tolerate intolerance.

That is pretty much what I am trying to convince you away from. While tolerance, as a word, does mean having to live with and have an objective attitude to differing opinions, it also means to advocate for freedom from bigotry. One word means both. (It also means other things but that's beside the point.)

The Star Wars franchise has historically been exclusively heterosexual which is to say it excluded other sexual preferences and orientation. It is now becoming more inclusive. I think we can all say that this is a step in a positive direction. Advocating the continued or renewed exclusion of a group would be, by the very nature of the word, a regression .

Such a regression should not be tolerated because there is only so much exclusion that a person that identifies with that orientation can tolerate.

(edit, addition) Hence the metaphor of the "Kick Me" sign in my original post.

My responses have actually nothing to do with LGBT specifically and everything to do with how someone puts forth a disagreement or support for any issue. My posts are simply pointing out there isn't anything positive about hating people or calling them morons, if you actually want to sway opinions. It's just plain bad manners wrapped up in the excuse of a social issue.

Oh, the issues with the OT would have to do with the 1 or 2 woman among hundreds of men. And the 1 black man among hundreds of whites and being portrayed as an untrustworthy (yet highly likeable) scoundrel.

Like I said, Star Wars could do with being a lot less "white bread".

There seems to be some progress on this front. Episode 7 has a black stormtrooper, and Rebels has 2 female leads, one of whom is dark skinned and voiced by a black actress. And of course there is a gay character in the new novel. I do see how this could all be seen as carefully calculated "diversity washing" to coin a phrase.

Oh, the issues with the OT would have to do with the 1 or 2 woman among hundreds of men. And the 1 black man among hundreds of whites and being portrayed as an untrustworthy (yet highly likeable) scoundrel.

Like I said, Star Wars could do with being a lot less "white bread".

There seems to be some progress on this front. Episode 7 has a black stormtrooper, and Rebels has 2 female leads, one of whom is dark skinned and voiced by a black actress. And of course there is a *** character in the new novel. I do see how this could all be seen as carefully calculated "diversity washing" to coin a phrase.

It could be, I tend to think the new movie casting was done on the basis of talent and filling written roles accurately (Lupita Nyong'o is really a superb actress and I don't think it matters if part of the casting was for diversity hiring - she is a superb actress). At the same time, the OT was written in a particular way (Empire being basically all white British men) for a particular reason and evocative feel that was explained only in the EU (the HuMan policy which stemmed largely from human Core World beliefs and the fact that the Separatists were largely non-humans and therefore xenos couldn't be trusted).

Even if it's carefully calculated diversity-washing, it's still progress. I don't see intent as relevant as long as the products are quality, but it IS nice to see greater diversity regardless of the intent.

Was going to respond but decided :huh:

Can't believe people are still on this.