If you were to believe the excitable headlines circulating this week about the latest Star Wars adventure then you’d think that something quite groundbreaking had happened.
Lando Calrissian, the much-loved character who first appeared in The Empire Strikes Back, has been outed as pansexual in the prequel Solo: A Star Wars Story. In a universe dominated by straight characters battling straight characters while romancing straight characters (Finn-Poe fan fiction remains just that), the confirmed queerness of Calrissian, originally played by Billy Dee Williams and now by Donald Glover, is pretty huge. But past the bluster, the actual facts are far less newsworthy.
His sexuality isn’t revealed in the new film but instead by screenwriter Jonathan Kasdan. In an interview with HuffPost, when asked whether the character is pansexual, he replied: “I would say yes” before going on to say: “There’s a fluidity to Donald and Billy Dee’s [portrayal of Lando’s] sexuality. I mean, I would have loved to have gotten a more explicitly LGBT character into this movie. I think it’s time, certainly, for that, and I love the fluidity – sort of the spectrum of sexuality that Donald appeals to and that droids are a part of.”
While this might count for something to eager LGBT Star Wars stans, personally, I’m tired of another coy post-production admission of something still deemed far too risque to actually show on screen. It’s been a banner time for LGBT characters in smaller films, from Call Me By Your Name to The Shape of Water, to Disobedience, to A Fantastic Woman, to God’s Own Country, but only when the stakes are financially low enough for writers and directors to avoid self-censoring. When the budget rises, so does the fear.
It happened with Kate McKinnon’s character in Ghostbusters and director Paul Feig at least had the self-awareness to lambast the silliness of it all. “I hate to be coy about it,” he said to the Daily Beast. “If you know Kate at all she’s this kind of pansexual beast where it’s just like everybody who’s around her falls in love with her and she’s so loving to everybody she’s around.” At the same time, a same-sex kiss was removed from Star: Trek Beyond. Last year saw a gay couple made somewhat clear in an online-only short prequel video for Alien: Covenant yet confusingly de-gayed on the big screen while Tessa Thompson’s character in Thor: Ragnarok was only revealed as bisexual in a tweet.
Before Deadpool was released, it was confirmed that the character would be as sexually fluid as he is in the comics but proof of it wasn’t up there for viewers to see. In the sequel, it’s still lacking with Ryan Reynolds saying that Deadpool “sort of exhibits these qualities throughout the course of each film”, which is longhand for yet more erasure.
It’s a safe strategy for the studios and creatives involved. For easily offended viewers, anything remotely gay isn’t mentioned or portrayed on screen, so their enjoyment remains undiluted. For those eager for representation, they’re then able to interpret the film in a different, seemingly inclusive way.
For me, it’s still nowhere near good enough and the cake eating and having-ness of it all continues to make me wince. When gay magazine Attitude boasted the stars of Beauty and the Beast on a cover beaming about the “same-sex surprise” in the Disney live-action romance, one would be forgiven for assuming a reveal of some substance. Director Bill Condon went on to call it “Disney’s gayest film ever” with the studio’s “first exclusively gay moment”. The moment in question was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it frame of a scene that has Josh Gad’s character dancing with another man which essentially amounts to nothing, its inclusion only striking viewers as vaguely queer given the smug publicizing of it. (The fact that his character was a buffoon lusting after his straight friend is a whole other issue.)
I’m not asking for gay characters in blockbusters to be overtly painted as such, announcing their sexuality while blasting aliens or indulging in explicit gay sex in films where it would be incongruous to do so but the light whisper of implied homosexuality, only confirmed during press tours, is a cowardly cop out. What it suggests to gay audiences is that they remain unwelcome on the center stage and should stick to the sidelines. The arrival of Love, Simon, an unusually glossy studio comedy about coming out, was a grand step but genuine 3D, IMAX, $100m budgeted visibility is a washout.
Black Panther was a supremely entertaining, whipsmart film that brought much-needed racial diversity to the multiplex while Wonder Woman finally gave a female character the room to dominate comic book action, but there’s still no sign of a gay superhero or even a gay lead of a blockbuster on the horizon. Critics will argue that sexuality isn’t relevant within franchise film-making but romance has always been central to these films with T’Challa, Han Solo, Deadpool, Wonder Woman et al finding time for a kiss with their heterosexual love interest amid all the mayhem.
It’s not the fault of the writers or directors, who clearly want to convey their ultimate ambitions for the characters post-production, but it’s the fearful studios who refuse to take a chance, again and again. It might take a while for some audiences to acclimatize but as a gay viewer, I’ve grown used to seeing straight characters save the day. I’m sure they’ll cope too.
