You would be right were there not many, many characteristics and actions ascribed to the Dark/Gay Side that can be perceived as reflecting a gay stereotype. That is, Palp and crew are represented as bad, yeah, but also as effinate, kinky, “seductive,” etc. Finally, all that could be seen as pertaining to kinky sex in general, but the Sith are are exclusively into dudes (Mara and some EU exceptions excluded).
The Palpatine/Anakin-Vader relationship is clearly sexual. Anakin/Obi-Wan is archetypically the rebuff of a gay by a straight. Vader’s suit is clearly gimpwear, etc.
And if it were just my own stupid theory, why was I able to quote two prominent Netcritics (actually, they put the idea in my mind, which then became clear as day).
Also, please understand that I am offended by Lucas’s homophobic bias. Whereas Tolkien celebrates gayness, Lucas seeks to stifle it. I don’t think I’m reading any negativity into the movie that he didn’t put there. (At the same time, it was fun eye candy and I enjoyed it.)
And seriously, as arguments about the Lord of the Rings demonstrate, I can read gay subtext into anything. Especially if the actors are hot. Mmm, Ewan McGregor, I’d like you to show me the ways of the Force . . .
I can see the idea that they’re anti-sex, though again it doesn’t seem like a strong one. True, the Jedi mostly seem pretty sex-less, and that’s common to all the movies. Luke never got laid. Han did, but Han was - well - a scoundrel. Surely not a figure to be idolized.
But anti-gay? I don’t see it, sister.
(Oh, and by the way: Jar Jar had a Stepin Fetchit accent if I’ve ever heard one.)
[/QUOTE]
The gayest, or most-often-called-gay, character in the series is a robot. There’s no relationship implied between anybody else. Could you please reason this out for me?
That’s brilliant! Except for the times when the opposite is true, your theory is correct 100% of the time.
Aeschines , I think I see where you are coming from. As I said in the last post, I agree with your view here however…
Oh, wait, the end of your post was a quote by Excalibre. Nevermind!
Oh, and sensuality among men is a hallmark of homosexuality in the movies. Since the the people demonstrating such qualities are living beings, it makes sense that this could be applied. However, since the robots are robots, it doesn’t make sense to attribute their fussyness to homosexuality, except as a stereotype, which is exactley the OP’s point.
::Miller then catches Scott with the “Up-high, down-low, whoops, too slow!” high-five trick::
And those old Jedis just loooooove it when their younger male charges call them “Master.” Doesn’t it just put you in mind of Depeche Mode’s “Master and Servant”? Oh come on, you know it does.
Without reading the articles, it seems to me that you have grossly misinterpreted the sarcasm/humor in those two quotes.
There are plenty of valid reasons for the Jedi to hate Palpatine (his thirst for power, desire to exterminate Jedi, etc.), yet you place his villification squarely on some odd homosexual vibe that you get from him. Are you sure you haven’t been explicitly hunting for anti-gay sentiments in movies lately?
Well, let me put on my flame-proof suit. I’ve been trying to avoid the gay threads lately, because no matter what I say it’s transformed in the eyes of straight readers as some sort of declaration that they’re bigots. I don’t feel like qualifying every damn thing I say with, “Now I know you’re full of bunnies-and-cotton-candy feelings towards queers, but this sentence is just the teensiest bit unfair.” So if anyone thinks I’m being anti-straight here, they can kindly run off and felch a goat, gender of their choice.
Actually, Aeschines, I think that the ideas posited by those critics say more about their stereotypes of gay men than George Lucas’s. It’s offensive to me that a disgusting-yet-clearly-asexual old man is perceived as an “Old Queen” - without resorting to assigning “honorary gay” status to characters that tenuously fulfill some stereotype (and I use the term tenuous seriously, because none of the qualities you see are obvious to me. And again, I look for that stuff.), the theory is impossible. He’s old and unpleasant, therefore he’s an old queen? Sorry, I just don’t follow. There’s nothing sexual about his relationship to Anakin. Not even any sexual leering. It’s just an icky old guy. To say that this somehow represents gay men is grossly offensive to me.
They were effeminate? Kinky? Seductive I can buy - in the sense that power is seductive. I didn’t see the other two qualities. And we don’t know what the Sith are “into” (except when they’re not of course) because we don’t see them fucking anyone.
Wait, Anakin is straight, so he leaves Obi Wan, right? (He’s obviously not exclusively gay, anyway, since he gets a chick pregnant.) Then he runs off to have a gay S/M relationship with Palpatine? Oh, and only gay people engage in S/M.
See, that’s when you know that the readings of “subtext” have descended into ridiculousness. When they demand that the reader ignore major aspects of the text and say, “Oh, but his straight relationship doesn’t count.”
Look, none of these things you see as sexual seem sexual to me. Care to explain why they are? Because the Palpatine/Vader relationship didn’t seem sexual. There was no sex, for starters. There were no touching moments, nothing overly close - in fact, the whole thing felt a lot more paternal-filial than anything else. Palpatine was his mentor, his guide. You can read that as something like Palpatine being Anakin’s older gay man (which is indeed fairly common in our society) except that you’d have to decide that I’ve had about six extra gay relationships in my own life for that to count. And most of them were with women.
Appeal to authority? The theory is wrong, whether you could scrape together a couple online movie critics to support it or not (Lord knows there’s no shortage, so it shouldn’t be hard to find them. Especially when you accepted what appear to be tongue-in-cheek remarks like these.)
I’m offended by the idea that every negative quality in one of the baddies is somehow representative of gay men. I’m offended by the notion that some perceived “effeminacy” (can you come up with examples?) equals “old dirty queer.”
Your subtext requires a prior assumption that all these bad qualities are emblematic of gay men. Any movie involving a good guy turning bad features this type of “seduction.” I suppose any man in a movie who’s not actively fucking women onscreen is “effeminate”, too?
And what, black rubber suits are now indicative of gay S/M? Why, by that standard Batman is somehow homoerotic.
Oh, wait . . .
This movie? Uh-uh. Not there. That, or come up with examples from the movie to support your idea. Don’t just declare this character to be this and that character to be that - your own gut impressions are not interesting to me.
I get it now…this is one of them joke threads right? The OP’s just havin a bit of fun, pulling our collective leg, if you will. All of that Sith=gay so gay=evil stuff, ha ha, that’s a good one. And everyone here taking you so seriously. Boy you sure got us good, eh? heh, that’s real knee slapper, that one.
What? No? He’s serious? Wow. Just…wow.
In that case, this has got to be the most stupendous pulled outta the ass, searching for stuff that isn’t there movie analysis I’ve ever seen.
I do what I can. It figures this thing pops up about 12 hours after I’d decided I was through posting to this spate of Star Wars threads.
As far as the especially silly “kin of anus” goes, I’ll offer the following thoughts:
*The big problem is that the phrase makes no sense. It doesn’t imply anal sex, though it might imply that someone’s an asshole. But mostly it’s nonsense.
*There are several explanations for where the name Anakin came from. I’ve heard that it’s Greek for “warrior;” the accusative case of the noun Anax, or “lord;” and that Lucas named the character after a friend named Ken Annakin. All are more plausible than this “kin of anus” thing. In fact, my own (as yet unsubstantiated) theory, which holds that Lucas fed an entire set of Scrabble tiles to his dog and made the name up out of the first six tiles that the dog barfed up, A-N-A-K-I-N, is slightly more plausible than the “anus” explanation.
*If you’ve ever read any trivia about Star Wars, you can hear about how a lot of details (like Vader’s suit) came about, and the
*The Jedi are basically monks. (Notice the robes?) That’s why they’re celibate. Period. Just like medieval knights were expected to be chaste and many other orders of men with one kind of ‘calling’ or another were supposed to be chaste until marriage, or never to marry. You could argue that it’s anti-sex, although a better interpretation is that love is not bad, but simply incompatible with the self-control that is required to master the Force. The celibacy angle, and nearly everything else about the Jedi and the Force - and a lot of other things in the Star Wars series - are cribbed from Buddhism.
:smack:
*If you’ve ever read any trivia about Star Wars, you can hear about how a lot of details (like Vader’s suit) came about.
One last objection, my trump card I think: the idea that George Lucas, who is a terrible screenwriter, has had so many problems with continuity throughout these prequels, and most importantly has zero capacity for subtlety, has spent 30 years hiding these little anti-sex and anti-homosexual details in his movies is absolutely nuts.
Because every gay man gets a hard-on when he hears Palpatine’s creepy hissing.
I’m so sick of this shit. If they wanted to show a dick they would fucking show one. Symbolism is contrived BULLSHIT and NOT EVERYTHING IS PHALLIC.
As has been noted before with heavy criticism, she died because she did not have the “will to live.” Nuts to your ‘theory.’
did you really think we would buy this shit?
