Monday 16 April 2012

charlie brooker

apparently the notion of video games with characters of differing sexual orientation is an issue these days. slaughter things all you like but don't do it in a gay fashion, esp if you're a character from star wars.

They also claim "there were no LGBT characters in any of the Star Wars movies". I don't know which wacky re-cut version of Star Wars they've been watching, but I saw the original when I was about six years old and even then I was struck by how outrageously camp C3PO is. He was a gilded John Inman in space. And what about Luke Skywalker? Apart from briefly kissing his own sister, he shows no interest in women whatsoever. The first film is a tender gay parable in which Luke falls in love with Alec Guinness and gradually "comes out" as a Jedi. The final scene oozes symbolism: having penetrated the Death Star's trench in his phallic spacecraft, he closes his eyes, submits to his true inner instinct and triumphantly blasts his X-Wing's seed into an anus-like aperture, causing an orgasmic eruption that changes his universe for ever. It's hard to see how they could make Star Wars any gayer, unless they gave the Millennium Falcon a handlebar moustache.

all of which would be just so funny if it wasn't happening against a backdrop of increase in homophobic attacks down south. as usual i am stunned by what people can get themselves worked up about. hurrah for charlie brooker tho.

4 comments:

Andrew Shields said...

The idea of Star Wars as camp reminds me of the idea of SW as the best "art house" movie ever:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/dvdextras/2005/11/star_wars_episodesivi.html

(Man was that hard to find!)

swiss said...

that is very funny. but i'm still more willing to accept star wars as a sprawling gay epic than an act of post modern 'existential surrender'! lol

Andrew Shields said...

It's a sprawling gay epic of postmodern existential surrender! :-)

swiss said...

sounds about right. now what about that top gun...?