Topic: Media Research Center
Just as it has meltdowns about pretty much any media portrayal of anything not heterosexual, the Media Research Center has been melting down over the idea that there be non-heterosexual characters in the "Star Wars" universe. Gabriel Hays kicked off the meltdown when it was announced in October:
The only surprising thing about Disney putting an alien gay couple in a Star Wars series is that it took this long. Now LGBTQers can finally dry their eyes because the galaxy far far away is incorporating otherworldly sexualities into the mix.
Because according to Disney, kids need to know that even indiscernable, non-human biological entities have same sex relationships too.
Indiewire reported that Disney Channel’s Star Wars Resistance debuted the beloved sci-fi universe’s first ever gay couple made up of aliens Orka and Flix. Though many might claim, “So what? It’s a kids’ show,” there are plenty of grown men who will tell you that anything introduced to the franchise in any capacity becomes canon. Perhaps just in time to get audiences primed for a gay couple in the final movie this Christmas?
I mean what else would you expect from Disney’s social conditioning?
[...]
So this isn’t only about gay sex, but about inter-sepcies sex too? And to think, If we’re confused, how are the kids going to react to it? Granted you might accuse us of being the kinds of people who would complain that Donkey and Dragon got together in Shrek but that was obviously a joke. The difference here is that people at Indiewire see this as a milestone for representation and that’s disturbing.
On Dec. 4, Hays took another shot at melting down, complaining that "director J.J. Abrams and Disney can finally claim that the LGBTQ representation is strong with this one" and lamenting that some fans were shipping the two male leads in the current film trilogy. He went on to sneer, "I miss the days when the biggest Star Wars controversy was whether Hans shot first."
Hays went on to whine about the actual non-heterosexual scene in the new Star Wars film, under the mocking headline "Two Lesbians Walk Into a 'Star Wars' Bar":
At this point, there really is only one major unresolved plot point remaining in the endless Star Wars saga: Where are the gay space aliens?
Surely a story that spans galaxies and light years and campy dive cantinas must have run in to some, er, marginalized sexualities. Surely space pirates must have accidentally raided a “Wookie Cruise.”
The good news — for progressives that is — is that there is a gay scene stitched in with all the lasers, quips and intergalactic turmoil. The bad news is that it’s clearly just a cheap throwaway compared to what LGBTQ fans were hoping for.
Hays added that Abrams "can’t please everyone, not the diehard gays, nor the normal folks who don’t want to see it." Actually, it's the vicious homophobia from people like Hays that's not "normal."
Hays is so homophobic that he even devoted a Dec. 2 post to mocking "Star Wars" actor Billy Dee Williams for allegedly declaring himself to be "gender-fluid," huffing: "But seriously, you can still get in touch with your feelings without having to manifest a gay split personality. Real men throughout history wore capes and had canes and they were still secure in their masculinity."
It turned out that wasn't true, however. An editor's note appended to the post states that "Billy Dee Williams has since clarified that his statements on gender were not about a specific sexual orientation, but rather a figure of speech alluding to him getting in touch with his feminine side. Multiple sources which this post was based on incorrectly assumed that Billy Dee Williams had come out as 'gender-fluid'."
right-wing film critic Christian Toto also weighed in with a Dec. 14 post portraying the "LGBTQ messaging" in the new film as something that will purportedly "alienate, mock or downright dismiss right-leaning fans," adding: "The vast majority of conservatives have no issue with people in that demographic. What they object to, though, is pushing social agendas in their beloved stories."
Oh, Mr. Hays has amply demonstrated that he very much has issues with LGBT people, which Toto bizarrely dismisses as a "demographic."
