Star Wars fans have been waiting for a queer character since we first thirsted over Han Solo in 1977. Although fan fiction has created couples out of Anakin and Obi Wan, Leia and Rey, and even Han and Chewbacca, the cinematic universe has yet to throw its queer fans a bone.
With the 2015 release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, fans immediately started shipping Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and Finn (John Boyega) as the franchise’s potential first queer couple. Their story arch was like a clandestine romance that could make even the dark side melt.
Although no merit has come from these theories, the possibility still remains.
iM YELLING MR BOYEGA REALLY SHIPS FINNPOE we been knew but look at this babe pic.twitter.com/BRykQdqyIi
— riv (@scvangers) December 10, 2017
me: finnpoe isn’t gonna happen
*finnpoe really doesn’t happen*
me: pic.twitter.com/EffvW9g3vV— ring watch (@poesring) December 5, 2017
Me: we poppin the biggest bottles when finnpoe happens in episode 8!
Me immediately after watching episode 8: https://t.co/gBZ2T3alGd— backstreets back ON MY BULLSHIT (@MAGlCALGIRL) December 7, 2017
Now with the addition of Laura Dern as Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo in the upcoming Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the film universe’s first queer character may be closer than we think.
In the recent Star Wars novel by Claudia Gray, entitled Leia: Princess of Alderaan, Holdo is described as sexually fluid. “Thank goodness it’s a big galaxy,” she says to Leia during a discussion about their sexual preferences.
In a recent interview with Collider, Dern and Isaac discuss their characters’ potential queer identities.
“Very open. It’s like intergalactic sexuality,” Isaac says, acknowledging the book version of Holdo.
“It’s a very sexual character,” Dern says.
Isaac even embraced the idea of people relating to his character as Latino and potentially queer.
“What it means to me is that people can see themselves in a hero like this, in a movie like this, which I love,” he says. “Not only LGBT, but Latinos, that there’s representation out there for that. As to actually seeing how that manifests itself in Poe in this film, that isn’t necessarily gonna be a clear story point in this one.”
“But as an actor, for me, I’m very open to those possible storylines, and I don’t think it needs to be nailed down in any kind of traditional way,” he continued.
Watch Oscar Isaac and Laura Dern discuss the franchise’s queer representation below:
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