May the force be with … some of you. For 28 years, 'Don't ask, Don't tell' has seemed to be the underlying message of the Star Wars movies and it's there again bubbling just under the surface of Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith. After all, these are heterosexual male action pictures, the height of predictability ( both overt and covert—they always have lots of gay-coded stuff to be gold mined ) . I didn't really expect anything else with this final installment. But instead of simply lining up the scenes to be ticked off one at a time until everything neatly falls into place, couldn't writer-director George Lucas have thrown in at least one curve ball? I know those Jedi are ( supposedly ) as chaste as the galaxy is long, but how could any group with the name 'SITH' not have at least one openly gay member? Say 'Sith' out loud three times quickly and then tell me otherwise.
OK, so other than that, how is the new movie? To be blunt, long on dazzling technical effects and pseudo religious claptrap, short on character and subtlety. And extremely wanting in the area of dialogue ( 'Go I will. I have a good relationship with the Wookies,' is just one howler ) . But neither dialogue nor direction has ever been George Lucas's strong points, so I was expecting this. In many ways, Lucas still seems the clumsy geek when trying to handle any scene in which someone isn't whipping out a light saber ( this visual, of course, is the ultimate in gay subtext ) . The success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy certainly proved that audiences will simultaneously embrace both action and characters rich in emotion and with all the pronouncements about the movie delving deeper into the Dark Side, I'd hoped that Sith would follow suit. Not a bit of it.
What I missed most from this film ( and the other two prequels ) , however, was the element of fun that pervades the original movies in the series. Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi had just enough character and a surplus of inventiveness to hold one's attention, but it was their unabashed enthusiasm that made them so much fun to watch.
Star Wars, especially, didn't make much pretense about its pulp serial origins. But the three prequels, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and now Sith, the final installment, caught up in dense political intrigue, have left the fun out of the equation. Though these movies are stuffed to the gills with trick shots ( and the new one is a marvel on that score ) , they are something that no thrill-seeking serial ever was: boring.
The mind does tend to drift during those long, drawn out light saber battles.
At the outset of the film, after being told in the narrative crawl that 'Evil is Everywhere' Anakin 'Annie' Skywalker ( Hayden Christiansen ) and Obi-Wan Kenobi ( Ewan McGregor ) are buzzing in and out amongst a fleet of space ships, engaged in combat. Their main target seems to be commanded by a Cyborg spin-off of the Terminator. This Cyborg hacks and wheezes ( why a robot would do that I do not know ) and is apparently an enemy of the Federation. Our two young heroes are trying to rescue the man who will eventually morph into the evil Emperor ( who at times here seems like a creepy old chicken hawk seconds away from 'taking care of' Skywalker-cum-Vadar ) . At any rate, they battle and battle and battle and with nothing better to do, I started thinking about the longest gay relationship in cinematic history, the one between the fuss budget, statuesque robot C-3PO and his level headed, Lilliputian mechanical counterpart, R2-D2.
3PO is the continuation of a gay stereotype that reaches back to the 1930s: the sissy. Here, as always, the character, as voiced by Anthony Daniels, is prissy and timid and used, like the Franklin Pangborn sissies were, for comic effect. When danger approaches, 3PO throws up his arms and shrieks, 'Oh dear' while courageous, clear-headed R2-D2 wheels into the heart of the action. When things calm down, 3PO can be counted on to tag after R2-D2, all the while bitching him out. R2-D2, on the other hand, is a take-charge robot. He's obviously in charge of the relationship and even though he has always only communicated with those beeps, squeaks, and buzzes, it's been implicit that, like all the other characters, he just barely tolerates his other half.
For me, the fantasy private lives of the robot characters are more interesting to contemplate than the flesh and blood ones. I mean, what is it with that Jedi order anyway? After centuries of 'enlightenment' ( is it the 25th or the 71st? ) this group, apparently a direct descendant of Catholicism, still bars women from its ranks and forces strict sexual abstinence on its Knights? No Mrs. Yoda, eh? These antiquated strictures were made overt in the other prequels and are most pervasive here. In a conclusion foregone before the movie begins, Padmé ( Natalie Portman ) , virtually the only female in the galaxy, and 'Annie' are to be punished—severely—for engaging in illicit, passionate sex. She to die while birthing Luke and Leia and Anakin to be transformed into the evil Darth Vadar and forced to intone in that James Earl Jones voice 'Yes my master' while bowing at the feet of the Supreme Emperor.
That would seem to be a fate worse than death, but maybe Darth and the Emperor found happiness in their big time master/slave relationship—their own version of 'Don't ask, Don't tell.' I'd like to think that someone got to have a good time without consequences. Maybe in Episode Seven, that I'm sure Lucas will not be able to resist, the gay and lesbian contingent of the Resistance will finally get some screen time.
I suggest Carrie Fisher return as the aging, though still foxy grandma, Queen Leia, now divorced from the womanizing Prince Han Solo, and find love in the arms of the Wookie's sister, Wanda. A subplot could involve the wedding of a gay Jedi Knight and a Sith Lord. The cantina band will play at their reception on Tatooine and the couple will honeymoon on the Moon of Endor, home to the cuddly, bear cub-like Ewoks.
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Local screening of note: Sexual Dependency, described as the 'Bolivian Titanic' and focusing on the sex lives of a myriad of characters ( including a gay, closeted football player ) plays Thursday and Friday, May 21-22 as part of Facets Latin American, Cinema Tropical series. Note these are afternoon, 1 p.m., screening times. www.facets.org .
