The Acolyte's Creator Reveals Inspiration Behind LGBT Themes Leaving Star Wars Fans Divided
- Milton Quintanilla Crosswalk Headlines Contributor
- Updated Jun 07, 2024
A new spinoff in the Star Wars franchise, The Acolyte, is receiving backlash from fans for promoting LGBT ideology. According to the Internet Movie Database, The Acolyte summarizes the show as a “Star Wars series that takes viewers into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic era.”
“The Acolyte has cast Abigail Thorn as Ensign Eurus, making her the first transgender actor to appear in a #StarWars series,” the Star Wars fan account The Direct announced in a post on X last year.
Earlier this year, series creator Leslye Headland shared the goal behind her show in an interview that surfaced on X, The Christian Post reports.
“When I saw ‘Frozen’ as a grown-a-- woman, I cried through the entire movie,” she recalled. “There was just something about the relationship between the sisters, the … devillainization of the classic kind of fairytale bad guy, you know, the concept of true love being between two sisters and not a heterosexual relationship ... it just destroyed me completely.”
She explained that her desire was “to make something like this that is, you know, for lack of a better term, Disney, meaning something that, like my parents would have allowed me to see when I was younger as a queer person, that I would have been able to understand a queer person.” She asserted that had such a program existed, she “would have had a completely different life.”
“I really was inspired by it, and I was like, ‘God, I would love to make a story like this,’” she added. “When I was developing this original idea to pitch to [production company Lucasfilm’s] Kathleen [Kennedy], I thought ... you know it can’t just be that you know when you’re pitching ‘Star Wars’ you have to pull from what you know [‘Star Wars’ creator] George [Lucas] was also interested in.”
The show takes place during a period of time in the “Star Wars” universe known as the “High Republic” or the “end of High Republic into prequels,” which takes place long before the “Skywalker saga” that has been showcased in the films.
In a text message to The New York Times published last week, Headland contended, “Anyone who engages in bigotry, racism or hate speech … I don’t consider a fan.”
On Tuesday night, a review of the first few episodes of “The Acolyte” posted to YouTube warned that the third episode would “completely redefine what ‘The Force’ is” and highlighted how “two mothers conceive twins” as part of the plot line. In the video, posted by Geeks + Gamers, one fan of the franchise told the others on the panel to “get ready for pronouns in Star Wars.”
In recent years, long-standing franchises have embraced LGBT ideology. For instance, DC Comics announced on “National Coming Out Day” that “the life of Jon Kent, the Superman of Earth and son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane” would take a “bold new direction,” which was revealed in the comic book series Superman: Son of Kal-El that the main character is bisexual.
Earlier in the year, DC Comics published Batman: Urban Legends # 6, which features Batman’s sidekick Robin being involved in a same-sex relationship with a male friend.
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Alberto E. Rodriguez / Stringer
