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Event Website
https://www.mythsoc.org/oms/oms-2024.htm
Start Date
2-18-2024 6:30 PM
End Date
2-18-2024 7:20 PM
Description
Ever since Luke Skywalker and Han Solo first appeared onscreen together in 1977, LGBTQ+ Star Wars fans have harnessed the power of queer reading to write themselves back into a galaxy far, far away, despite Lucasfilm’s long-term disapproval of such practices. Nonetheless, there exists little scholarly literature on queerness in the franchise, and even less on the potentially sapphic characters. Queen Padmé Amidala, first introduced onscreen in Episode I: The Phantom Menace, proves a surprising—but no less salient—queer figure in Star Wars. From her intimate relationships with her handmaidens, to her experimentation with gender performativity, to her quiet yet intense desire for her best friend Sabé, I analyze how Padmé can be viewed as a queer figure in media throughout the Star Wars franchise, including but not limited to Episodes I-III, The Clone Wars television series, and E.K. Johnston’s Queen’s Shadow trilogy. Ultimately, I encourage fans to embrace queer reading as a means of reclaiming the Star Wars franchise for themselves, while still demanding better representation from the Disney-Lucasfilm canon.
Included in
Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons, Comparative Literature Commons, Digital Humanities Commons, European Languages and Societies Commons, Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons, Medieval Studies Commons, Modern Languages Commons, Modern Literature Commons, Other English Language and Literature Commons
Queen's Pride: A Queer Reading of Star Wars Character Padmé Amidala
Ever since Luke Skywalker and Han Solo first appeared onscreen together in 1977, LGBTQ+ Star Wars fans have harnessed the power of queer reading to write themselves back into a galaxy far, far away, despite Lucasfilm’s long-term disapproval of such practices. Nonetheless, there exists little scholarly literature on queerness in the franchise, and even less on the potentially sapphic characters. Queen Padmé Amidala, first introduced onscreen in Episode I: The Phantom Menace, proves a surprising—but no less salient—queer figure in Star Wars. From her intimate relationships with her handmaidens, to her experimentation with gender performativity, to her quiet yet intense desire for her best friend Sabé, I analyze how Padmé can be viewed as a queer figure in media throughout the Star Wars franchise, including but not limited to Episodes I-III, The Clone Wars television series, and E.K. Johnston’s Queen’s Shadow trilogy. Ultimately, I encourage fans to embrace queer reading as a means of reclaiming the Star Wars franchise for themselves, while still demanding better representation from the Disney-Lucasfilm canon.
