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Daisy Ridley plays Rey in Star Wars. (Disney)
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker actor Daisy Ridley said it was “awesome” to see the film’s blink-and-you’ll-miss it same-sex kiss in place of real LGBT+ representation.
Ridley, who plays Rey in the sequel trilogy, said that she went to the film’s LA premiere with a lesbian couple she is friends with.
“John [Boyega, who plays Finn]’s friend is also gay, and she was there with her girlfriend,” she explained to BBC Newsround.
“It was an amazing thing to see an initial reaction for someone who hasn’t been represented properly, seeing how that really made people feel, was awesome!”
The moment Ridley was referring to a two-second kiss between two women resistance fighters, the brevity of which has angered LGBT+ fans hungry for real, meaningful representation.
A throwaway moment in the background with nameless extras is not particularly brave or groundbreaking. Save the breathlessness for when they give us someone with a name in the story.
— Erica Friedman 100 Years of Yuri 1919-2019 (@OkazuYuri) December 18, 2019
so instead of like having an actual same sex romance that would’ve made sense *cough* finn and poe *cough* they have two random female resistance members kiss. kinda lame.
— emotional support lesbian (@RedCombatSkirt) December 18, 2019
This was a whole load of bullshit. Imagine hinting that there are two gay main characters in Star Wars, having it be so easy to work it into the plot satisfyingly, and then have all the LGBT representation in the film being a “blink and you’ll miss it” lesbian kiss ? https://t.co/aWEB2q1xW9
— Tom George (@tommo_g99) December 19, 2019
Horrifying and hilarious thing to me about the awful state of LGBT+ rep in US cinema is that you can have the most cowardly “two extras in the background do a light smooch there ya happy” and still have people who hate gays so much that it ruins all Star Wars for them
— Angry Gay Yeehaw (@RealDorianDawes) December 18, 2019
star wars has given more screen time to incest than to gay rep… u hate to see it
— milf-loving dyke (@euhemeria) December 17, 2019
The kiss arrived months after director JJ Abrams announced that the film, the ninth in the main Star Wars saga, would include the franchise’s first LGBT+ representation.
Many fans had been hoping for something more substantial, namely a romance between main characters Finn and Poe (Oscar Isaac).
The pair displayed clear chemistry throughout the first two films of the sequel trilogy, with even Isaac admitting that a relationship “seemed like a natural progression.”
“Personally, I kind of hoped and wished that maybe that would’ve been taken further in the other films, but I don’t have control,” Isaac told Variety.
“It seemed like a natural progression, but sadly enough it’s a time when people are too afraid, I think, of…I don’t know what. But if they would’ve been boyfriends, that would have been fun.”
Last week, Ridley was criticised for saying that despite having grown up in Westminster and being privately educated, she was not more privileged than Boyega, who hails from a council estate in Peckham.
When asked whether her background has made her life and career easier, she told The Guardian: “John grew up on a council estate in Peckham, and I think me and him are similar enough that… no.”
Elsewhere in the Age of Resistance, actor Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) has apologised for liking a tweet by J.K. Rowling deemed “transphobic” by many.
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