I am currently watching (or rather, playing with my cell phone while Bill watches) The Mandalorian, on the Disney Plus Channel. We never really understand what Mandalorians are, exactly -- an ethnic group, a warrior guild, bounty hunters -- but everyone in the rugged Wild West of the Star Wars universe knows.
Our Mandalorian, a Man With No Name who never takes his helmet off, has some sort of job transporting illegal contraband to gangsters.
In every episode he lands on a new Wild West planet and helps the people there solve their personal problems, like Men With No Names in innumerable 1950s Westerns. I keep waiting for some gay subtexts or buddy bonding...or at least some beefcake.
Episode 1: The Mandalorian saves a garrulous, amilable guy from some baddies, and then arrests him. They spend a couple of scenes together, so I think that they will be gruff cop - comic sidekick partners throughout. Nope, Mandalorian delivers him to his employer!
Then he picks up the Baby Yoda.
Episode 2: Mandalorian and a guy named Kuil (voiced by Nick Nolte) work together to repair his ship. But then he flies off into the galaxy alone!
Episode 3: He delivers the baby, but then feels guilty -- what if they dissect or eat the kid? So he returns, grabs it, and flies away. Now both the gangsters who hired him and the guild he belongs to are out for blood.
Episode 4: Lone Wolf and Cub...um, I mean Mandalorian and Baby Yoda -- land on a "sparsely populated" planet, apparently occupied by only one village of about 20 peaceful, environmentally-friendly Native Americans. Except barbarians keep attacking. Two guys ask Mandalorian for help...so maybe...? No, they fade into the background, and a Young Widow takes center stage and asks Mandalorian to stick around. But baddies are tracking down Baby Yoda, so he has to leave.
Episode 5: On the next planet, aspiring bounty hunter Toro Calican (Jake Cannivale) asks Mandalorian for help on his first assignment. This guy is really super nice, hot, and a little goofy, the prototypical sidekick. Maybe they will...nope, the first chance he gets, Toro betrays the Mandalorian.
Episode 6: On the next planet, Mandalorian hooks up with his old partner Ranzar Malk. Maybe they...nope, Malk gives him a job working with a team to spring Q'in (Ismael Cruz Cordova, left) from prison. Maybe they...nope.
Episode 7: On the next planet, Mandalorian's old boss Karga(Carl Weathers) offers him a deal: save his town, and he'll use his underworld connections to call of the chase. Mandalroain agrres, bringing Kuil from Episode 2 and Dune (Gina Carano) along as his team. Dune? Maybe don't admit that these desert worlds are based on Frank Herbert's novels.
So...Karga or Kuil buddy bonding?
Karga betrays him, naturally, and Kuil dies, and I'm losing hope.
That's as far as we've gone, but I checked the list of recurring characters on Wikipedia. Except for the ones previsously mentioned, they're all women or villainous men.
I also did a Google Search under "The Mandalorian" and "gay." An article popped up: "Rumor: The Mandalorian will become the first openly gay character in the Star Wars universe." Ok, he fell in love with a woman in Episode 4, and he keeps running into female bounty hunters with whom he has "a history," so I doubt that he will turn out to be gay, but I clicked on the article anyway, and got a "Not really, you homophobic dickhead!"
That's the first time anyone ever called me a homophobe. I got called a transphobe for using the name a student had on their zoom room window; they had forgotten to change it after transitioning, and blamed me for not magically knowing.
Another article said "The Season 2 Trailer will blow you away!" I watched, waiting for the gay references to blow me away.
There are none.
Okay, sigh, Legends had Mandalorian history worked out, but, you know? I like to think Disney borrowed WB's antimatter gun and Crisis'd the hell out of the Star Wars universe. Everyone has a bad feeling about this.
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, in Legends (basically the Star Wars equivalent of "pre-Crisis") the original Mandalorians were related to humans. They were expelled from Coruscant, and their leader, Mandalore, took them to a new planet which they named after him. Mandalore in time became a title like Darth or Khan. Then they forged an alliance with the Sith (who ALSO were originally a species). The Sith led to their destruction, but they 32nd up serving them anyway. Oh, the Mandalorian species is gone, but they had in-laws, adoptees, sworn brothers, and so on.
It makes our Mandalorian working with a likely future jeedai a bit weird.
My first thought was also Lone Wolf and Cub, but also Wolverine and Batman, both of whom think kids are like pokémon, gotta catch em all.
Also, Legends had a few other gay characters. There's one woman only a female Darth Revan can date, and only if you choose to rejoin the Jedi. Also, Goran and Madrit, two male Mandalorians who are married with (adopted) children and even grandchildren. Minor characters, and Legends (especially since the story in question for Goran and Madrit involves the Solo twins who can't be brought into canon and furthermore Kylo Ren is a bad imitation of Jacen Solo).