All it takes is a hug, a sly and curious look, and a comment about a jacket fitting well to spark an immense collective fan fantasy. Following clues that perhaps were never really clues, and then a vague comment by a certain actor that he was “playing romance,” the Internet cooked up an undeniably sexy fantasy for the coming Star Wars films: that subtext suggested there’s an attraction between the skilled pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac, the “internet’s boyfriend,” except in certain shirts, in which he becomes the clearly very histrionic Internet’s biggest disappointment) and the rogue-stormtrooper-turned-resistance-hero Finn (John Boyega, the internet’s other boyfriend, who hasn’t yet worn a Bad Shirt). Unfortunately, a preview of an interview with Boyega seems to quash these fantasies in three brief words: “in Oscar’s head.”
Chris Mandle, the features editor at Shortlist, tweeted a minuscule blurb from a to-be-published interview (allegedly, it’ll be out on January 21) with the actor:
Of course, the reason such a theory was cooked up from so few clues and zero concrete evidence is due to the fact that in queerbaiting mainstream cinema, people have to look for illusions — or, say, one actor’s individual, unscripted ideas about his character — to find hints of a culture more reflective of a sexually diverse society. Because the film was addressing and shifting other Hollywood norms and forms of erasure, it seemed marginally possible that something so fantastical as a gay relationship in a Star Wars movie might likewise not be so fantastical.
Of course, this is all coming from one tweet of a quote that’s been pruned to three words. And, this doesn’t negate the possibility that Poe himself could find non-hetero love beyond Finn…or something…maybe? Looks like my mind will continue to fuel fantasies until it stops needing to.
[Via Salon]