• Send us Mail
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Join our Facebook Group
  • Subscribe to our RSS Feed
  • Search Site

Polari Magazine

  • Home
  • Up Front
    • Editorial
    • Clementine: The Living Fashion Doll
    • Polari Safari
    • WTF? Friday
    • Bulletin Board
    • Polari Facts
  • Features
    • Interviews
    • Features
    • Gallery
    • Opinion
    • Heroes & Villains
  • Community
    • Oral Histories
    • Coming Out Stories
    • Relationships
    • IDAHO
    • LGBT History Month
    • Blogs
  • Reviews
    • Books
    • Film and Television
    • Music
    • Stage
    • Visual Arts
    • Classics: Books
    • Classics: Film and Television
    • Classics: Music
  • About
    • About Polari Magazine
    • Contributors
    • Contact

You are here: Polari Magazine / LGBT History Month / LGBT History Month Heroes – Day 8

LGBT History Month Heroes – Day 8

08 Feb 2013 / Comments Off / in LGBT History Month/by Christopher Bryant

To celebrate LGBT History Month, 2013, Polari is publishing a daily series of LGBT Heroes, selected by the magazine’s team of writers and special contributors.

C3-PO LGBT History Month Day 8

C3-PO – Interpreter and Human-Cyborg Relations Representative
by Christopher Bryant
………………………………………………………………………………………….

C3-P0 was, in many ways, typical of the 1970s homosexual made visible in mainstream entertainment. Like John Inman’s Mr Humphries from the BBC Sitcom Are You Being Served?, he was particular, fastidious and somewhat over-dramatic. Mr Humphries’ sexuality was always assumed, never stated, but he was a particular type and so it did not need to be. The same could be said of C3-P0. Although he was a robot, and without sexuality, his behaviour was that of the archetypal homosexual. What set him apart was that he was not merely comedy relief, or the discontented villain (as in 1970s spy thrillers like The Eiger Sanction) but a key part of a team of heroes.

C3-P0’s identity pivoted on his particular brand of camp. His first words in Star Wars are, “We’re doomed”. When he and his “counterpart” R2-D2 land on the surface of Tatooine he has nothing less than a queeny hissy fit. “I’m not going that way, it’s much too rocky”, he says when R2 makes a suggestion. He is caught out when R2 points out that there could be settlements that way. “Don’t get technical with me,” he fires back, and carries on regardless. In the opening scenes of The Empire Strikes Back he fusses about drying out Princess Leia’s clothes, which were drenched after he commented that it was freezing in her ice chamber, leading R2 to turn the heating on. When he is literally in pieces at the end of the film, and after many hours spent being carried on Chewbacca’s back, he says to R2 in tones of despair, “I thought that hairy beast would be the end of me”.

More often than not cinema, like music, works on feelings and ideas that remain unspoken. In that sense it can operate beyond the confines of the analytical mind, which organises thoughts into boxes, and decides what’s right and what’s wrong based on prior experience. In other words, it can bypass the preconceptions from which prejudice springs. The human mind is not a literal machine, and so while on the surface C3-P0 is a robot with a feisty sidekick, he also represents a different possibility, a different identity. And so what exactly do I mean by that?

Hollywood is the dream factory, and what that means is that its stars, like the Greeks gods of myth, give form to our hopes and dreams, and in so doing this gives such unspoken ideas a language. The language of the homosexual in Hollywood at the time Star Wars was released in 1977 had been one of implication, suggestion and scandal, as Vito Russo describes in his excellent book The Celluloid Closet. Yet in the Star Wars trilogy, and through (somewhat tellingly) an asexual robot, that language was changed.

When I was a child, my parents nicknamed me C3-P0. It’s a joke that remains running to this day. This Christmas past, in fact, they bought me an R2-D2 coffee mug. I was fastidious as well as particular, and because of the collective obsession with Star Wars that my family shared, this was reflected back through the character of C3-P0. Admittedly, you have to bend your mind to think about it rationally, but the power of that indirect identification proved incalculable. Although C3-P0 shied away from bravery, he did what needed to be done anyway, and rather than being just a figure of fun he was a hero. He epitomised so many of the unspoken assumptions about homosexual behaviour, and because he was a robot this bypassed any direct identification with homosexuality. And because I was a child I did not fear the identification, as I no doubt would have with a character like Mr Humphries. As an idea, that is somewhat theoretically questionable, but as an experience it represents something else altogether. I knew implicitly that it meant it was possible to be part of the world, and not separate from it, not an outcast. For that reason C3-P0 will always be a hero, and no-one can take that away from me.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
Tags: asexual robot, c3-p0, eiger sanction, empire strikes back, homosexual villain, lgbt history month 2013, r2-d2, star wars

Related Posts

Did you like this entry?
Here are a few more posts that might be interesting for you.
Related Posts
You can *choose* to be gay!
LGBT History Month Heroes – Day 25
LGBT History Month Heroes – Day 19
Our LGBT Histories: Music – Day 4
LGBT History Month Heroes – Day 9
Our LGBT Histories: Music – Day 17
Our LGBT Histories: Music – Day 22
Our LGBT Histories: Music – Day 6
LGBT History Month Heroes – Day 23

Search Polari

Latest Posts

  • Polari Magazine 2008-2014December 3, 2014 - 6:16 pm
  • Tearing Up Their Map: An Interview with LambDecember 2, 2014 - 2:45 pm
  • Future Islands • GigDecember 2, 2014 - 1:41 pm
  • Puppets with Attitude (at Christmas)December 1, 2014 - 6:30 pm
  • The Aesthetic of Voyeurism: Interview with Antonio Da SilvaDecember 1, 2014 - 1:25 pm
  • Broke With Expensive Taste • Azealia BanksNovember 28, 2014 - 3:59 pm
  • Royalty Strutting on an American College Stage: Miss and Mr. Gay ISU 2014November 27, 2014 - 2:59 pm
  • Bright Light Bright Light: Everything I Ever WantedNovember 26, 2014 - 11:15 am
  • Jaime Nanci And The Blueboys: ‘Toy’ TalkNovember 25, 2014 - 4:09 pm

About Polari Magazine

Polari Magazine is an LGBT arts and culture magazine that explores the subculture by looking at what is important to the people who are in it. It’s about the lives we lead, not the lifestyles we’re supposed to lead.

Its content is informed & insightful, and features a diverse range of writers from every section of the community. Its intent is to help LGBT readers learn about their own heritage and to sustain a link between the present and the past.

Polari is designed to nurture the idea of community, whether that be social and political, or artistic and creative. It is your magazine, whether you want to read it, or whether you want to get involved in it, if you're gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, or queer.

Polari Magazine is all these: it's a gay online magazine; it's a gay and lesbian online magazine; it's an LGBT arts and culture magazine. Ultimately, it is a queer magazine.

Latest Posts

  • Polari Magazine 2008-2014December 3, 2014 - 6:16 pm
  • Tearing Up Their Map: An Interview with LambDecember 2, 2014 - 2:45 pm
  • Future Islands • GigDecember 2, 2014 - 1:41 pm
  • Puppets with Attitude (at Christmas)December 1, 2014 - 6:30 pm
  • The Aesthetic of Voyeurism: Interview with Antonio Da SilvaDecember 1, 2014 - 1:25 pm
  • Broke With Expensive Taste • Azealia BanksNovember 28, 2014 - 3:59 pm
  • Royalty Strutting on an American College Stage: Miss and Mr. Gay ISU 2014November 27, 2014 - 2:59 pm
  • Bright Light Bright Light: Everything I Ever WantedNovember 26, 2014 - 11:15 am
  • Jaime Nanci And The Blueboys: ‘Toy’ TalkNovember 25, 2014 - 4:09 pm

Twitter

Tweets by @PolariMagazine

Archive

  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • July 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • May 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
© Copyright - Polari Magazine - Wordpress Theme by Kriesi.at
  • scroll to top
  • Send us Mail
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Join our Facebook Group
  • Subscribe to our RSS Feed
Website Privacy & Cookies