Lando Calrissian's Sexuality
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Lando definitely had romantic feelings for L3, which isn't that different from Tasha Yar and Data being physically intimate. The only difference is that Data is more human (or humanoid) than L3, but both are artificial beings with distinct personal identities.
At least with A:R, it's physically possible...
You can see what he sees in her. Lando styles himself as an extraordinary man and seems drawn towards extraordinary people. L3 is an extraordinary droid, unlike any in the canon or the old EU that I’m aware of.
Lando's never exhibited any attraction toward males in his previous appearances (TESB & ROTJ), but I think audiences would not have as much of a problem with this in Solo if L3-37 was more along the visual lines of Rachael from Blade Runner, for one example. Basic human perception is exactly that, and anyone would struggle to find any person attracted to something that looks like a cross between the skinless version of The Terminator's T-800 and old Zeroid toys. It comes off as strange to put it mildly.
So, there's still hope for my Kirk and Janice stranded on a moon fantasy to come true??
Very strange, no argument whatsoever.
But sci-fi has also brought up automatons that look and sound like us compared to actual machines. Both can be programmed to kill, but the one that looks human has the edge of familiarity to it. It's the same reason why people get a sense of fear if they're on a conveyor belt and a machine pegging holes every 3 feet is approaching them. Make it look like, I don't know, Phyllis Diller or Jack Nicholson, and people won't mind. At least until the last second when the weapon is revealed.
In fiction, anything can be romanticized. In reality, virtually nobody has actual emotional/mental/physical attractions to a machine or mannequin unless it's a cheezy movie from the late-1980s but the mannequin after turning into Kim Cattrall was hot... Few people have emotional/mental attractions to cattle or sheep, either, and I think the DSM still has a technical term for that, which is classified as an illness. Arguably those who do bestiality, which is sex with non-sentient creatures, is deemed far more gross than anything else. Most find that to be physically repugnant and nobody's going to care either way once the initial visual imagined when BFF Jimmy comes up and says "I've met a new partner for a while, her name is Dolly but there's a slight twist but she's not the clone..."
Never mind the animal has no emotional attachment to a human in the first place so it becomes solely an act of warped selfishness. Again, DSM...
Also in reality, these movies tend to pander and wedge audiences. But who misses the glory days when everyone said it was a plot goof when Mestor and every other alien in the galaxy wanted to, as decades-old books and websites wrote, "molest Peri"?
So, there's still hope for my Kirk and Janice stranded on a moon fantasy to come true??
LOL. I just sat through that episode yesterday...
Actually it's becoming surprisingly common with a growing market for sex dolls.
Is it really so strange to imagine in a completely different culture with completely different norms that people would become somewhat more open minded?
So, there's still hope for my Kirk and Janice stranded on a moon fantasy to come true??
Lol, good luck with that
Sex dolls came about because of a perceived need. A need is a reaction to an action. A need could also be perceived as a symptom. In which case. what's the problem? Perhaps it's "patriarchy", 17th century sailors being sexist so they kept women out of dangerous situations out of being nice, or fear of impregnating them while being in the middle of an ocean for months? No, I don't think that's quite the problem in the 21st century. So what else is going on, how long a completely inclusive list of things as possible causes we might agree or disagree on can be drawn out?
Not at all.
But do you mean "open-minded" or "gullible", which pandering fits into one of those two categories and it isn't "open-minded"?
Also, scientifically speaking, bestiality and the other things you didn't include in your quote, are technically a minority and most people don't think about those things, for numerous reasons. People aren't going to think or care about it, nor should they. The same way many gays tend to not think about heterosexual activity or when some of them do they only say it's gross (so for freedom, it has to be allowed both sides or for equality then both sides must conform to the same boundaries. No double standards. Which harks back at a previous question above but I think we both know MGTOW is by no means the only reason, especially when many of them can't even agree on their own definition over what's allowed or not!) And neither I, nor anyone else in the few posts I'd read, suggested banning or discriminating against people who do those things. Big difference between personally disagreeing with something and actively causing actual harm. All societies have boundaries that allow some disagreement but disallowing actual harm. This isn't a known given? (You know I'm technically bi but only date women, yes? So I've most of it before already.)
And anyone can imagine anything. Doing the work to make what's imagined a reality has a rather different set of complications, despite being relevant to the issues since toys are a cop-out to have to bypass work.
So let's say a kid friendly Star Wars movie shows a human fondling a robot, I can't believe I just typed that out. But you might not believe the following: The kid in real life who sees hyped up, glorified fiction on screen while not understanding it then takes something to school, clearly inappropriately (since even "Show and Tell" class doesn't allow various things.) That concept shouldn't traumatize you, we've seen almost everything else already.
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I think there are several factors involved here to be honest. It's easy to dismiss the idea of such products as being a capitalist response to a perceived market, that for products which enhance the act of masturbation, but I'm not sure that really explains the data. People literally form emotional links with such dolls and perceive them as being partners in relationships. Whilst the knee jerk response is to see that as being unhealthy and a sign of inadequacy it does draw us off topic into questions about the role of substitutes for human interaction and where they respectively reflect an illness, a symptom and a cure.
That such devices are apparently becoming much more interactive outside of the specific act of sex would tend to suggest that there is more to the phenomena than a glorification of a sex toy.
I'm not really seeing a parallel with bestiality for obvious reasons. A sentient alien or android is presumably in a position to offer informed consent, we are talking about broadening the concept of mutual sexual expression. Bestiality is a form of abuse, an assault on a being which is unable to offer that consent.
Of course, as you say, most of this being shown on screen in a SW movie would be arguably unsuitable for an audience involving children, but it wouldn't be breaking new ground either. Despite being at the time the most superficially family friendly instalment in the franchise ROTJ includes in some of it's most iconic images a clear instance of inter species sexual abuse. It's easy to dismiss how horrific the Jabba/Leia interaction really is because it is swept along with the flow of often comedic action set pieces but the fact of him being a non humanoid alien is the least disturbing aspect of a scene which shows a powerful male character literally enslaving a female to publicly humiliate and abuse. It's also arguably one of the most overtly sexual scenes of any nature in the franchise thus far, in many ways being mitigated by the alien nature of the objectifying party by abstracting what is essentially a very human interaction.
In a movie aimed at kids.
And don't forget, erotic asphyxiation!
That wasn't a gimp mask you know.....
Why is Lando's sexuality such an interesting topic all of a sudden? Why not Han's?
I didn't get that vibe. I got the feeling that L3 had romantic feelings for Lando. I thought the latter regarded L3 as a favorite companion . . . the way Han has always regarded Chewbacca, Poe Dameron regarded B-8, or how both Luke and Anakin regarded R2-D2.
I didn't get that vibe. I got the feeling that L3 had romantic feelings for Lando. I thought the latter regarded L3 as a favorite companion . . . the way Han has always regarded Chewbacca, Poe Dameron regarded B-8, or how both Luke and Anakin regarded R2-D2.
Maybe in the hope the two might intersect?
Then it begs the question why those running the Star Wars franchise--if they were so determined to place Lando in a relationship with something artificial--that it appeared to be as mechanical (non-human) as possible? Why was it important to not make the droid appear human? At least a human appearance would be in keeping with every relationship of significance in the Star Wars movies up to this point:
- Beru and Owen
- Han and Leia
- Anakin and Padme
- Shmi and Cliegg (stated on screen, though not seen)
Or, if L3-37 had to be a droid (as a plot point / character development about Lando), why not bridge the gap with its appearance at least being in the range of Data from Star Trek - The Next Generation?
...and that's a relevant point: even in the production of expensive sex dolls, the aim is to make it as realistic as possible, instead of making appear like Tanbo R-1 from the 1980s or the more recent Care-O-bot 4. The reason is that the most natural sense of all is to be attracted to another human, not objects (animated or not) but in the event someone flies that way, as in the sex doll trade, the tendency is create something moving toward the appearance of a real human.
Well, L3 does accuse Lando of flirting with Han right before the "Buckle up, baby" line.
Also (are we not doing spoilers here? The thread is unmarked, but it's about something relating to the movie, so let's be safe).
The impression I got was that Lando and L3 specifically weren't boning, but that she had boned an organic in the past. She'd just got done telling Qi'ra that Lando had a crush on her that she absolutely didn't reciprocate for professional and personal reasons, so it doesn't really make sense that she'd be talking about him, specifically, when she said it'd be possible. On the other hand, there is the bit where she mentions that she'd got this pain in her diodes down the left side or whatever, and she'd need Lando to "do that thing again," but neither of them seemed particularly thrilled by the prospect.
Not always
Obviously in a biological sense we would be more likely attracted to other human beings, the reason no one is really addressing this issue is it simply goes without saying, much less repeating as though it were some great insight. However even within that spectrum of intraspecies couplings the purpose is far from consistently about direct reproduction. I can't imagine you'll make a case to the contrary
When a species is capable of forming meaningful relationships without any chance of biological reproduction being an outcome then we have to look at other factors influencing the parameters of attraction than reproductive compatibility, in which case we are led down the road of considering proximate cues as a driver of attraction. An alien wouldn't even necessarily need to be all that close to human in order to be considered physically attractive, provided sufficient such cues were present. An example would be the commonplace attraction amongst viewers to Neytiri.
A similar case could be made for a droid, provided those cues were there to a degree sufficient to meet the needs of the individual, then why shouldn't that physicality be enough to warrant an emotional relationship too?
Says the one who started a thread discussing Lando's sexuality more or less out of the blue.
Don’t assume people are straight by default. We really only see him flirt with Leia and I got the impression that he was fucking with Han in a good natured way. As for L3, she was clear that she wasn’t interested in Lando, although Lando clearly cared about her given how he risked his own life to save her and cradled her body in his arms. Although I haven’t seen any audiences freaking out about it. People seem to find L3 funny.
Not even in an infinite multiverse.So, there's still hope for my Kirk and Janice stranded on a moon fantasy to come true??
Ouch!
I've seen 14 million possible outcomes, and one has the fantasy coming true....
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