Former Doctor Who Boss Russell T Davies Questions Why There Aren’t Gay People In Star Wars

A few day ago we posted a story about the fact the director of the upcoming Star trek 3, Roberto Orci, says he’s open to including a gay character in the film (even if it doesn’t seem particularly likely that’s it’s actually going to happen). The reason is was worth reporting is that despite Star Trek not being far from its 50th anniversary, it’s never had an openly gay character (on screen at least).

Similarly – and despite jokes about C3PO and R2D2 – Star Wars has been a completely straight zone.

It’s not just in these sci-fi franchise where LGBT people are completely absent, which is something noted by former Doctor Who head honcho Russell T Davies in a new interview for Attitude, where he says there are ‘vast empires’ gay people are missing from.

“Don’t just look at where we are, look at where we’re not,” he says. “We’re gay, so we tend to notice the gay stuff, which means that we can miss the fact that whole nights of TV can sail past without a single gay person in sight.

“There are whole vast empires where we don’t exist – there’s not a single gay person in Star Wars, in Star Trek, in Disney, in Pixar, and this stuff isn’t old, it remains current. There’s still a long way to go.”

Davies adds about UK soap operas, which currently have a fairly healthy crop of LGBT characters, “I actually think soaps are in trouble, and we need to be careful – as ratings slide slowly downwards, you can now see a landscape in ten years’ time where they won’t exist any more, or they will be substantially reduced.

“And they contain a vast amount of our gay characters. Without the soaps, you’ll find those stats that count gay visibility on screen will plummet. So I wouldn’t take them for granted. If you took away the soaps, then the schedules would be even more empty.”

It was Davies who ensured Doctor Who didn’t remain completely straight with the likes of John Barrowman’s Captain Jack Harkness. The Queer As Folk creator is returning this year with a trio of gay-themed TV series, Cucumber, Bananas and Tofu.