farerb wrote:
People had issues with the kiss being between two unnamed characters and I think Disney (apologists?) claimed that was because of China and that was easy for them to just edit that out, however, people also claimed they could have done it between two main characters (Finn and Poe) and edit that out as well and Disney (apologists) just use China as an excuse, Disney didn't do the kiss between named characters because of homophobes who probably wouldn't have bought merch of the characters if they had been gay.
Ah, got you. From what little I grasped, many people thought there were two male characters--who are also main characters (not sure if that's correct)?--that had chemistry and would've made more sense to have romance / a kiss, only for the creators to instead put together a "gay kiss moment" to get a pat on the back in the media using some random female characters in the background instead (similar to OUAT with Mulan and Ruby during the Underworld arc). It's
always with female characters if it ever happens at all.

This controversy sounds like something out of the '90s / '00s, when gay characters were still rare in mainstream TV / media, which makes it feel like we've gone back in time. With shows like the Shonda Rimes ABC block, for example, onscreen romance or sexuality between gay characters seemed pretty less hidden and obscure lately?
I don't know anything about Star Wars, but if the two male characters actually had chemistry together, it's a shame they didn't have the guts to go through with it. That's why I read fanfiction; sure, you have to sort through a lot of garbage to get to something good, but I see chemistry between certain characters all the time where romance is
off-limits because of the anti-gay crowd in the audience. What's worse is when the female love interests are phoned in and bland.