How Queer Fans Made Lando Calrissian Pansexual
By Genevieve Balivet (she/her/hers)
What do the pansexual community and Star Wars have in common? Lando Calrissian, the fan-favorite former smuggler known for his charisma and impeccable taste in capes. But Lando was not always pansexual (pan for short)—we owe that to the advocacy of the queer Star Wars fandom. The journey to pan Lando is an epic tale of a queer label coming into its own, an empire-sized franchise who ruled its fandom with an iron fist, and the scrappy rebel band of fans who dared defy it. To celebrate Star Wars Month and Pansexual and Panromantic Awareness and Visibility Day, we explore how queer fans made Lando pansexual.
The Pansexual Label’s Evolution
Welcome to a time not so long ago, in our very own galaxy. It’s 1914, and “pansexual” has been used for the first time by Dr. J. Victor Haberman. It's a psychoanalytical term, a far cry from our modern definition. But, as knowledge of sexuality evolves, “pansexual” evolves too. By the 1970s, it has roughly the same definition people use today: “[sexual] attraction to people of any gender or to people regardless of their gender,” according to the Trevor Project.
“Pansexual” truly comes into its own through the Internet. The “I Am Pansexual” LiveJournal page is created in 2002, creating and cultivating a community. In the 2010s, celebrities like Miley Cyrus and Janelle Monáe come out as pan, raising awareness. And the panromantic community, which feels romantic attraction the way pansexuals feel sexual attraction, becomes part of the pan label. However, pan identities linger in the shadow of other queer labels. They’re less well-known, so people misunderstand them. People don't think pan is real or confuse it with bisexuality or polyamory—not to mention pan folks endure way too many frying pan jokes. Pansexual and panromantic are thriving labels with a diverse community, but they’re still trying to make themselves seen.
The Early Star Wars World
In the same galaxy, and in the more recent year 1980, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back has just been released. It features a new character: Han’s old smuggling partner, smooth-talking and stylish ladies’ man, and leader of Bespin’s Cloud City, Lando Calrissian makes his debut. The chemistry and attraction between the former business partners doesn’t escape fans’ notice. Shipping Han and Lando (imagining them in a romantic/sexual relationship) takes off. Through fanfiction, fanart, and fan comics, fans celebrate and share this queer ship (nicknamed slash).
At this time, internet archives like Archive Of Our Own or Fanfiction.net are mere dreams. Instead, fans connect through self-published fan magazines (“fanzines” or “zines”). These are the key to spreading the Han/Lando ship and other queer ships like Lando/Luke Skywalker. But a growing shadow over the fandom ensures most queer Star Wars fan works never see the light of day.
An Empire of Invisibility
You see, these fanzines are part of the official Star Wars fanclub, which Lucasfilm controls. The burgeoning empire of a franchise has very specific ideas about how fans should interact with the original content (called “canon”). Lucasfilm wants its fans to worship canon as it is—including its cisheteronormativity. It doesn’t want fans transforming, playing with, queering the story. Lucasfilm also sees Star Wars as “family-friendly,” (which to them, doesn’t include queerness), and it will do everything in its power to protect that image. So the studio tightens its grip. It threatens legal action against fanzines which publish queer content. Zines must comply, or go out of business. Lucasfilm’s ban of queer Star Wars is thorough and devastating.
Fans still write queer fanfiction, of course. But it becomes what is known as drawerfic, only shared with close friends or not shared at all. Closeted fanfiction, if you will. And the ban hits Star Wars’s queer fanbase where it hurts. The story they love doesn’t love them back. It wants to erase queerness—not only in canon, but in fans’ own imaginations. The franchise-empire stops a queer rebellion by taking the tools fans would use to rebel, quashing hope of making Star Wars a welcoming space.
It won’t be until the 1990s that fandom strikes back. Fanzine editor Z. P. Florian and well-known fanfiction author Cara Loup lead a Star Wars slash revival, and like the Rebellion, they come up with a clever way to avoid the Death Star of Lucasfilm’s ire. They distribute slash-filled fanzines in person at conventions. Unlike the Galactic Empire, Lucasfilm doesn’t have stormtroopers to enforce its will. It can’t stop them. Fans spread their queer sedition, public but unchallenged.
The franchise’s final grasps of power slip when the internet rises to popularity. It, and The Phantom Menace with its Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi ship, creates a wave of queer fanfiction that smashes through desk drawers and fills the digital world. Queer fandom starts its open rebellion against Star Wars’s lack of representation. It normalizes queer characters and pushes for more acceptance. And eventually, it becomes popular enough it encourages Star Wars creatives to add queerness into canon.
Enter Pansexual Lando
In the recent year 2018, Han Solo gets his own prequel: Solo: A Star Wars Story. Lando Calrissian becomes a key figure in the film, and similar to his first appearance, fans notice his flirtatious attitude toward Han and attraction to his droid partner, L3-37. At fans’ and critics’ excited speculation, co-writer Jonathan Kasdan confirms Lando is pansexual. A (canonically) queer Star Wars is born.
Some fans are overjoyed. At last, the pan community has representation in an enormous franchise, disrupting the illusion of cishet Star Wars. Donald Glover who plays Lando in Solo, remarked, “How can you not be pansexual in space?” which suggests Star Wars is inherently queer. And of course, declaring pan Lando canon creates opportunities for more representation.
But some fans note the representation is complicated. Lando’s pansexuality isn’t explicit in the film—he has a relationship with L3-37, and his interactions with Han could be interpreted as flirting. But he doesn’t demonstrate clearly queer attraction or have a queer relationship. His sexuality is confirmed offscreen, not on it. The Verge Reporter Megan Farokhmanesh remarks the way Kasdan describes Lando’s pansexuality “falls into a long, damaging tradition of conflating pansexuality with promiscuity.” In other words, there’s a common myth pan people can’t have monogamous relationships or are more likely to cheat. Calling Lando pansexual because he has multiple sexual partners reinforces that myth. Pan Lando is representation, but the Solo writers should have done more to make him good representation.
The journey to reach pansexual Lando Calrissian is long and winding, and it ends in a complicated spot. Still, reaching this point says a lot about both pan visibility and Star Wars fandom. It shows how we queer fans can make ourselves visible through transforming canon. Kasdan confirmed what fans speculated for years—through our creativity and enthusiasm, we helped push queer Star Wars onto the big screen. And we’ll continue to fight for better representation to show pan people belong, both on Earth and in a galaxy far, far away.
