‘The Acolyte’ Showrunner Leslye Headland Says Critics Describing Witch Coven As Lesbians Are “Not Really Paying Attention”, Claim Series Is “The Most Important Piece Of Art That I’ve Ever Made”
Despite the term being perfectly apt to describe them, The Acolyte showrunner Leslye Headland believes that anyone labeling the members of her newly-canonized, all-female space witch coven as ‘lesbians’ is not actually “paying attention” to her story.
The embattled showrunner and former assistant to Harvey Weinstein offered her thoughts on the criticism leveled towards her entry in the Star Wars franchise while speaking to The Hollywood Reporter‘s Brian Davids following the airing of the series’ fourth episode, Day.
Beginning their time together by reflecting on the backlash to her previous interview with TheWrap’s Drew Taylor in which she appeared to affirm the widely-held belief among test audiences that The Acolyte was “the gayest” piece of Star Wars media yet, Headland informed her host, “I was surprised by the question.”
“Amandla and I just burst out laughing because that’s our knee-jerk reaction to being asked that but to be honest, I don’t know what the term ‘gay’ means in that sense,” she added, clarifying “I don’t believe that I’ve created queer, with a capital Q, content.”
From there, Davids then pressed Headland for insight into the recent, third-episode introduction of the aforementioned, able-to-create-life-from-the-Force lesbian space witch coven.
In turn, the showrunner explained, “They’re in a matriarchal society. As a gay woman, I knew it would read that their sexuality is queer, but there also aren’t any men in their community. So a closeness between the two of them would be natural. It seemed plot-driven.”
“I would say it’s really reductive to call them lesbians,” she further pushed back. “I think it means you’re not really paying attention to this story.”
However, despite her rejection of this read of the witch coven, Headland made sure to note that she was “proud of being a gay woman who’s accomplished this feat.”
“And certainly,” she continued, “if my content is called queer, I don’t want to disown whatever queerness is in the show. I would be proud to create something that inspired queer people.”
As their time together cane to an end, Headland concluded the interview by responding to the overall wave of backlash, in particular the parts regarding her overt focus on gay themes, leveled towards the series thus far.
“Honestly, I feel sad that people would think that if something were gay, that that would be bad,” she admitted to Davids. “It makes me feel sad that a bunch of people on the internet would somehow dismantle what I consider to be the most important piece of art that I’ve ever made.”
At current, the next episode of The Acolyte is on track to continue running roughshod all over the franchise’s established canon on June 25th.
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