Star Wars Book Confirms 'Holiday Special' Character as Canon and Gay

Star Wars fans are an opinionated bunch, but there are few things that are more universally [...]

By Joe Schmidt

Star Wars fans are an opinionated bunch, but there are few things that are more universally loathed than the Star Wars Holiday Special. Despite the critical panning of this weird television special, some aspects have managed to seep into the main canon, such as Bea Arthur's song-singing bartender.

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The latest comes from the new anthology book From A Certain Point Of View. The book is a series of vignettes involving many characters from the original film and some tertiary characters who readers learn had something to do with the story.

One short story by Chuck Wendig called "We Don't Serve Their Kind Here" focuses on Wuher, the barkeep of the famous Mos Eisley Cantina who uttered the title phrase to Luke Skywalker.


Though the short goes on to explain why Wuher doesn't like droids (his parents were killed by Separatist droids and he was saved by Jedi Knights), one paragraph confirms Arthur's character Ackmena as canon in the Star Wars universe. It also confirms that she's married to a woman named Sorschi, making her one of the few LGBTQ characters featured in the galaxy far, far away.

The paragraph states:

Eventually the day wound down. Wuher gave the cantina over to the night-shift barkeep, a tough old broad named Ackmena who lived out on the Delkin Ridge with her wife, Sorschi. And Wuher did what he always did: He went, had a glass of blue milk to settle his stomach, and then he went to bed.

Ackmena famously appeared in the Star Wars Holiday Special, with Arthur using her trademark wit and biting remarks that made her so popular on the Golden Girls. After warding off some unwanted advances from a humanoid who drank from a mouth on the top of his head (yes, really), the Empire imposed a curfew on the entire planet of Tatooine, forcing Ackmena to kick people out of the cantina.

She sang "Good Night, But Not Goodbye," backed by Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes, bidding everyone farewell. 

It was definitely weird and out of place but any appearance of Bea Arthur is more than welcome. Here's hoping her popularity skyrockets and fans soon get to see Ackmena: A Star Wars Story on the big screen.

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