In just the last few days I've seen almost everywhere variations on 'Stop Star Wars Racism' and 'No Racism in Our Galaxy' and 'Star Wars Fans are the Worst.'
What gives? I confine my Star Wars fandom to the original, pre-CGI version I fortunately obtained years ago. I also have the VCR sets, just in case. I tolerate the prequels, more as a fun diversion whereby the family watches them with a sort of Mystery Science Theater 3000 approach.
I haven't seen much of the later releases. I saw the first one with Harrison Ford's last hurrah. I think one other. It made that much an impression on me. So I'm completely lost on this. The boys sometimes keep me up to date with such things, but them going their ways as they are, they're not around as much.
So is Star Wars suddenly racist? Is someone in the cast racist? It can't be because of a black character, since Lucas tended to that oversight back in 1980. I don't know. I thought perhaps some readers out there with more knowledge of the current trends might have an idea.
Ok, so Obi-Wan Kenobi recently got his own series about what he was up to between movies Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.
ReplyDeleteThe actress above is playing a role in it named Reva.
Since the show just started, there are reactions about it. To boil down a lot of complications, it's basically the old fashioned argument of motivations. Is one side critiquing the character/actress because the writing/performance is bad or are they doing it because they are racist.
That's the broadest possible, most minimum info about the whole thing.
I think I've seen this trick before. I recall Oliver Stone lashing out at the bomb that was his Alexander the Great movie. He blamed it on Christian homophobia. Seems like we've created a nice safety net for lousy production.
DeleteYouTube comment sections and other back-allys of the internet have been embroiled in a cultural war of epic proportions since at least 2014. It began with the Gamergate battles and really took off in 2016 when the gender-swaped Ghostbusters remake came out. I first became aware of it in late 2017 when the question of whether a person liked or disliked Star Wars Episode 8 came down largely to how a person voted in the 2016 Presidential Election. The online debate over the pros and cons of The Last Jedi became an undeclared proxy war between Trump and Clinton fans. Those who liked the film were acused of being SJW Feminists while those who disliked it were acused of being Alt-Right Nazis.
ReplyDeleteI don't usually delve into that sort of thing. I recall the Great Harry Potter Wars that raged across St. Blogs back in the day. That's when I knew something screwy was going on. Grown adults ripped into each other over this or that about the books, with accusations of Stan Worship on one side, and misogyny and homophobia and other such labels on the other. And all over a kid's book. But then the first time I ever typed anything on the internet was a review of Jackson's Fellowship. I said it was OK but at times a bit disappointing. I had no idea how stupid, evil, and fascist I was. Sometimes I think it's the nature of the internet beast.
DeleteSteven Greydanus tweeted about this. Dude never misses an opportunity to burnish credentials as an anti-racist try-hard.
ReplyDeleteI've been following the online fandom wars since the start of covid. If Deacon Greydonus is entering that battlefield, he's lost it worse than I thought
DeleteWelcome aboard, Don. I'm an even older veteran of such things. ;)
DeleteYou've also been watching Timcast longer than I have
DeleteThat's not bragging rights, just a misspent youth. ;) lol
DeleteOops. That should say "burnish HIS credentials."
DeleteFigures. I'm in the middle of a discussion with him over systemic racism and white privilege. He has a knack of holding on zealously to all of the narratives he then denies agreeing with.
DeleteIt's a pretty standard Hollywood playbook now: product is underperforming, claim that the product is high quality but the fans are too racist/sexist/homophobic to appreciate it. Suddenly the conversation is all about whether fans are bigots or not instead of how much your show sucks.
ReplyDeleteSometimes this is done pre-emptively, when the studio knows that it's got a stinker that it's pushing through for ideological reasons. The Amazon Lord of the Rings series is the most recent example of that. Claims that fans were racists happened nearly simultaneously with the cast list being revealed, before anyone could really react to it and long before the show came out.
I remember when they did Ghostbusters with all women. I seem to remember they had to rethink the reboot once Ramis died, so they came out with "the gimmick" of an all female cast. When reviews were less than stellar and many said it was outright bad, guess what? It's because they were all a bunch of sexists. I find the Left good at that. Bring out a character and scream from the mountains that it is 100% all about skin color, gender, or whatever. Then if it is not well received or bombs, they can lean on racism, sexism, or whatever. Funny thing? When we see the original black character in that far away galaxy, everyone knew why Lucas did it, and yet nobody particularly cared. And when people complained about the abrupt ending or the sudden 'Vader is Dad?' change in the script, nobody thought to say it was about stealth racism. How things have changed.
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