I’m not a Reylo fan by any means, but why wouldn’t Finn/Poe be good queer representation? 2 POC men in a loving relationship and leading a rebellion together sounds like damn good representation to me.
The pairing in itself is absolutely beautiful.
My issue with it in canon is that TFA very much sets us up for Finnrey and so this would very much come at the expense of a pairing between a Black man and a white woman. And yes, it very much matters that Rey is white in this and that Poe, for all that fandom loves to whitewash him, isn’t.
White people – Hollywood included – have an absolute terror of having whiteness tainted by Black people. To the extent that they will kill a Black person who dares do it. A particular horror to white people is having a white woman touched by a Black man.
If you want to read more about it I recommend this lj entry that explains the horror white people – white women – feel when Black people, in particular Black men simply exist in their general vicinity. The cases it brings up is over half a century old, but that’s simply because they’re some of the most famous ones. The mind set behind these horrible events are very much alive and well though.
(The entry deals with Racefail 09 and primarily talks about how white fandom reacts when Black fans make their voices heard with a loudness that cannot be ignored. That’s when we get Franzeska et a btwl. But the description of Reckless Eyeballing and white people’s fear of being tainted is the best I’ve come across that I have readily to hand.)
For point in case see the Charleston Church Shooting on June 17th 2015. (That’s less than a year ago.) The racist dickbag of a shooter did it by his own words, to protect white women from Black men.
This is why Finnrey is so damn important. And every bit as progressive as Finnpoe, if not more so. Because having a loving relationship based on mutual respect and affection between a Black man and a white woman is as rare in a franchise as big as Star Wars as what Finnpoe would represent.
So while Finnpoe is a lovely pairing and in fandom is a ship I will go down with, and no amount of reylos around can make me stop, canonising it would make me more than uncomfortable. Because it would come at the expense of the loving, affectionate Black/white couple that we’d been set up for. And I do not want my representation to come at that cost.
Thank you, these are points that are often overlooked. Finnrey directly challenges white supremacy and “threatens” the lily white bloodline of the next generation. It’s a big deal. I don’t really care if people ship Stormpilot, but the thing fandom does where it’s like “well, Stormpilot has TWO things and is all poc and Finnrey has one thing that counts less because there’s a white person” – it doesn’t work like that. Especially when black/white interracial procreation is the biggest fear of white supremacists.
I wonder if this is why anti Finnreys are so fixated on Finn taking Rey’s hand to get her out of an emergency, and paint it like sexual harassment while ignoring that she willingly gave him her hand, hugged him, and kissed him. On the other extreme they insistently desexualize all Finn and Rey’s interactions, saying that for some mysterious reason there can’t be anything romantic between them while romanticizing interactions between Rey and Kylo or, less often, Rey and Poe that are either violent and disturbing or, lbr, unremarkable and bland. Rey can lie down on Finn’s chest weeping Juliet-style and it’s totes platonic, while she has shown–twice–that she wouldn’t pee on Kylo if he were on fire and that’s peak romance.
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