So it took so long to get back to you! Puppy troubles.
There’s a reason why movies like Black Panther, Wonder Woman, and Crazy Rich Asians have such a big fan base for their movies and characters. It’s because good representation matters. TFA has it, but at times it doesn’t have it either. Finn is a great character in TFA, and if you minus out the forced humor that even TFA has, Finn is probably the best new character out of the movie with the most clear motivation, backstory, and impact on the movie.
But here’s the the problem, Finn is black. Black characters, just like black people, go under the microscope more than white characters. For example, many people like to bring up that Finn doesn’t react as much as someone would to fighting people they grew up with and would see as a type of family, or at least comrades, but on the other hand, no one ever comments that Kylo was part of the New Republic and is doing even worse than Finn, be cause Finn is acting in self defense, while Kylo is attacking. For example, Kylo’s torture of Poe takes on a much darker tone when people find out that both Kylo and Poe’s family were very close during and after the war, so Kylo isn’t just torturing a random soldier. Kylo is torturing a close family friend. Meanwhile, Finn’s whole goal is to not fight, and instead of people thinking Finn doesn’t want to fight because he would be actively killing his own old comrades, they write him off as a coward.
The films don’t do much to show Finn’s inner pain compared to the novels, even in TFA, there are times were Finn is used for comedy when it’s almost unrealistic. Like after having his breakdown after the Jakku Village Slaughter, thinking Poe is dead, and almost dying of thirst in the desert, the movie takes a break to show Finn drinking with animals and getting shocked by BB, for the sake of comedy. Yes, Star Wars has always had comedy, but Disney takes it a bit too far at times, and does with the character that many movies love to use as a comedy scapegoat. The minority character. Though luckily, these moments are not that heavily featured in TFA, but if you would ask a Finn hater, then Finn was a walking episode of Johnny Bravo.
My only other real complaint as far as how TFA treats Finn, is that instead of the match with Kylo being a duel effort between Finn and Rey, it’s turned into Finn getting thrown into a coma and Rey finishing the fight. And many white knights and white feminists stuck up for that choice, but I argue against it. Yes, Anakin and Luke did amazing feats when they were young and inexperienced, but when their first duel came with an actual trained dark side user, Luke lost a hand, and Anakin lost his freaking arm. It would have been more realistic, and fit in with the themes of teamwork of TFA, that after Finn gets slashed, Rey and Kylo are fighting, and while Rey is struggling to keep her footing while Kylo is overpowering Rey, Finn works up the strength to force pull the blaster Rey was using to him and shoot Kylo, injuring him further, and letting Rey come in for her face scarring winning blow.This works to show that TFA is about teamwork and these two protagonists, makes Kylo losing more believable, so you can bring him back as a formidable foe, which they really can’t in canon because Rey’s beat that ass twice with no training, and it doesn’t make it look like Finn being shown with a lightsaber was bait and switch. Something that many haters say it was, and many Finn fans as of now are afraid of.
I blame TLJ for a lot of Finn’s treatment as of now, but I’d be lying if I said that some of the blame doesn’t lie in TFA, and just by looking at how Solo treated Lando, I can’t help but think that Kasdan and Kennedy may have been behind Finn’s treatment of TFA. I’ve seen JJ’s other works, and one of his famous lines in his works is “If we don’t learn to live together, we are going to die alone.” Which was a metaphor for teamwork. Finn and Rey are co-protagonists, but there is a legitimate argument that at times Rey was boosted up at the cost of Finn. And when you’re in a fandom that consist of mostly white people, they’re going to run with that, like Rian Johnson did, and well the fandom did. I really hope JJ and Chris can make a better script for IX, than TFA was, because while I did enjoy TFA and thought it portrayed Finn great, there were the few times I felt that TFA did a disservice to Finn for the sake of comedy or to boost Rey up.
It’s often been remarked that Spider-Man’s schtick wouldn’t work nearly so well if he didn’t live in a town with so many tall buildings, but consider: how well would Batman’s “I am the night” routine work if he was operating out of a normal city where people actually live, rather than a perpetually twilit urban hellscape that looks like the Art Deco movement had a one-night stand with Soviet Brutalism in a wrought-iron-and-gargoyle factory?
That is my favorite description of the Batman aesthetic ever.
OMDFG that’s a perfect description.
Imagine Spiderman ballooning in wide open areas. No, sorry, can’t get to that crime, its against the prevailing wind.
Also, Batman brooding on top of a Wafflehouse.
Batman: God, this stupid city with its sufficient lighting and lack of crumbling infrastructure to shoot grappling hooks into
Superman: Everyone for miles has lead poisoning, I’ve spent the entire night stopping crossword puzzle museum robberies and heists at the Second National Bank of Gotham on the corner of second street and second avenue, and earlier the wall of…clouds? smog?…cleared up for a minute and I’m pretty sure the sky was literally blood red
I take back my earlier comment about wanting a Star Wars musical. It was so uncomfortable watching Carrie sing, no doubt swearing silently the whole time, while Mark and Harrison try and fail to look appropriately somber and moved.
Yup, the starting points are very different. Anyone who complains about a “quota” for POC is ignoring the fact that there’s been basically a 100% quota for white people in much of Western media. They’re not against racial quotas, they’re upholding the white quota.
And in addition to acknowledging that trying to kill Windu was
wrong, Boba, who was like 11 at the time, a literal child, was sent to
prison for it. He did the time. He paid the price. Leave Boba Fett the
hell alone.
I can’t bring myself to think badly about a child who had watched his only family killed before his eyes and wanted to avenge him. 😦 Mace was defending himself and was not wrong to kill Jango, of course, but grief and anger don’t know that kind of nuance. What young Boba needed was help, not jail time. He shouldn’t have been thrown alone into an uncaring universe where he had to work for unsavory characters to survive. I don’t think he’s a good person, but it’s tragic that he never even had a chance to be a good person. And even then he had a basic code of conduct, which is more than I can say of Kylo Ren.
Your parents can have valid concerns about discipline and the division of authority in your home, of course, and it’s perfectly fine for you to work out with them when you can help with your siblings and when you should step back and let your parents do the job. Please don’t feel bad about trying to help out though 😦 it might or might not have been effective and maybe there’s room for improvement, but I think it’s sweet that you care.
Also the above has nothing to do with calling your “verbal keysmash” bad, as far as I can tell. I assume the vocalization happens in other contexts, so it’s not tied to disciplining your siblings. If your father’s true issue is about division of responsibility at home then he should say so instead of getting off the point and making the issue about your language/sound processing.
L.J.'s Obsessions 