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.
Finn isn’t going anywhere. Get use to it, edgelords and dudebros
I hate that it’s been almost 3 years since TFA and people still call Finn a dumb janitor, refuse to believe he was one of the best Stormtroopers, or that he’s even the co-protagonist night of the sequel movies.
I don’t know how many times people have to say that every low ranking soldier in the FO did sanitations. Snoke wasn’t going on no space craigslist.
The Before the Awakening Novel details Finn’s days in the FO. Leading his squad, his training with Phasma, his knowledge of different melee and range weapons, his status as one of the best Troopers, and his first mission on a mining planet and his failure to shoot protestors, which in turn led to him being sent on the mission to Jakku to prove that he had what it took to do the dirty work.
Want to learn more about his past with the First Order, how he feels about fighting other Stormtroopers, what his time in the FO was like for him, his feelings during TFA and just stuff a 2 hour movie juggling multiple characters and subplots from several different other movies doesn’t have time to tell?
Read the damn EU material!
Why is it whenever it comes to Finn actually being an interesting and thought provoking character who’s competent, the claim has to be backed up by every single shred of canon and signed off by Yoda himself? Like it even matters considering even when backed up with LOADS of canon evidence, people say it doesn’t count, but only for Finn of course. When it’s to else, that’s whole different story. But screw it, I’ll talk about Finn.
Here’s some spark notes from the EU:
Finn hates killing Stormtroopers, but he knows they won’t hesitate to kill him due to their training, so he doesn’t hesitate either.
The First Order teaches their Troopers to suppress their feelings, so TFA is really the first time Finn is allowed to act freely.
Not all Stormtroopers are taken from their families. The First Order army is huge. Some Troopers joined willingly or were born into the FO.
Finn, and all other Stormtroopers, had multiple jobs in the First Order due to how they rotated jobs, one of which was Sanitation.
Finn had also been an executioner, but didn’t have to execute any one due to there being no prisoners or reason to.
Phasma and Hux both thought him Officer or Captain material if he could move past his need to help weaker troopers and morality.
Finn doesn’t talk about his experience in the First Order because beyond NO ONE EVER FUCKING ASKING HIM, Finn is deeply ashamed of his past with the First Order since he genuinely wanted to be a good soldier.
In the Beyond the Armor book, something John Boyega personally helped with in regards to Finn. It’s actually a very interesting in general about Troopers, but it also confirms Finn’s love for Rey and Poe’s friendship is what helped convince him to fight against the First Order.
Ever since Finn appeared in the TFA trailer, there has been a constant fight against him, even before the movie came out, people have been looking for reasons to hate him. They say he doesn’t belong, he’s useless, they ask for proof that he’s even slightly competent, proof that he’s black, proof that he loves Rey, blah blah.
It’s just ironic that the first black protagonist in Star Wars is always under a microscope and judged as either too competent in the books or not OP badass in the movies. I’m sorry I forgot how Luke, Anakin, and even Rey were also fish out of water looking for their place in the world.
All people need to know about Finn has been there the whole time, but people ignore it. I’ve seen people who obsess over Rey and Snoke’s origins, not even bother giving Finn’s background a look or a guess. Kylo stans will search every single EU material to try to find anything redeeming about his murder happy ass, while writing Finn off as a toxic throwaway character. And don’t even get me started on how the dank shippers and edgelords treat Finn.
Meanwhile Finn’s over here doing his best and proving that he’s the badass, kind hearted protagonist JJ Abrams and John Boyega busted their asses on. Hopefully in IX, JJ and Boyega can remind everyone what a damn great character Finn is.
For some reason, I’m seeing a lot of posts from people who don’t ship R//ylo, who don’t seem to know a lot of the details abt what happened, but are choosing to comment off of what they do know (which isn’t the full story), and I just want to remind people that it’s really worth your time to learn about the extent of the situation before making a post or jumping to conclusions. Especially if it’s something that concerns black fans.
This is especially important to keep in mind if you’re a non-black fan. There have been instances in our fandom where non-black fans have tried to police how black fans interact with each other, or with the source material, without fully knowing the context of what they’re talking about. There’s also been an element of tone-policing in what’s been said to them, where a lot of it has been “We shouldn’t say/do/write this because we should be better and we don’t need to give R//ylos any ammunition!” Like, this is essentially what respectability politics is, and if you’re a non-black fan saying this to black fans, it’s not a good look and we need to stop doing this.
I think what has been lost in all of the hysteria is that the posts were directly skewering racist fanwork that is created and supported by reylo fans. They’ve rallied behind multiple authors of blatantly racist fanfics – fics that have mountains of kudos and adoring comments.
They were shocked and appalled to see the way Black fans memed it (racist Kylo Ren), made it all about a slur that made them uncomfortable – more uncomfortable than humiliating and gleefully killing Finn in a popular fanwork. Like. We see that. We can’t stop it, but we can laugh at it, and it doesn’t have to be in a “socially acceptable” way.
The edit of “Kylo” trying to run over Finn? It’s a parody of actual Reylo fanwork and anti-finn meta. Why is it hard to look at parodies of racist fanwork, but not the fanwork itself? Because, with few exceptions, reylos are eating up brutally anti-finn stories on AO3 and aggressively defending its right to exist.
They saw a slur weilded by Black people and removed all context to make “antis” (and ftr the very fact that the perjorative “anti” is used as a label for reylo-critical fans instead of the much larger anti-Finn crowd should tell you something about how Black people are regarded in the ST fandom) look like the “real racists.”
Non-reylo fans who are more sympathetic with reylos seeing a slur used by Black fans in the Kylo Ren tag than Black fans seeing the fandom embrace unambiguously racist fanwork might want to step back and consider why the feelings of these shippers matter more.
Reylos with all their arts, literature and English Ph.Ds don’t understand satire.
Non blacks who don’t understand black humour and the culture behind it commenting on and tone policing how black fans interract with fandom claiming moral high ground.
The clownery truly writes itself.
Reylos are proof that the mentality of “its only racist if you use the N word” is more damaging to Black people than helpful. Because it allows them to get away with all manner of antiblackness (while accusing Black fans of being the “real” white supremacists lol).
As long as they don’t channel their ancestors and smash that N key, they can claim that nothing they do is racist, and everything Black fans do is.
I’m fairly convinced most Reylos know what they’re doing. They will never admit that they’re being disingenuous in how they choose to apply their standards, but the fact that their sympathies only extend as far as themselves and no further is entirely on purpose. Like in this ask, where the anon completely skips over ALL of the pertinent details, including the race of the “antis” in the tag who were joking among themselves, but they took the pains to ensure that people know how at least one of the Reylos is a black person. even though all the other Reylos who were ganging up on the group of black fans were all white people, and terribly racist white people with a proven track record of being racist at that.
The gaps in this description were completely intentional. It was intended to eliminate sympathy for the fans of colour who were unduly harassed and deleted by Tumblr and focus this idea of victimhood on the Reylos. It was intended to portray black fans as belligerent people who went out of their way to harass innocent Reylos. That’s just racism 101 at this point, and it really sucks that non-black anti-Reylos didn’t get that on multiple occasions.
To clarify, my euro heritage is Pennsylvania German (“Pennsylvania Dutch”), which is a culture distinct from Germany German, with its own language and traditions. My German ancestors settled in PA in the 1600s and did not assimilate with the English-speaking majority until much later. Pennsylvania Germans include the Amish, but many are not, including my relatives. So my connection to Germany itself is very distant.
With that said, I have heard about Where Hands Touch, but I haven’t seen it. I like Amma Asante’s work (she also directed Belle), because she is one of the few who makes films that not only show that Black people existed in the past in Europe, but also makes them the protagonists.
As far as the movie itself, I can’t say if it deals with the subject matter well or not.
hasan did make a very salient point in his show about how western muslim activists should stop saying things like “muslim is the new black” (he was like “uh no, black is the new black”) and that black muslims go through an amplified version of oppression that makes them an incredibly vulnerable group of people in the US (even more vulnerable than brown muslims). kudos to him for that because i feel like a lot of south asian stand up comedy relies on downplaying the hypervisibility of black people and i see both hindu and muslim americans do this.
Yeah I believe black Muslims are the highest population of Muslim people in the US it’s just really inconceivable to leave them out
Forgot to mention: Jyn and Hadder canonically lost their
virginity to each other so yeah. Really not happy with LF’s bullshit
with Finnrey rn.
I think it’s the nature of movies as a visual and commercial medium and how racism and white male entitlement interact with it. The way Denzel Washington put it, as remembered by Virtuosity co-star Kelly Lynch: “[W]hite men bring women to movies, and they don’t want to watch a black man with their woman.” Comics and novels, though they are still heavily racist, are generally enjoyed alone. They’re not tied into dating rituals for most people, and though comics are a visual medium they are not as immediate as the big screen. Big franchises like SW can change the range of what’s possible, though, and I really hope Disney/LF will break this barrier.
Also while I’m glad there are more interracial relationships and other representation in the tie-ins, Jyn/Hadder doesn’t sound that great from the Wookieepedia description and it’s certainly not what I want Finnrey to be. Hadder gave up his chance to fly with the Rebellion so he could be with Jyn, and then the story had him blown up so she could feel bad. This brings me right back to the time I quit watching The 100 over its treatment of Wells (link). Fridging Black boys for white girls’ stories is not progressive, it’s just a tired reiteration of a racist cliché.
That’s an interesting–and disheartening–dichotomy. In fact I can’t think of a lot of Black men/white women romances on the big screen in general. There was a discourse about John as a romantic lead a little while back and I’ve been thinking since then, do even undisputed superstars like Denzel Washington and Will Smith count as romantic leads? Will had Mr. Hitch and Denzel had… The Preacher’s Wife? They both have amazing filmographies and commercial success that few actors of any race could rival and yet I don’t think they could be called romantic leading men like Leonardo Dicaprio or Brad Pitt. It seems to be a combination of Hollywood’s distaste for both interracial romances and Black leading women.
There have been several films that Denzel should have had a romance with the co-lead, but because she was white they nixed it because test audiences didn’t like it.
Will, among many other black actors, has had the love interest changed from the original casting call (black) to someone more racially ambiguous to appeal to audiences (usually mixed with light skin or non-black Latina) by studios.
Hollywood is a mess and it’s still in so many ways operating on the 80s & 90s scale of what sales and what won’t, even though a lot of people want better. All I can say is I hope John is able to break that mold. Or at the very least put some more dents in it. He’s on the right track with starting his own production company to make an impact.
Evidently it wasn’t his own preference, according to the Washington Post (link). He would have been okay with playing interracial romance on screen with white leads, but he knew white men wouldn’t like it.
I love Will and Denzel, but they got to where they are by not rocking the boat. Even in Hancock, where Will was opposite Charlize, it was a relationship of pure destruction. Will was white America’s favorite actor (at least until he started playing roles considered to be white like in iRobot and I Am Legend), but he was kept in his place.
But going back to Finnrey, it’s rarely the fault of the actors or the writing when people don’t see a romantic connection between a white character and a character of color. If it makes someone uncomfortable to see a white person romantically involved with a Black person, it will never read as truly romantic to them.
It’s like how many of us saw a developing love story between Michonne and Rick on The Walking Dead going back to the second season, and when they finally got together most of the fans were totally blindsided.
That’s an interesting–and disheartening–dichotomy. In fact I can’t think of a lot of Black men/white women romances on the big screen in general. There was a discourse about John as a romantic lead a little while back and I’ve been thinking since then, do even undisputed superstars like Denzel Washington and Will Smith count as romantic leads? Will had Mr. Hitch and Denzel had… The Preacher’s Wife? They both have amazing filmographies and commercial success that few actors of any race could rival and yet I don’t think they could be called romantic leading men like Leonardo Dicaprio or Brad Pitt. It seems to be a combination of Hollywood’s distaste for both interracial romances and Black leading women.
There have been several films that Denzel should have had a romance with the co-lead, but because she was white they nixed it because test audiences didn’t like it.
Will, among many other black actors, has had the love interest changed from the original casting call (black) to someone more racially ambiguous to appeal to audiences (usually mixed with light skin or non-black Latina) by studios.
Hollywood is a mess and it’s still in so many ways operating on the 80s & 90s scale of what sales and what won’t, even though a lot of people want better. All I can say is I hope John is able to break that mold. Or at the very least put some more dents in it. He’s on the right track with starting his own production company to make an impact.
L.J.'s Obsessions 