Imagine being so privileged and out of touch that you think having characters that are of color, that are women, or that have different sexualities equals forced diversity.
Forced Diversity doesn’t exist. It’s a term created by bigots to hide shitty storytelling.
Let’s face the facts, these bigots are more upset that they don’t have generic straight white guy #587898 as the lead.
Diversity doesn’t ruin a movie. Bad writing does. Stop throwing representation under the bus to hide the fact that some writers are just trash and lots of people are just bigots.
I’ve been having a few conversations about an ask that I answered a couple of days back (link), and how I responded to a passing comment in the ask that I perceived as being sexist against Rey when the larger point was about racism against Finn. Looking back I would have handled things much differently, such as by asking the anon to clarify or just not answering the ask. Whatever the intent or context, I made a conversation about antiblack racism into one about sexism against a white woman and I regret that. I can’t change what I did but I’ll try to do better in the future.
Wow…I can’t believe such an original title. This leak had to be true…
It can’t be that fans have been just guessing this title since 2017…
It’s too early for posters to even be a twinkle in JJ’s eye. I smell bull shit
And even if it was, Order can mean anything from a new First Order to a New Jedi Order.
So Kylo is going to somehow become good in 140 minutes and create a new Jedi Order? Oh come on, can they just stop this nonsense…
If it’s a New Order it will be a New Jedi Order and guess who will start it? The bitch who had the blue lightsaber already and who has the Jedi books…
It’s pretty sexist and racist that even after 4 years people still can’t accept a black man and a white woman are the heroes of this trilogy.
Even if I hate TLJ, even that movie firmly established that Finn and Rey were the heroes and Kylo was the villain.
Love or hate Johnson, which I hate, mr. potato head went out of his way to make Kylo Ren the big bad of the sequel movies.
Seriously, just look at their screen times per imdb (both movies): Rey: 74 minutes Finn: 49 minutes Kylo: 34 minutes
Rey & Finn had more screentime in TFA than in TLJ, so with JJ back, both will likely get more screen time.
Kylo is not the main character, these are not his movies, he’s the villain. His screen time won’t change dramatically in IX, they can’t pull an convincing redemption arc in 15 minutes or make a comic relief character like Hux, with 8 minutes screen time over 2 movies, the main villain, let alone introduce a new one.
The problem I have is that you and others say Rey is her own
person. If that’s so, why wouldn’t a greater attraction to Poe be
considered? She has a right to choose, yes? Being more drawn to Poe
wouldn’t mean that she never cared for Finn or never thought he was hot
or never considered a relationship with him. It would just mean that she
met Poe and on sight felt something clicked. I’m not saying that is
what happened, but I’m baffled as to why people simply dismiss this as a
possibility. (end)
I… don’t know how to explain to you that Rey isn’t a real person and we’d be judging any romance subplot by the metrics of a good and entertaining story, not by the real-life standards of agency and individual choice. I’m not going to tell you or anyone “Why didn’t you marry your boyfriend from high school or college? All that buildup gone to waste!” any more than I’m going to say “Yay Leia married Admiral Ackbar after two movies of clear sexual tension with Han! #FemaleEmpowerment #Feminism” I hope that clears things up?
Maybe I can try my luck?
Most people don’t take a 4 second hello more than anything than that: A hello.
Beyond that fact, an argument can be made that just as she can be attracted to other men, she can be friends with other men.
It’s more sexist to think that a woman can’t even interact with another man without instantly wanting to hook up with him. All her interactions with Kylo are everything from violent to abusive, yet it’s hailed as true love. Rey says hi to Poe and suddenly it validates that she wants to hook up with him.
Meanwhile, Daisy has shot down both Poe and Kylo ships, but of course no one seems to acknowledge that a good portion of both Finn and Rey’s character arcs have been falling in love with each other. And since Oscar had said (jokingly???) that he plays Poe as a homosexual, it honestly just feels like Doomrey shippers are just another form of Reykow.
It’s one of the complexities that have appeared since creators got the message that gender representation is important, but still had the same biases that led to the exclusion of women in the first place. And while many of the criticisms of female characters may indeed reflect misogyny, there’s no saying you have to like the way every female character is written especially when the character is written in a sexist or otherwise problematic way. Sexism didn’t go away overnight because more women started appearing in action roles lmao. There’s still a ways to go.
I absolutely agree that there is a ways to go for well rounded and diverse women in media, but I think there’s a ways to go for fandom as well. Fandom is great at developing well rounded characters out of scraps. They find all sorts of ways around character inconsistencies or terrible character traits, sometimes coming up with a whole new personality with only hints of the canon character. But only if they’re white and male.
Female characters (and to a greater extent characters of color) get the short end of the stick. They hardly ever get meta that explains or rationalizes their behavior, they hardly ever get a pass. And I think being able to take a step back and look at a character and ask yourself, if they were a dude (or white), would I still brush him off or would I work toward making him something likeable/empathic/etc.? Sometimes the answers still going to be yes, but it’s not a bad place to start.
Very good point! It’s not like male characters always get stellar writing either, but the mountains of metas and headcanons I’ve seen analyzing *microexpressions* and whatnot trying to reconcile their characters… Female characters and characters of color rarely get the same amount of care lavished on them.
I know I’m probably not the only person who has noticed this but has anyone noticed that when a film is diverse or focuses on someone other than a white, cis, able-bodied, straight male, people want the film to fail?
I saw this with Wonder Woman and Black Panther specifically. I also remember seeing it with the Force Awakens. Like…films are notoriously white-centric. A vast chunk of film focuses on white males so why does it matter when a film doesn’t? Are white males really that fragile?
Mediocre white men know they don’t have anything going for them other than white maleness, so of course anything that doesn’t prioritize them is a threat.
forces of destiny: is a cute animated show aimed at a young audience, mainly girls, about the women of star wars and how they solve every day problems and to show how amazing all the different ladies of sw are:
r*ylos: ok but wheres BENNNNNNN????? WHERES BEN??????? WHERE IS REYS SPACE BF??????? WHY ISNT EVERYTHING IN STAR WARS ABOUT OUR SHITTY ABUSIVE TOXIC SHIP WHY IS REY BEING TREATED LIKE HER OWN CHARACTER INSTEAD OF KYLOS SEX TOY!!!1111!!!!!!!! WHERES BENNNNNNNNNN???????
@stitchmediamix actually discussed a “de-meninized edit” proposed by some shithead fan that would end up doing just that by cutting out all the men. This would, incidentally, cut out Rose as well. It’s funny how this supposedly empowering feminist thought experiment just happens to remove all the major characters of color. Sadly, I don’t know if the movie will suffer all that much in coherence from having Finn and Rose’s entire plot removed, and in fact might actually become a little more comprehensible from cutting down on its dizzying scene changes. That’s what happens when the writer/director doesn’t actually give a shit about a character but is contractually obligated to include him, and so gives him meaningless busywork just to have him there.
I don’t think fandom activity focusing on sex is in itself is a bad thing, any more than being attracted to an actor/character is. I don’t have much taste for NSFW stuff myself, but as long as everything is tagged correctly and kept in the proper places I’m fine with it.
I do have a problem, however, with the sexism implicit in saying that an activity that was mostly received as being devoid of sexual meaning must now be all about sex now that a young female character is involved.
And you are correct, no lightsaber duel will ever be as hot or have as much spark as the Obi-Wan and Anakin one. Unless Episode IX concludes with Rey leaving Kylo burning alive, in which case I’m willing to admit it’s the sexiest duel if only for the personal satisfaction it will give me.
L.J.'s Obsessions 