Tag: finn

mikeymagee:

stitchmediamix:

adeptarcanist:

stitchmediamix:

“I really like Finn, but I thought him sacrificing himself would be a really touching end to his character arc.”

A) You’re wrong. So wrong.

B) If you claim to like a character, but then you’re all for him making an absolutely pointless self sacrifice… You don’t like that character nearly as much as you think you do

Okay hang on, I’m all with you on A, but you *can* like a character and still think that them having a heartbreaking death scene would be awesome.

Perhaps I should have been clearer about the fact that this is really about how fandom treats Finn BECAUSE he’s a black character in my original post.

Because fandom has, historically, been full of people who swear they love black characters but can only see them getting an honorable death or making a sacrifice (primarily for white characters).

Fandom doesn’t look at white male characters and decide that they should totally have a sweet send off after sacrificing themselves. They don’t.

That dubious honor is largely only bestowed upon characters of color – predominantly Black characters when they’re present.

(I’m on my way out the door and on mobile so I can’t be handy dandy with links, but if you’re not getting where I’m coming from about Finn’s treatment and why wanting him to sacrifice himself is a negative sign, please go through my “fandom racism” and my “the star wars discourse” for how he’s been treated in fandom.)

^This entire phenomenon is examined at length in Toni Morrison’s Playing In the Dark. In which she pretty much states that in the American literary consciousness, Black people are used (while also denied agency) and once their usefulness has ended, they’re discarded with no forethought/consideration for the Black person/character. 

According to Morrison, this is basically the building block of the American literary identity (which has strong parallels to slavery, and the modern prison industrial complex). 

“These images of impenetrable whiteness need contextualizing to explain their extraordinary power, pattern, and consistency. Because they appear almost always in conjunction with representations of black or Africanist people who are dead, impotent, or under complete control, these images of blinding whiteness seem to function as both antidote for and meditation on the shadow that is companion to this whiteness –a dark and abiding presence that moves the hearts and texts if American literature with fear and longing. This haunting, a darkness from which our early literature seemed unable to extricate itself, suggests the complex and contradictory situation in which American writers found themselves during the formative years of the nation’s literature” (Morrison 33).   

Basically Blackness is alright, as long as it serves whiteness. Anything outside of that is pushing the boundaries. Which is why so much of fandom’s treatment of Finn is him either making Rey  and Kyle look better by comparison, or having Finn “die nobly” so Rey/Kyle/everyone else can save the galaxy. 

And it doesn’t just stop at Star Wars, it’s pretty much present in all forms of media. I mean, there’s a reason we have a “Black guy dies first”  trope.

Morrison also noted elsewhere in her book that the entire white literary identity (and by extension the cinematic identity) is dependent on Black subjugation. If Black people aren’t subordinate to the White identity, then where does that leave White people? There was a reason people were more pissed about John’s face being in the TFA trailer for five seconds, far more than anyone else’s, including Rey’s.   

Thank you for that reference @mikeymagee. So much for the jerks who want to pretend it’s all oversensitive Tumblrinas who make an issue of media and fandom racism. The most recent example I saw of the expendable Black character who lives to serve a white character was Wells Jaha in The 100, but there are really too many. I remember first watching The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi and being afraid to be attached to Lando because I was convinced he would die in a way that served the main characters’ stories and not his own. I was pleasantly surprised that this wasn’t the case, but between Saw Gerrera’s terrible arc (or lack of one) in Rogue One and Finn’s sidelining in The Last Jedi it looks like Star Wars still has a long way to go. And that’s not even getting into fandom’s ugly reaction to Finn.