vulgaritar:

ridley-reylo:

i saw this post earlier that said that people take star wars too seriously and completely agree. some of y’all make star wars to be some kind of horror story, comparing it to real life politics and whatnot when really it’s literally a movie for kids. literally ten to twelve year olds. do you think a little kid sees darth vader and says “wow, you’re such a terrible person because you failed to protect padme and turned in a space hitler,” or a kid seeing seeing kylo ren at disneyland and saying “you’re a neonazi and your relationship with rey is manipulative and abusive”???? no, because star wars is a movie about good guys and bad guys fighting with light up sticks with some romance blended in. it’s meant to be a story of courage and forgiveness, and it really teaches a lesson to kids that the world isn’t black and white, there are so many shades of gray in between. yeah, kids are young and innocent but i think we should be too, at least for star wars movies. i’m tired of people making mountains out of molehills, pulling problems out of thin air and ruining the whole experience for others. all this fighting and shipping wars going on in the star wars fandom is just exhausting.

When I first saw this post I got about halfway in before blocking the op and moving on. Unfortunately it has been nagging at me throughout my morning, demanding a response because it is a perfect example of how and why a selection of this fandom willfully ignores criticisms from those outside of their circle by using hyperbole and tone arguments.

“[Star Wars] is a movie for kids. literally ten to twelve year olds.”

I’m a student teacher. Not too long ago – last week, actually – I was doing a lesson with 9th graders. BB-8 is a good pop culture example of the thing we were discussing that day, so I asked the group, “Have you guys have seen the new Star Wars movies?” not intending to actually discuss them but just to confirm the students would understand the reference.

It was a disaster.

Imagine 26 students simultaneously breaking out into a collective groan of derision followed by most of them volunteering their thoughts. Loudly. This particular class is entirely black, and they had strong opinions about the latest Star Wars movie. It took me a while to wrangle them back into focus.

Now, I can’t write out exactly what one student shouted over the sudden cacophony, but he expressly mentioned the tazing of Finn.

“Star Wars is a movie for kids”? What kids, exactly? I had 26 fourteen-year-olds express very vocally that TLJ was not for them. Their representation in this universe was subjected to a parallel danger very real and familiar to them in their urban environment for comedic value. Black kids weren’t laughing at Finn getting tazed. Black kids weren’t laughing at Finn being forced down to his knees. Black kids weren’t cheering when a white man in a uniform slapped Finn across the face. 

You assert that we, as adults, are projecting some unnecessary social commentary into all of this? No. It’s already there, but we should stop talking about it because we need to preserve kids’ “innocent” sensibilities by- doing what? Normalizing the visual of a black man being tazed for laughs while they’re young? Not making it clear that it isn’t okay for a man to abuse a woman, even if he thinks he loves her? We should just let them white kids have their fairly tale adventure experience unimpeded by reasons why these media portrayals are toxic and teach them to expect better?

I’m here to tell you that discussions about the upsetting ideas perpetuated in TLJ aren’t just on the internet. It’s not just occurring between adults trying to nitpick and whine. You can accidentally stumble upon it in an classroom of kids just like I did, but I’m betting you don’t generally interact with non-white people so you’re going to miss that. Tumblr becomes the only place YOU encounter these conversations, so YOU think that’s the only place it’s happening. 

Shipping wars are exhausting for you, @ridley-reylo? Imagine being a black fan trying to explain to this fandom why it’s hurtful that they laugh at and make gifsets of a person with your skin color being tazed when he wasn’t even threatening the person who attacked him – a tragically common experience in your community, one which often leads to death. Then imagine being told you’re reaching, or that you’re just “ruining the whole experience for others”. That seems way more exhausting to me. How many times should someone have to politely explain that you

(figuratively)

are engaging in a racist mentality before they’re allowed to get fed up and shortcut to the truth: that you ARE racist. Or that by coming up with forgivable excuse after excuse for self-centered, totalitarian, murderous, and torturous behavior you ARE the Nazi parallel? Or that by writing that the woman should give the man yet another chance to change his vile behavior and she shouldn’t stop loving him, that you ARE perpetuating abusive relationships? 

I mean, fuck, I’m white and I’ve only been in this fandom a couple of months. When I started out here I was problematic in some of the things I believed, and I still screw up sometimes but I’m trying to be better. I haven’t said anything in this post fans of color or abuse survivors haven’t haven’t been saying this entire time, yet even I’m exhausted of that selection of the fandom which perpetuates this garbage mentality of “it’s a kids movie, you people are too sensitive!! you’re ruining our enjoyment everything!!” – which for the most part are the white reylo stans. 

I would honestly be shocked if even a fifth of the people who started reading this response made it through before dismissing me as yet another anti here to quash their fun before going for that block button. It’s what the rest of the fandom has come to expect since you’ve collectively made it clear you don’t care about the feelings of others. You only care about you and your happy fandom experience.

But yeah, good job protecting the innocent children.