TLJ literally seems like it was made by an anti SJW who was forced to make a movie with a diverse cast and “feminist” ideas and so he wrote down his wrong perceptions of how feminism and diversity work, thinking this is what dumb SJWs want in the world, while he’s at the same time totally locked up inside his own sexist and racist thinking patterns. The movie is like the worst pseudo feminist pseudo diverse parody of all time but it’s for real.
That’s actually a pretty accurate description of TLJ and Johnson. Funny thing is he fooled a lot of people
Yeah the really disturbing part isn’t that he did it but that a lot of self professed progressives are falling over themselves licking his ass for it.
Oh, I love A Bride’s Story! I mean it has its problems–people should be aware, for instance, that the main bride is a 20-year-old woman married to a 12-year-old boy. I’m not about to call the wife Amir a predator because the marriage was arranged and she didn’t even know who the groom was, much less his age, until the wedding. Nevertheless, a big part of the story is the developing feelings between Amir and her husband Karluk as he tries hard to grow up and be a man for her, and people may be understandably uncomfortable with that. I’m not as disturbed by the relationship as others might be because child marriage between older girls and younger boys was traditionally rather common in Korea, but the Karluk-Amir romance is not my favorite part of the story either. I read it mostly for the other brides, see below.
On a similar note the manga has been criticized for sanitizing and even glorifying customs and practices that are oppressive in many contexts, such as the aforementioned arranged marriage and the very circumscribed lives of women. It has the Perfectly Matched trope in spades with young brides falling in love with appropriately young grooms, incredibly kind and understanding husbands everywhere, and hardly any mention of polygamy except where a wife wants it.
If you can get past these problems A Bride’s Story has a lot to commend it. The story has a slate of memorable characters and well-drawn relationships. The twin brides Laila
and Leyli from the fishing village were absolutely hilarious, and I am
currently all over my feels for Pariya, the very clearly autistic girl
who struggles to navigate love and traditional womanhood (that… damned… embroidery!!!). The manga has
wlw representation as well with Anis and Shirin, the Persian wives who
are in love with each other. I love stories of queer romance in
historical settings well before non-straight identities were openly
recognized.
Regarding sanitation, ABS to me is an interesting study in how people’s choices are shaped by
their circumstances and how people find happiness and love, if they’re
lucky, in even fairly restrictive societies. The deep sense of family
and community in this traditional society is deeply moving and
interesting as well, and it saddens me that a lot of communities like
these were–and will be, in the manga–destroyed or forced to undergo
serious upheaval. I think the author is similarly reluctant to put these
characters through the wringer because she’s been dragging on that war
plot for several books now. XD
Verdict: A Bride’s Story is my beautiful problematic fave. I recommend it highly, too, with caveats.
TLJ almost reads like an experiment in cynical trolling, a parody of
heavy-handedly didactic storytelling that gets hailed as a progressive
triumph while actually damaging and discrediting the whole idea of
diverse and feminist stories. It’s like RJ wanted to see how much he
could get away with as long as he adhered to progressive talking points–women are powerful! War profiteering is bad! Animal rights!!! The answer turns out to be: he could get away with a lot. So much that critics love how
“subversive” his movie is and his detractors are automatically named
sexists and racists.
I think this is one reason that
conservative and leftist/minority moviegoers are actually in agreement
over this film being bad. I’ll leave out the alt
right trolls who actually do hate the fact that women and nonwhite
people are on screen, whose existence can’t account for the TFA-TLJ
reaction gap anyway.
On the one hand, the right hand that is, TLJ exactly matches the right wing strawman of what
progressive storytelling is: A terribly told didactic story that
substitutes sloganeering for an organic unfolding of characters and events. In fact, TLJ is an interesting case of actual diversity quotas and tokenism, in that the
writer/director was contractually obligated to take on major nonwhite
characters that he clearly did not care much about (other than perhaps his own
character Rose whom he also managed to mangle). Remember when RJ joked about putting Finn in a coma through the whole movie? Or when he said he didn’t send Poe and Finn to Canto Bight together because their dialogue would be indistinguishable? The many times he said he could have written some interesting and emotionally resonant scene for Finn but just… didn’t want to do it? There’s a palpable interest gap compared to the way he talks about, say, Kylo Ren and Rey, and the results are
predictably awful for Poe’s and Finn’s arcs. To many conservatives this is the dystopian future of
forced progressivism in media, where talking points replace stories and female and nonwhite characters are half-hearted tokens and/or political mouthpieces.
Many on the opposite side of
the political spectrum hate TLJ as well, but for them it’s because they
know TLJ is almost a malicious parody of the kind of progressive and
representative story they want. TLJ discredits the entire idea of diverse and equal media by playing so neatly into right-wing strawmen, as outlined above. It’s
not just TLJ in itself that has this effect, either, but also the
surreal audience and critical response protecting it from criticism by
labeling even reasonable detractors as toxic bigots.
Adding insult to injury, TLJ isn’t even truly progressive. Finn’s injury is downplayed and laughed at, violence against him is played as comedic and endearing, Poe is turned into a hothead who must be lectured to, slapped, and shot by white women who know better, and Rey is made into a naïve, foolishly trusting girl who forgives and forgets heinous crimes that took place just days ago. Those oh-so-empowering female characters by and large have no stories of their own other than to teach and improve the men in their vicinity. The actual focus of the movie is a mass-murdering white male fascist. Lip service is given to progressive values, yet they have no meaningful impact on the story and the whole thing feels like the shallow pandering it is. War profiteering is bad, except it doesn’t really matter because Finn is going to give his life for an organization that we established feeds into war profits! Animal rights now, except the animals will probably be rounded up or die in the wild thanks to Rose’s PETA-level stunt! Oh, child laborers? Who cares.
The Last Jedi is not progressive storytelling, nor is it even regressive in an honest way. Rather it discredits the idea of progressiveness in media by being a bad, bumbling version of it that plays into conservative fears. This effect is amplified because far too many members of the audience either won’t say the emperor has no clothes or have convinced themselves that he is, in fact, magnificently dressed. TLJ is almost a social experiment, and I would not be surprised if it was intended as such.
(None of this is to say you can’t enjoy the movie or were wrong to like it, of course. This post is about the politics of TLJ and the lie of its supposed progressiveness. I respect different tastes and it’s fine to like problematic things. What I can’t stand is intellectual dishonesty.)
LMAO. I love when pseudointellectuals try to act like they know shit about shit
Remember when Idris Elva couldn’t be in the Thot movies because Science couldn’t explain it
Melatonin lmaoooo
Also actual deep sea creatures aren’t all one color. The sea isn’t some haven of white creatures only lol
The MAGA crowd ready to flee to the bottom of the sea now where there is no “melatonin”
When you think about it media being all-white, all-straight, all-cis, all-abled etc. is the actual PC culture. Nonwhite, queer, trans, and disabled people existing isn’t PC, that’s literally just life. It’s a very political agenda to say you don’t want to see certain groups of people in media unless it complies to X number of conditions. That’s just a statement that you want certain parts of the world and certain groups to be erased from media, and whether you agree with that statement or not I think you have to recognize the political bias behind it.
I think there’s plenty of basis to headcanon him as gay, though I doubt Disney/Lucasfilm will say anything about it for another decade or so. Doomereys notwithstanding he’s never shown romantic or sexual attraction to a woman (saying “hi” doesn’t count, you demons), while he’s shown plenty to Finn in TFA before TLJ and the comic did their best to retcon it. BUT I WILL ALWAYS HAVE “KEEP IT. IT SUITS YOU” AND THE LIP BITE, OKAY.
I always saw Poe as the Star Wars version of Commander Shepard, rank puns aside, Poe always struck me as someone who never put a gender or species on love.
And that Poe and Rey saying “Hi” = them about to fall in love and have sex is horse shit.
Are Suralinda Javos and Poe Dameron in love? She even says he had a nice ass. Maybe they became lovers, or maybe they’re just friends.
Poe can have friends too. Female friends. Rey can have male friends. Shippers gotta chill.
I love Poe and Suralinda’s relationship. I personally never got a romantic vibe from them, but that could be my own bias speaking.
One thing that bothers me about how TLJ is supposed to subvert the traditional SW idea of heroism is, this subversion just happened to take place after SW was led by heroic women and characters of color. Part of the reason fans of color responded so positively to TFA was because it put men of color and a woman in traditional heroic roles with a modern twist. Finn is a reluctant hero, but a former Stormtrooper who wrestles with his trauma. Poe is a hotshot pilot with a heart of gold, but a humble and kindhearted one who doesn’t rely on toxic masculinity. Rey is a Force user who came from nowhere, but a woman who is also struggling with abandonment issues. The main villain is a moderately attractive young white man. TFA has been criticized for its overreliance on ANH’s tropes, but in a way it was what a lot of SW fans needed, to see themselves in the same, even old-fashioned heroic roles that were denied to them.
But no, as soon as we have Black and Latino leads in main trio, there is a huge insistence that things can’t be this way. Large sections of fandom start to insist that the actual tragic hero and true victim must be the murdering and torturing white guy. Then the franchise itself partly backs them up with TLJ’s so-called subversions–no, Finn is a coward who has to be slapped into place by a wiser woman. No, Poe is a macho gloryhound who has to be literally slapped into his place by white women. Rey is a gullible girl who has to rely on one white guy or another. And none of them can be from a special bloodline because we have to subvert that now, too. Force forbid characters of color and female leads have heritage of their own, that’s solely for white men. Oh, and we’re no longer interested in Finn’s, Poe’s, or Rey’s trauma, the only internal life that matters is the white mass murderer’s.
So the message I get from this is that traditional heroism is boring and no longer for SW the moment characters of color and women have a shot at it. To borrow an image that’s been used in other contexts, it’s like we’re climbing a ladder to get somewhere we’ve wanted for decades. Then, mid-climb, the people who have already climbed the ladder to the top kick it away. While we’re on the ground hurting and wondering what the hell just happened, the white guy who kicked the ladder lectures us from on high how useless the ladder was in the first place and how stupid we were to want to climb it. That’s pretty galling, to say the least, coming from a franchise that still has a problem with letting characters of color and especially Black women simply exist on screen.
This is why it rubs me the wrong way when fans, especially white fans, are so enthusiastic about the subversiveness of TLJ. They’re using faux progressive language while being completely oblivious to, or choosing to ignore, that this “subversion” comes across as a slap in the face to many fans.
That’s what pisses me off about TLJ, among other things. TFA is subversion enough.
TFA
Finn: The Red Shirt Stormtrooper turns out to be the hero of the galaxy
Rey: The damsel in distress turns out to be a Skywalker Jedi.
Poe: The hot headed rogue turns out to be a humble Resistance Hero.
Kylo: The son of two heroes turns out to be the villain and rejects redemption.
Snoke: The cool and calm calculating big bad instead of the overused sadist trope.
Hux: The young general who stands toe to toe with Kylo.
The ending of the film ends bittersweet, unlike the happy ending of A new Hope. Han is dead, a system is dead, Finn is in a coma and Rey is traumatized from her experiences. But Starkiller base is destroyed and Kylo is defeated. Luke Skywalker is found. The War is just beginning.
TLJ
Finn: Stereotypical Black comic relief – no character arc
Poe: hot head Latino man who never listens – always wrong
Rey: Soft eyes girl who is used as a plot device – no character arc.
Rose: Refuge – no character arc
Luke: Grumpy old man – used as a plot device.
Kylo: Plot device with a character arc.
TLJ isn’t subversion. It’s a polished turd that no one wants to accept is bad.
Exactly. And yet TFA is lambasted for being derivative, while TLJ is hailed as the great white hope of Star Wars. It’s almost like subversion ain’t good enough if it uplifts and empowers female characters and characters of color.
I’m going to tell you a story about a colleague of mine. I don’t generally talk about other people in my life online because none of them asked to be put here. Heck I barely talk about myself as there’s too many creeps in the world and I don’t want another stalker. But she okayed this story, so here goes.
My colleague is a biracial Black woman and we’ve both been working at this city’s libraries for years. She’s never really been into scifi or comic book movies or TV-series, but her fiancee is and he often takes her to premieres on this stuff. It’s not that she doesn’t enjoy the movies but left on her own she’d be a “I’d watch it after its been out a few weeks and the ticket price is down or when it comes out on dvd” type of audience, certainly nor a die hard fan.
Well, when TFA came out her fiancee, then boyfriend, took her to the premiere and she was completely enchanted by it. When we saw each other after Christmas that year she virtually pounced me to talk about it as I’m the biggest Star Wars nerd the libraries have and its a well known fact. She wanted to talk to someone who wasn’t a white guy about it – yes bf is white – because her bf only found it enjoyable but too much of an ANH/OT ripoff, but she loved it. In her words it was “ANH for everyone who isn’t a (white) guy”.
We spent months squeeing about together and she went to watch it three more times. Once with friends and twice on her own. This was a woman who pre-TFA would never have done so. While she had seen all the PT movies in the theater and enjoyed them it had never been more than once and never alone.
She even started buying merch.
A year later when Rogue One came out bf was away on a business trip at the time of the premiere, but she bought tickets and went on her own to it because TFA had pulled her that much into Star Wars. And though the ending made her sad she still went and watched it twice more.
Fast forward to TLJ.
Due to restructuring in our organization we now work at different satellite libraries and work at the main library on different days, so we don’t see each other as much as we used to, therefore it wasn’t until a couple of months after TLJ came out that I had a chance to ask her what she though.
Now my colleague is a woman who’s very much a “eh, it’s fiction” person in reaction to something she used to enjoy taking a turn for the worse. She can rarely get worked up that much about it, because well, it’s fiction. So when I asked her about TLJ I was not expecting her reaction.
She was livid. I’ve rarely seen her this angry about anything, she’s a very laid back person, and certainly never about a piece of fiction. We spent our lunch break ripping TLJ to shreds.
When I asked if she was still going to see Solo the answer was a flat ‘no’, though when asked her the same question a year ago she expressed some enthusiasm to watch the movie.
Her response to being asked if she’ll watch Episode IX?
*shrug* “Probably. [Boyfriend] will go, so I’ll probably go with him.”
This isn’t a “disgruntled older fan who can’t let go of the past”. It’s a woman whom TFA brought from the general audience category and into if not diehard fan then certainly impassioned casual, a new fan who was willing to throw a good deal of her “for fun” budget at LF and Disney.
TLJ killed Star Wars completely for her, she’s utterly lost her enthusiasm and unless Episode IX somehow works a miracle she’ll be a fan who’s permanently lost to the franchise.
And she’s far from the only former fan with this story.
This is what TLJ and its “subversion” faux progressive shit did. Yes it might have alienated some of the older fans, but I think the largest group of those who’s said goodbye to Star Wars are newer fans who was brought in by TFA or RO, who might have liked the OT trio but who fell in love with the new heroic leads only to have to watch Rian screw them all over.
I’ve seen it echoed here on tumblr and other social media. Many of those who remain are older fans like me, not because we don’t hate TLJ and what it did with the same passion, but because we’ve been in love with Star Wars for too long to let one crappy movie drive us away.
The newer fans, the fans that came with TFA and RO have no such long lasting connection and less hesitance to bid Star Wars goodbye.
Honestly, I liked TLJ ok while I was in the theater – I think I was just SO GLAD to see a WOC with a name who wasn’t CGI’d into oblivion – but the more I thought about it, and the more I talked with friends…
I think OP is right about all of this. Subverting tropes is all well and good, but this was not the time and place, and this was absolutely not the way to do it. It was like Joss Whedon feminism ™: “[Sexy, waifish] women are powerful [in a violent manner only, but they’re also helpless victims who need men to care for them], and if you don’t agree, YOU’RE the sexist!” You don’t get credit for subverting tropes, when you uphold older, harmful, racist and sexist tropes.
Taking down a hot-headed male is cool. But that was NOT Poe’s character AT ALL in TFA. They should have made a different character if that’s what they wanted. And maybe not played into the Hot-Headed Machista Latino Male stereotype while they’re at it. (And also – literally why didn’t Holdo at least share with him that she *had any plan at all*? Because he was going off of the only information he had, which wasn’t much better than “shut up, Man of Color, and know your place, White people are talking.”)
I liked that the Woman Tries To Save Horrible Man From Himself trope was subverted – but again, that wasn’t Rey’s character AT ALL in TFA. Honestly, I personally read it as “Rey never had any intention of saving Kylo Ren, she was just doing what she needed to do, to survive,” but I also only saw TLJ once, so there may be a lot of wishful thinking there, and not noticing subtext, etc. I read Kylo’s speech about Rey’s family as him Making Shit Up, because he is abusive and literally evil (killed his dad! Star Wars equivalent of a school shooter! Allows a planet to be blown up!), but again, maybe that’s wishful thinking, and Johnson meant for Kylo to just somehow magically know these things.
On the one hand, I liked that it turns out Unreliable Guy is Unreliable, but why did that have to happen just when Unreliable Guy is Latino, and the people who trusted him are also POC, while Han Solo got to come running back into Luke’s open arms in ANH? Not only does it play into racist stereotypes against Latine folk, but it also sets Rose and Finn up to look naive. And while Luke disobeyed Yoda to go save his friends AND THEN SAVED HIS FRIENDS, Finn’s mission ends in catastrophic failure. There’s just no reason his heroic acts shouldn’t have ended in triumph.
And then there’s Rose Explains How Destructive Capitalism Is To Finn. On the one hand, he grew up super brainwashed by the First Order, so it’s understandable how he reacts to Canto Bight. On the other hand, he is literally the only important Black character in the whole sequel trilogy, in a franchise with pathetically few important Black characters to begin with (I’m not counting Maz Kanata because, while she’s played by Lupita Nyong’o, Maz herself isn’t Black, she’s orange.) And given how little character development Finn gets in TLJ to begin with, it isn’t right how much of it revolves around his naivety / ignorance.
And this is why I feel absolutely no shame in straight-up not accepting huge swaths of TLJ as canon. You can make multi-million-dollar films, but you can’t colonize our minds.
Sincerely,
A fan who wishes they’d made more Star Wars films after Rogue One, but I guess they didn’t, what a shame.
TLDR: The Last Jedi isn’t subversive, because it falls back on harmful racist and sexist tropes, rather than allowing everyone who isn’t a White Male to finally have our Heroic Epic Tale.
L.J.'s Obsessions 