I am not a follower of the Star War movies, I liked the original, but then lost interest, so I really have no personal opinion as to this series itself. But the series has come up in conversations that seem to be not favorable with the casting.
For some years now the Star Wars franchise has been faced with a virulent strain within its fandom that harasses and threatens actresses and people of color who are given significant roles. These fans claim that the move to make Star Wars more diverse represents a betrayal of the saga, in that it attempts to inject the politics and anxieties of our world into a story that was never about that. Don’t impose your 21st-century prejudices and anxieties on my universe, the argument goes.
There is a lot about this argument that is wrong. Though each film begins famously, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” the origins of the Star Wars saga are deeply rooted in George Lucas’s real-world concerns about totalitarianism. Plus, one of the things that has always distinguished Star Wars is its “window on a whole world” aesthetic. Watching a Star Wars story there is always the sense of so much more going on outside the frame. Even characters who are glimpsed wandering through a shot or operating in the background are given names and their own action figures. We’re always only following one story amid a whole universe of others.
Given this, the idea that everyone we meet should be white, straight and/or male actually contradicts the rules of that world. The introduction of more people of color and women in the most recent Star Wars movies and television series is a correction of an error, not an error in itself.
It’s true that Star Wars spent almost 40 years being a story mostly about white people. “Episode VII: The Force Awakens” was the first live-action Star Wars film to feature a person of color in a leading role or a woman as the lead, and that came out just seven years ago. The weight of that history has an impact. The sequel trilogy (Episodes VII-IX) was a mess when it came to race and gender; Finn, the Black former stormtrooper who was the co-lead of Episode VII and has tons of chemistry with his fellow lead Rey, becomes more of a supporting character in the latter films, mostly so that there is more room for Kylo Ren, another white guy. John Boyega, who played Finn,told GQ later, “What I would say to Disney is do not bring out a Black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side.”
‘Star Wars’ has a race problem — and casting more people of color won’t fix it. | America Magazine
My daughter who is a fan seems to have no problem with the casting. Just wondering what the problem is.
For some years now the Star Wars franchise has been faced with a virulent strain within its fandom that harasses and threatens actresses and people of color who are given significant roles. These fans claim that the move to make Star Wars more diverse represents a betrayal of the saga, in that it attempts to inject the politics and anxieties of our world into a story that was never about that. Don’t impose your 21st-century prejudices and anxieties on my universe, the argument goes.
There is a lot about this argument that is wrong. Though each film begins famously, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” the origins of the Star Wars saga are deeply rooted in George Lucas’s real-world concerns about totalitarianism. Plus, one of the things that has always distinguished Star Wars is its “window on a whole world” aesthetic. Watching a Star Wars story there is always the sense of so much more going on outside the frame. Even characters who are glimpsed wandering through a shot or operating in the background are given names and their own action figures. We’re always only following one story amid a whole universe of others.
Given this, the idea that everyone we meet should be white, straight and/or male actually contradicts the rules of that world. The introduction of more people of color and women in the most recent Star Wars movies and television series is a correction of an error, not an error in itself.
It’s true that Star Wars spent almost 40 years being a story mostly about white people. “Episode VII: The Force Awakens” was the first live-action Star Wars film to feature a person of color in a leading role or a woman as the lead, and that came out just seven years ago. The weight of that history has an impact. The sequel trilogy (Episodes VII-IX) was a mess when it came to race and gender; Finn, the Black former stormtrooper who was the co-lead of Episode VII and has tons of chemistry with his fellow lead Rey, becomes more of a supporting character in the latter films, mostly so that there is more room for Kylo Ren, another white guy. John Boyega, who played Finn,told GQ later, “What I would say to Disney is do not bring out a Black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side.”
‘Star Wars’ has a race problem — and casting more people of color won’t fix it. | America Magazine
My daughter who is a fan seems to have no problem with the casting. Just wondering what the problem is.
