I’m just gonna say this – the fact that some people have gotten so damn bent out of shape over ship wars that they’ll get mad at folks who Ship The Bad Thing reblogging their content that has nothing to do with The Bad Thing is utterly fucking ridiculous. It’s so immature like “no you can’t look at the picture I drew because you have cooties and you’ll contaminate it!!!” Like wow sorry I didn’t know a six year old could do digital art that well but okay I’ll stop looking at you art. Don’t spill your juice box with all that flailing. Let me know when you grow up a little and stop acting like a baby about it.
I wonder if it comes from the same place that glorifies Dark Side stuff and has resulted in Hux/Kylo Ren having more almost double the number of fics as Finn/Poe on AO3? Like, Star Wars fans as a group – forget about individuals here – seem to be a more racist, misogynistic crowd than many others.
And the frequency with which I see merch for the dark side EVERYWHERE has hit the point it makes me profoundly uncomfortable both as a consumer and as a mom. Like…why would I want to dress my kid as a Stormtrooper?? WTF kind of message is that???? Yet everyone acts like this is totally normal? The whole thing is so weird to me, tbh. And you know I like Star Wars, but something is off in all this. Like the anti-Nazi message got lost somewhere along the way and it’s instead become something of a haven for white supremacists. And again it’s far from everyone but we all know it doesn’t take more than a small percentage to be really awful people for it to really make a general impact.
Both actresses deserve better.
Okay. I’m gonna try to do my best with this because it’s actually really complex. The Star Wars fandom isn’t just one fandom, not really. Being as big and as multi-media as it is and with the old EU and the new EU, no two SW fans are the same and no two clusters of fans are going to focus on the same things. This is a fandom that spreads across decades and multiple platforms. It’s really hard to get a read on the demographics because of that. SW tumblr, for example, skews female but SW reddit skews male and both have very different reasons for acting and reacting the way that they do, regardless of whether or not the results tend to wind up the same.
A huge part of the issue, from what I’ve seen, doesn’t have much to do with Ky/uxers. From what I’ve experienced, there’s extra pressure on those shippers to “properly demonize their faves” and to get upset when others who happen to be fans of either Kylo or Hux don’t seem to be doing the same thing. I do think there’s an element of “two white dudes to ship” that does contribute to the popularity (because it is the most popular ST ship on Ao3). In that respect, I do think that there’s an issue. However, there is a very loud and aggressive contingent of fans that don’t appreciate people who write F/nnP0e the wrong way. There is a very aggressive contingent of fans who will harass multishippers and refuse to interact with certain fans just on the basis of who their faves are and what they ship, to the point of cutting folks off from enjoying art, often because of fear. The fandom itself can and does sour folks from enjoying certain ships and characters. Now, of course I don’t doubt that there are certain implicit biases some people have that lead them to like ky/ux over f/nnp0e and that’s definitely an issue but I’m hesitant to say that that’s the whole problem, just from the way I’ve seen folks act.
To be completely honest with you, I think there’s two main factions that cause a lot of strife for this particular trilogy. One is on the side of “star wars is the most progressive thing to ever progressive and Rose Tico is anti black because she tazzed Finn and everyone who likes Kylo is a nazi” and the “star wars has been cucked by the sjws and it’s not cool anymore because Rey’s a mary sue”. The end result is the same, unfortunately. Both factions create this toxic environment where it’s okay to harass people or suicide bait them or just be a huge monster because those folks over there are wrong and need to be punished. Granted, the tumblr faction seems to focus more on individuals than the reddit faction (for lack of a better term) does but the vocal minority is very vocal and cruel.
And I do think the fandom as a whole tends to be more racist and misogynistic. The shit leveled at KMT is abhorrent. The shit I’ve seen leveled at Kathleen Kennedy is abhorrent. I’ve seen black r3ylos called slurs. I’ve seen jewish r3ylos called antisemitic slurs. And I’ve seen those things justified as either “criticism” or totally justified for some ass-backward reason or another. The scary thing, to me, is that the people who claim to be against abuse and racism and misogyny are all for it when it’s up against someone they don’t like. The people who are fine with using racist and misogynist language against others while claiming to be against those things are people I find more on tumblr than anything else.
As far as the darkside and all that goes, I honestly don’t know. I understand your concerns. I’m just very hesitant to blame the franchise for making the bad guys look cool because… well… that’s kind of the point. You want your bad guys to be iconic and you want to sell toys. If you have a group of kids playing Star Wars in the backyard, not everyone is going to be playing Luke. I do get the fact that the villains are nazi-coded is uncomfortable and troubling, though. I’m hoping that it will vary when the ST is done and they move on to whatever the next thing is. Maybe then we’ll get bounty hunters or something else. Maybe there is a correlation there, but I’d have to take a closer look at all that crap and I really don’t want to.
When TFA came out I wasn’t super into Star Wars. I was, however, much more active in certain circles online, like the refutation of anti-feminism and the affirmation of feminism. Anti-feminists latched on to SW hard. It was the biggest tragedy in the world because their precious childhood was being ruined by women and black men and their villains weren’t even cool anymore (too feminine was the argument). If you’ve been watching that from g@mer g@te to present, you’ll see how the rage of fanboys has morphed into alt-right sympathy or support. That’s troubling as fuck. According to this article I read about a week ago, the same fans who took credit for attempting to tank The Last Jedi’s Rotten Tomatoes score also tried it with Black Panther. I personally think that the unchallenged racism, sexism, ect ect has been given a fertile ground to grow in. There’s an element of ownership that combines with the toxicity that’s already there to create a stew of disgusting and potentially dangerous vitriol.
Just from what I’ve seen and experienced, it comes on two fronts. I can’t honestly say which is worse, though. I just know that there’s a mountain of shit.
And you’re right. The actresses deserve better.
And you know, maybe some of this is my responsibility, too. I don’t reblog this stuff. I’ve been holding off because I really don’t know anyone in the SW fandom at this point and I feel like throwing that kind of stuff on my dash might get overly negative, but maybe I should. I’ve been struggling with what to say and when for weeks, but maybe this is my breaking point.
wait WHAT? people chased her off social media? what the actual fuck, she’s such a sweetie!
YUP! She deleted everything off her Instagram within the last day or so. (I should warn that there’s some seriously gross racism cited in the article.)
She’s been nothing but sweet and positive but people are the fucking worst and decided it would be cool to be disgusting assholes to her. Unfortunately, it’s not limited to just her, either. Daisy was chased off Instagram about a year ago, too, apparently. (Conflicting reports about that one. Some claim it was because she made comments about gun control, others claim she got tired of comments ragging on her appearance.) Regardless, it’s fucking gross and I’m so pissed. I don’t know if these people were fucking raised by wolves or what but I just can’t fathom thinking it’s okay or good to be that cruel to a person over her doing her job. Like when did “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” go out of fashion? What the fuck?
I’m just gonna say this: love Rose Tico or hate her, I don’t give a shit, but Kelly Marie Tran is a person and she deserves to be fucking treated like one. She’s been nothing but sweet and excited to be involved in Star Wars and the people who’ve chased her off social media (and all the people who support the idea that we can conflate actors and actresses with their roles) should be fucking ashamed.
I don’t give a fuck if you didn’t like her as a character, or her role in the film, or her relationship with Finn, Rose Tico is fictional and not an excuse to be an asshole to a real person. So fuck you.
AND if you were one of those dickbags who used race as an excuse or a tool to be cruel, calling her slurs or claiming she’s “not pretty enough” double fuck you.
“Straight couples” you see at pride could very well be
bi, pan, ace, aro, or literally any of the other sexualities that aren’t straight
you misgendering a trans, nonbinary, etc. person
friends. They can be friends who are also LGBT. People holding hands or being affectionate in public does not automatically make them romantically or sexually involved
parents or friends showing support by being there for their LGBT children or friends
So stop being assholes and leave people be
Aaanyways, let’s just center pride around same-sex attraction and relationships and simply see the periphery for what it is: the periphery. How does that sound?
Sounds very bad.
Pride wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for trans women so how about we stop pretending its all about gay relationships and remember the foremothers who literally fought for liberation in a society that hated their meer existence.
Pride is a celebration of who we are and how far we’ve come. Pride is for exposure so straight cis folks can see we’re human and their friends and neighbours.
Everyone 🙂 Please 🙂 Take 🙂 A Look 🙂 At 🙂 These 🙂 Posts🙂
Even if you are not into discourse, I want everyone to see and condemn the racial misogyny of these posts. This is what fandom racism and sexism often looks like.
Please, don’t be fooled by any of the social justice rhetoric. The only thing that is racist and misogynistic is the degradation of Finn’s character to that of a race token who must be infantilized, undeveloped and valued most strongly only with either white or male characters, the indictment of Rose’s personality as not befitting of the docile Oriental woman, and the mental gymnastics required to short circuit an entire storyline to institutional racism…because of shipping and that’s fucking it.
Anti Rose discourse is so ridiculous and it makes me glad my sister isn’t on Tumblr. Her name is Rose and she’s Asian too, and she was so excited to see an Asian heroine with her name in the Star Wars franchise. Rose is a lot like my sister, strong and fiercely independent and not afraid of anything. It’s great that she has a heroine she can connect with like that and it really sucks to see people reduce Rose to an ‘unworthy’ love interest for Finn.
I agree that a lot of what people say against Rose and against ships she might be a part of are extremely racist and full of misogyny (and homophobia, etc.). People who do really like her character and people who like ships with her in them don’t seem to be more racist than the rest of the fanbase, and a lot of the time are less racist. Even if it did have the problems people say, it would still be fine to ship, and while people’s fan events are their own, I think restrictions on them make them limiting and less accessible, especially when tagging would cover most concerns people have, and tagging rule could be implemented.
That said, I found Rose’s character as written extremely racist and stereotypical, I found Finn’s character racist and stereotypical, and I found their canon relationship to be very much viewed through a white (supremacist) lens. A lot of people found these things to be true, and treading carefully with these topics is always going to be necessarily when writing within a white supremacist world (which we all live in). I don’t think it’s fair to say that, just because some people overreach or react badly to the criticisms, there’s nothing racist in the portrayal of either of the characters or their relationship. It’s no reason to dislike either of the characters and it’s no reason to dislike the ship (and people who are vocal about their dislike for those things are frequently horrible), but the problems are still there, and something interesting to address through meta, discussion, fic, art, or whatever people want to produce.
Things don’t have to be perfect to be defensible, and I feel like there’s too much of a push to read things the other way; “I can like whatever I want” lately seems to be becoming “no one can say anything bad about something I like.”
Yes…a story about a black man and brown woman taking on the military-industrial complex and a fascist organization is extremely racist. Yes that makes sense I see.
This person jumped on my post and blocked me right after replying and so I thought I’d post their reply here and respond to it since it’s been a while since I’ve seen all the “reasons” why Finn and Rose were “racist”.
1. Your first point about a Black man being the least threatening hero of color to a white audience makes no sense and moreover contradicts your later points about the threatening possibility of Black male sexuality needing to be subdued by directing it toward a non-white woman.
2. These characterizations of Finn are non-existent in the movie. Finn is NOT portrayed as an object of suspicion except when he is undercover because y’know, he’s on a secret mission. And even then he mostly slips under the radar until a certain point.
3. At no point do I see any of the characters whitesplaining or otherwise talking down to Finn unless you are talking about Phasma. John Boyega is on record saying that he plays Finn as an extrovert and the fact that you are mischaracterizing that as fumbling says more about the racialized lens you are forcing onto him than it does about the characterization or story. Also Idk if you noticed but um he’s a defector that starts the movie waking up from a coma in a place he’s never been, he better be wondering what’s going on.
4. There story is never framed as a side story. It constituted the main drama and action of the Resistance story line and was focused squarely on developing it’s characters and was crucial to reiterating the theme of TLJ – failure is important, collaboration is what will save the day.
5. “her entire motivation is fridging a woc” ??? Do you know what words mean?
6. The fact that Finn and Rose are portrayed as characters with humble origins is exactly what makes their narrative so powerful. How thick can you be to see marginalized folks playing marginalized folks who represent an insurgency from below that threatens the powers that be as racist? If anything that is what anti-racist work dreams about. I’m not sure what you’re problem here is? That they weren’t depicted as privileged people? With their destinies laid out before them by right of birth? In other words you wanted them to be…whiter?
7. Your assessment of Asian female representation is waaaaaay off. Asian women are frequently hypersexualized and fetishized and at no point is the White Male Gaze catered to with Rose. In fact they way she is presented is a noticeable subversion of that – unisex clothing, a ‘masculine’ job, not rail thin and an assertive personality.
8. In order for Finn to be ‘neutered’ by an Asian woman you’d have to believe that the black male character was already being sexualized in a particular way.
9. Framing Rose as an obstacle to Rey and as an ancillary to Finn, something the story never demonstrably does, is racial misogyny which you should know by if you read and subsequently agreed with my original post.
10. Get your symbolism right – the original Empire were the ones who were meant to represent the US in Vietnam while the rebels were meant to echo the guerrilla resistance. Rose is explicitly stated to be from a mining colony and is played by a Vietnamese woman.
11. Interracial representation in media is often reduced to a black/white affair, with the white person often serving as the relatable and assuring element. Your diagnosis of ‘ofc they havge to pair off the minorities’ makes no sense in light of this history and I suspect is an attempt to recenter the white woman.
12. The stuff about Nazi-coded villains has nothing to do with my post, idk why you brought that up.
You talked and talked endlessly about stereotypes – yet I see not a single stereotype articulated here. Again, do you know what words mean? You claimed at first to agree that some people go overboard – now I see that what you really mean is that people are not being polite and PC enough since you are reiterating many of the tired racism and racial misogyny that you claim to refute (and some novel things too, I’ll give you that…”fridging a woc” wtf).
This person can say they hate seeing finn with a woc and wants finn be with a white woman
You know, I’d respect people a lot more if they just came out and said they didn’t like certain pairings instead of trying to pretend the pairings they find objectionable are racist for some reason. But I guess that would expose their objections as petty opinions and not undeniable facts… or something.
Seriously this is ridiculous.
In other, highly shocking news, I hate my father. I’m never allowed to have my own fucking problems without hearing “welcome to my world” and bitching about his problems.
Newsflash, asshole, my problems are because of you! If you weren’t abusive I wouldn’t be as fucked up as I am now! If you weren’t a useless drunk I wouldn’t’ve had to give up on everything I ever wanted. I don’t give a fuck that you did one thing two weeks ago, I’m picking up after you, doing your laundry, cooking your meals, fetching and carrying for you and literally everyone else in this house and I swear to god if people don’t start treating me with a little respect I’m going to lose my goddamn mind!
Fuck you, asshole! You ruined my life! If I want to complain about the fact that I can’t even have half a pot of coffee to myself I’m gonna fucking complain and you can shut your goddamn mouth because literally no one cares that your friends don’t listen to you. NO ONE listens to me. No one respects me. No one even thinks about what I need or want or do until I crash and the dishes pile up and I don’t move for 18 hours at a time. Eat a dick, dad.
They didn’t want Supernatural without the problematic elements?? Like, a similar show that cuts back some of the racism, sexism, and aggressive misogyny, and they thought, “nah, pass, who would want that?”
I do not understand.
Why have two, potentially lucrative shows when you can have one, that limps painfully towards it’s next retread instead. I just…
I dunno. It doesn’t make any sense. Wayward could have been good. It could have been an improvement and they would’ve been able to have their cake and eat it, too. But who would want that, right? A show with the potential to expand the universe of their flagship (because expanded universes are hot right now) AND be one of the only shows currently on with a female led cast? That might help change the network’s reputation? Nah, that’s too much.
This is Not a Blog 