Current Events > LONG article about how the alt-right co-opted Star Wars

(+) Yeah! (+)

Specifically the sequel trilogy.

https://rewritingripley.medium.com/in-plain-sight-how-white-supremacy-misogyny-and-hate-targeted-the-star-wars-sequel-trilogy-and-2fd0be4b242

The writer's thesis is basically that alt-right people targeted Star Wars because The Force Awakens empowered main characters who weren't white men. They waged a culture war on star wars on sites like youtube which changed the way people talked about star wars on social media and directed hate at the actors and makers. In the final movie of the trilogy, Disney responded by yielding and retconning many of the things they were complaining about. It also talks about Gamergate and the general alt-right online culture and how it poisons discussions.

This was never about Star Wars, just as 7 years ago, it was never about video games. This plan of action will continue to move from one space to the next, hiding tactfully behind the illusion that these are just discontent fans voicing an opinion. And in each space, more and more people will be radicalized by the real existential threat that we are facing.

---

that's nice.

---

Found the chud.

---

Or maybe the Star Wars sequels just werent very good

The reaction to TFA and TLJ was pretty toxic, and almost entirely for nonsensical reasons (you can not like TLJ if you want, but mean pink haired lady clearly hates men because she has pink hair isn't an argument)

The actress who played Rose in the Last Jedi being bullied off of Twitter and Disney seemingly rewarding that by demoting her character in the sequel to "Rebel with lines" makes it hard to say this argument has no merit.

Is it so hard to believe that people thought they were bad

---

coh posted...

Or maybe the Star Wars sequels just werent very good

Really they are all just ok popcorn flicks.

Proto_Spark posted...

The actress who played Rose in the Last Jedi being bullied off of Twitter and Disney seemingly rewarding that by demoting her character in the sequel to "Rebel with lines" makes it hard to say this argument has no merit.

Yeah that was really bad. They discarded her almost entirely.

Luckily she got the leading role for Raya and the last Dragon

---

Yeah, the sequels sucked and had a load of plot problems and unrealized potential. It is pretty clear that Ryan Johnson basically fucked it all up. Attributing politics to this is dumb, they were just bad movies. It's more of a self-inflicted wound. If you push the angle that you are making a movie with a diverse cast, then you better damn well do a good job.

---

The writer's thesis is basically that alt-right people targeted Star Wars because The Force Awakens empowered main characters who weren't white men.

Because as we know, Star Wars has no popular characters that werent white men before the sequels.

---

Smackems posted...

Is it so hard to believe that people thought they were bad

Whether we choose to recognize the truth of the effective political attack against the Star Wars sequel trilogy or not, the final film in the Skywalker Saga is a perfect example of how difficult it is to identify the differences between genuine fan concerns and full-blown culture wars. It also demonstrates how vital it is for businesses and creatives to understand those differences. As it stands, the Star Wars sequel trilogy is an unfortunate testimony to the power of organized hate and the violent and vitriolic lengths that people will go to in order to stop cultural progress.

Its very easy to roll your eyes and say that everything I have written here is overblown. These are simply movies. You pay your money, you have your opinion, and you go home. Rinse and repeat. But, the reality is that we live in a world where a few very intelligent people are counting on you to think that way. And they will use that complacency to build the world that they want.

It's a long article so I don't expect you to read it. But when you look at the evidence provided in the article, no it is definitely not just that everybody thought the movie is bad. There was a targeted political reaction, not just an innocuous opinion about the movie

---

There is a lot of really bad, nonsensical criticism of TLJ.

However, it sucks that TLJ fans use this fact as a convenient way to sweep all criticism into the same pile and never acknowledge the legit issues with the movie.

---

marthsheretoo posted...

There is a lot of really bad, nonsensical criticism of TLJ.

However, it sucks that TLJ fans use this fact as a convenient way to sweep all criticism into the same pile and never acknowledge the legit issues with the movie.

This article is specifically about the targeted political reaction to the trilogy.

---

marthsheretoo posted...

There is a lot of really bad, nonsensical criticism of TLJ.

However, it sucks that TLJ fans use this fact as a convenient way to sweep all criticism into the same pile and never acknowledge the legit issues with the movie.

As someone who really liked TLJ, it definitely has problems, but its also kind of a lie to say that most of the criticisms of the movie were completely reasonable and warranted criticism.

It had plenty of hate for "wtf pink hair lady sucks she's obviously an saw lesbian" and similar nonsensical crap.

But because these two things have gotten irrefutably mixed together, its basically impossible to have a reasonable conversation about the movie.

Proto_Spark posted...

its basically impossible to have a reasonable conversation about the movie.

Pretty much. The waters were polluted, there was no real way to handle it, and in the end Disney yielded.

I've never been a star wars fan but this phenomenon was quite interesting to me. Back 2 or 3 years ago I noticed how hard the youtube algorithm was rewarding/pushing the star wars criticism videos that were laced with alt-right ideologies. If you look at the evidence in the article it makes it clear how politically charged these videos were.

---

I liked TLJ. It was setting up some impactful changes to the universe, and then... *pbbbt* Skywalker comes along, undoes any sense of narrative advancement. And don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for some kind of masterpiece in my pulpy blockbuster movies, but I felt pretty robbed by Skywalker chickening out from where TLJ ended.

---

Well this was obvious from the start

---

Somehow years old arguments about shitty movies returned

---

totalnerdken posted...

That honestly just sounds like the crazy ramblings of a left wing Alex Jones style journalist.

It's not crazy ramblings, and if you read the article there is evidence and examples for what they are discussing.

---

YourDrunkFather posted...

Because as we know, Star Wars has no popular characters that werent white men before the sequels.

Yeah, I'm calling BS on this article.

Why do people think there is some alt right conspiracy behind geek crap like this when maybe the movies were just kinda bad and mishandled by Disney trying to Marvel-ize a franchise that shouldn't have Josh Whedon style writing?

totalnerdken posted...

And Alex Jones had [...]

If you haven't read the article then your opinion on its validity means nothing and it doesn't matter who you think it sounds like.

That said it's a long article and I don't expect people here to read it. Those of us who have seen this reaction happening online over the years may be interested in reading further about it, and for those people the article provides a pretty full summary

---

RustyFerret posted...

Why do people think there is some alt right conspiracy behind geek crap like this when maybe the movies were just kinda bad

it's not hard to see if you actually do any looking. These are some examples the article shows of these youtube channels that are obviously pushing alt-right agendas.

Seriously you guys could just browse the article and you'd see the evidence

---

Wetterdew posted...

it's not hard to see if you actually do any looking. These are some examples the article shows of these youtube channels that are obviously pushing alt-right agendas.

Seriously you guys could just browse the article and you'd see the evidence

If that were true, those videos wouldn't be up at all since youtube routinely bans such channels.

Wetterdew posted...

it's not hard to see if you actually do any looking. These are some examples the article shows of these youtube channels that are obviously pushing alt-right agendas.

Seriously you guys could just browse the article and you'd see the evidence

There was absolutely an alt right bandwagon hate for these movies.

There movies were also just shit and lots of people who weren't altv right complained.

I actually like Rey and still think TFA was bad.

---

I can totally see George Lucas being caught off-guard that people were fans of the Empire. But the problem is that the bad guys were cooler than the good guys.

In a general sense, kids aren't going to get that the background officers are dressed like Nazis. They haven't had that history lesson yet. What they are going to get is that the bad guys have cool spaceships, cool robots, and one of the greatest central villains of all time. Most audiences like the Galactic Empire. They may want the good guys to win in the end, but the Empire are cool villains.

So when you have a fascist group in a popular work of fiction that most people like anyway, it makes sense that neo fascists and white supremacists are going to latch onto it and try and make it their own. That's why they got mad about Finn. They thought the Empire was an exclusive club for White fascists and he broke up their little tea party.

With the benefit of hindsight, Disney should have had a Black Queen for the sequel trilogy. Don't continue to make the cool bad guys exclusively White. Don't try in vain to get everyone to genuinely hate the Empire. Integrate the Empire so that bigots have no place left in the Star Wars universe to call their own. (Well, they can have the inside of the trash compactor from the first movie -- until it does its job, anyway.)

totalnerdken posted...

those ciriticms are just widely held.

these ones?



yeah I can't imagine how somebody could possibly misconstrue these (clearly fair and unbiased opinions about star wars) as alt-right agendas.

---

Rey was fine, the movies were pretty crap though.

I did like the first one.

---

totalnerdken posted...

What do you think the alt right is, exactly?

(in the US) a right-wing ideological movement characterized by a rejection of mainstream politics and by the use of online media to disseminate provocative content, often expressing opposition to racial, religious, or gender equality.

---

Reasonable answer to a tricky question.

---

No shit. Rey was called a mary sue from the start and Last Jedi had 4 major female characters which was almost unheard of in a blockbuster movie and Luke wasn't the mary sue they wanted so the alt-right lost their minds with that movie.

AldousIsDead posted...

Reasonable answer to a tricky question.

yes, it is straight-up the first thing you get when you google alt right, as defined by oxford!

---

What they did to Rose was fucked up. I actually never had a problem with her. My sister who is adopted Chinese, was pretty mad. Asian Americans don't get enough roles as it is without sequels demoting prominent Asian roles

Joel95 posted...

No shit. Rey was called a mary sue from the start and Last Jedi had 4 major female characters which was almost unheard of in a blockbuster movie and Luke wasn't the mary sue they wanted so the alt-right lost their minds with that movie.

Even Mark Hamill hates what they did with Luke.

---

Rey wasn't bad because she was a woman. Rey was bad because she was poorly written

---

Fascists have been injecting their garbage politics into nerd culture for years, and got away with it easily because nerd culture is, by nature, just as insular, entitled and hive minded as fascist circles. I don't need to read this article to confirm that, and nobody who doesn't realize this is going to stop being a sucker just because of this article.

---

Zikten posted...

What they did to Rose was fucked up. I actually never had a problem with her. My sister who is adopted Chinese, was pretty mad. Asian Americans don't get enough roles as it is without sequels demoting prominent Asian roles

This too. Like, piss off the alt right crowd by promoting op female Protagonists and simultaneously piss off the PC crowd by turning rose and Finn into jokes.

---

All they had to do was make Finn a Jedi.

---

totalnerdken posted...

So your definition doesn't include any ties to white nationalism, white supremacy, or nazi ideology?

Ok, so you are just trying to stir shit. Cool.

---

FortuneCookie posted...

I can totally see George Lucas being caught off-guard that people were fans of the Empire. But the problem is that the bad guys were cooler than the good guys.

In a general sense, kids aren't going to get that the background officers are dressed like Nazis. They haven't had that history lesson yet. What they are going to get is that the bad guys have cool spaceships, cool robots, and one of the greatest central villains of all time. Most audiences like the Galactic Empire. They may want the good guys to win in the end, but the Empire are cool villains.

So when you have a fascist group in a popular work of fiction that most people like anyway, it makes sense that neo fascists and white supremacists are going to latch onto it and try and make it their own. That's why they got mad about Finn. They thought the Empire was an exclusive club for White fascists and he broke up their little tea party.

With the benefit of hindsight, Disney should have had a Black Queen for the sequel trilogy. Don't continue to make the cool bad guys exclusively White. Don't try in vain to get everyone to genuinely hate the Empire. Integrate the Empire so that bigots have no place left in the Star Wars universe to call their own. (Well, they can have the inside of the trash compactor from the first movie -- until it does its job, anyway.)

Boy, this culture war stuff is hilariously cringe.

VTBM posted...

All they had to do was make Finn a Jedi.

Ah yes another guy as the main jedi character.

totalnerdken posted...

So your definition doesn't include any ties to white nationalism, white supremacy, or nazi ideology?

I straight up googled alt right and just copied the definition according to oxford. Which matches perfectly with the examples provided in the article.

---

Just more shitty culture war nonsense.

VTBM posted...

All they had to do was make Finn a Jedi.

Does every character need to be a Jedi? Special powers aren't that special if everyone has them. Han Solo was the best (hero) character of the original trilogy and he never needed them.