Quote Originally Posted by dkrook View Post
Kudos to all the mental gymnastics you guys have put to this, but to simply state the elephant in the room is that there was no possibility of a black guy being the main hero and romancing a white woman when the executive decision was made. All the plot twisting that went boils down to the avoidance of those two things. In 2019/2020 at the end of the day this is the sad reality.
I actually do think that may have played a part, but I don’t think it played as big a part as Driver being Kennedy’s picked man for a role that had a more powerful marketing concept... at least until we get to the unconscious level, where I think systemic and unintentional racism likely did end up becoming Boyega’s enemy.

In other words, I don’t see anyone making the ST vocalizing any doubts about having Boyega as the male lead, or feeling he was “improper” for Rey’s love interest. I do think Abrams was headed that way and meant for Boyega to be those things when he made TFA. And I don’t even really believe that anyone at LFL consciously rejected Finn for racist reasons.

...But I do think that Johnson felt an instinctive favoritism towards Kylo that probably had some element of white privilege involved, and that the lack of major black creative voices in LFL no doubt played a part in how few people had Boyega's back or noted the issues with Kylo being favored over Finn. And to be honest, I think anyone malignant enough to actually consciously realize that bias wouldn’t have ahead a hard time concealing it while still exercise it, sadly.

There is a kind of delightful irony in Black Panther being the film that effectively marked the MCU fully surpassing the Sequel Trilogy by making more money in a worse release slot, even eating into TLJ’s legs, since Black Panther was a solo movie focused primarily on a black cast by black creatives, and didn’t need to be an Avengers film to beat a major entry in the Sequel Trilogy, particularly when a lot of TLJ’s critical appeal conforms to the traditional ”Sad White Guy Oscar Bait” stereotype.

(I‘d also add that I think Rey suffered from unintentional sexism in the ST, especially post-TFA; her character is a kind of textbook example of an attempt at a feminist character by someone blind to their own sexism, particularly when Kylo is involved. Kennedy being focused on Driver as Kylo means she wasn’t really focused on the main heroine outside of the economic asset she was likely viewed as.)