In Your Face Jam - Oct 21, 2015

[CBR News]

Things are pretty great for Star Wars fans lately, but Brett White has words for those that want to ruin things with hate.


Full article here.

[superduperman]

I don't know if I'll get in trouble for saying this but I will anyway: Fuck 'em. More Star Wars for the adults then. Those of us who are grown ups will be more than happy to take all the tickets the bigots aren't buying. We should have gotten past this half a century ago. And I've proudly supported gay rights for nearly twenty years. It's time for the grown ups to just move on without these people. The less people I have to compete with for tickets the better!

[gantz_alien_killer]

shiver me timbers, thar be trolls ahead. the fact you had to write an article about them only re-enforces their trolliness. Don't feed the trolls.

until each and every human heart is some how enlightened then bigotry prejudice racism will forever be present. So don't act surprised when you see it, it makes you sound naive Brett.

[Tyrell Archer]

Gotta say, I really like your point of view in this article. The racist and bigoted responses that are out there have no business anywhere near Star Wars, and completely miss the point of the story. There's a couple of things I'd like to point out, though:
1. It's important to remember that even from the original Star Wars, Lucas had wanted to include radically (for the time; remember, it was 1977!) diverse casting, including little people, blacks, and Asians. Toshiro Mifune was considered for Obi-Wan Kenobi, and an early idea for Han Solo eventually developed into Lando Calrissian for Empire. While there's no denying the place that the final cast have taken in popular culture, it's too bad Lucas was unable to push those boundaries at the time.
2. You've mentioned that the Empire, thanks to the new Expanded Universe, is more diverse. I actually have some problems with that, and I'll tell you why. You see, the Empire was Lucas' statement against fascism and racism. The Rebel Alliance showed (slowly, over the course of the films) diversity with men and women, different ethnic backgrounds, and even different aliens, which in the Star Wars galaxy would be considered a form of acceptance and openness. The Empire, on the other hand, is completely populated with white men, all British, apparently. Notice Lucas' statement here: Good guys diverse, bad guys racist. To remove that, to show the Empire as accepting of different ethnicities, sexualities, and so on, takes much of the evil away from them, and part of the lesson away from what George was trying to teach us.

[WardenDresden]

ya know what i love about these people is their logic " a black man fighting the empire tis nonsense and disgusting!!! lets go back to a purer time when battles where co-ordinated by giant fish generals!! that's far more appropriate!!!""

[BertoFlyingFox]

Gantz up there knows about rule #1, dont feed the trolls. It's a worthless Hashtag that has more tweets making fun of it (either ironically or directly) than actually believing in whatever this worthless message was. It's a troll message and if you arent making fun of it, you should just let it fall on the wayside and completely ignore it. There are plenty other things to distract from whatever stupidity a bunch of racist idiots are trying to stir up on Twitter.

Peace.

[WeaponX]

I am all for equality in Star Wars I just happen to think there was a good message to the Empire being white males only and the rebellion including everyone be they white, black, or alien. It gave a real life reason they were the bad guys other than they were loyal to the dark side. And it showed why the rebellion was the good guys beyond they have a Jedi fighting for them. And it did so in a show don't tell way that we are always trying to instill in young writers.

That being said oh well. Besides does the Empire having black cannon fodder really change that dynamic. As long as the officers are still all Hitler youth who cares. Hell the South even had black soldiers during the civil war so arguing the Empire wouldn't use them seems silly.

[TwiztidT]

I have loved everything about TFA except Mr. Wendig's book and I was one of the people that gave it 1 star and it wasn't about the diversity of his characters it was his writing style that bothered me and that the story group had really kept him from writing about the characters that we were really interested in hearing about. I think if this series of books are supposed to be a bridge between VI and VII the really need to tell the story of what we want to know about. the core characters not the outer supporting ones. I know they may become someone important to the new trilogy but the core characters need to be addressed too. As I also stated the writing style of Chuck Wendig is not suited for this type of book. He is not a bad author, I just think he was given too little time to work on it and given too many restrictions by the story group.

[Mahr Vehl]

Yeah, 18. I know I left a few out, as well. The point is, the Star Wars movie-verse has always been a diverse one, even if we didn't realize it; hell, the movies themselves didn't even realize it most of the time. No, I can't pretend like the two trilogies are wonderfully diverse representations of the human race because, well, they weren't. I feel like it's incredibly important to acknowledge that these people have been around in a galaxy far, far away while also pointing out that the movies themselves haven't always treated those characters well.

The problem with that graphic you used is other than Lando and Mace Windu, the majority of those people were small, ancillary characters, and not part of the main group of protagonists, most of whom were white males. And even then, Lando and Mace were pretty much supporting characters. Having a female and a black male as prime protagonists is a major step in the franchise.

[fumetti]

I love SW, but don't act like there's no bigotry already in it.

The ONE oversized guy in the whole original trilogy is named "Jek PORKins." Lucas may as well have named him Fatty McLardo Fatfuk.

Lotta fat-prejudice being tolerated and perpetuated by so-called "inclusive" and "tolerant" people. Bigotry isn't limited to race or sexuality. Bigotry is HATE, period. Just because it's shifted from one group to another doesn't make it better. A bigot will FIND something to hate.

I'll take this conversation more seriously when there's resistance to the use of that pilot's blatantly offensive name.