Isn’t he a sandy blond? I know it’s not impossible for other races, but going by what’s typical I’m thinking that makes him a white guy.
Unless it’s like how some Jewish people might not count themselves as white.
Please explain how it would be racist if Star Wars had no white men in major roles while white men make up a large part of the fan base.
Even just going by the “young” leads (Finn, Rey, and Kylo), one of them (Kylo) is being played by a white male. He’s wearing a mask, but he’s still a white male, in addition to the many other white males in the case (including Han Solo who it looks like will be playing a major role, and Max Von Sydow’s character, and Luke Skywalker, though he’s not in the trailer).
Do you now see why complaining about the absence of white guys in three new lead roles (one of which is a white woman, btw) in a movie that’s already featuring several white guys in lead roles is kind of a racist thing to do?
A lot of self-proclaimed representatives of this “white male target demographic” seem to sneer at “whiny political correctness” whenever women or people of color advocate having more than, you know, one lead female or POC character in a major action film. But then they shit themselves screeching and whining if a major action film comes along where the lead characters aren’t at least 80% white male.
Not only that. I don’t accept the premise. As Living Well says:
That was going to be my question.
Actually, considering that Rigamarole has posted this about black people:
and this:
…we probably shouldn’t be surprised by this latest.
How would it not? In any case, I’m not supporting the boycotters, but my point was that it’s ridiculous to imply that they’re the racist ones for bringing up that objection. I’ll go see the actual movie before I form an opinion.
:dubious:
You can’t possibly be serious.
What proportion of major roles do white men need to occupy, in any given film, not to feel “excluded”?
Pretty strange to see someone who openly admits that he thinks black people are inherently genetically less intelligent than white people call something racist, much less the casting of a fantasy movie.
And you can’t possibly be incredulous at the concept. It seems like it won’t necessarily be the case with this film, so it’s kind of a moot point. But just say in theory you had a series that had always been really popular with left-handed lesbian Muslims, and featured left-handed lesbian Muslim protagonists. And then you made a new one without any left-handed lesbian Muslims in it, or they just got a token role. People would lose their shit, and understandably so.
Again, I don’t think that’s necessarily how it’ll be with the new Star Wars, but that’s how I read the complaint that spawned the OP.
Life is like a box of white chocolates…
Racist Gump
There’s a difference between wanting to see people who are like you represented in the media you consume, and being upset that people who aren’t like you are represented in the media you consume.
Example: Off the top of your head, name all the major studio movies starring a lesbian Muslim that you can think of. I’m guessing your list is about as long as mine: zero. Now, off the top of your head, name all the major studio movies starring a white guy that you can think of. Kind of a longer list, isn’t it?
So, if there were a major movie that starred a lesbian Muslim, that would be pretty much the only lesbian Muslim protagonist being represented in mainstream cinema. If the sequel dropped that character and replaced her with a white guy, there would be nowhere else a lesbian Muslim could go to see people like her in film. Being upset that the only mainstream media source that depicted people like you has stopped depicting people like you is a legitimate complaint.
On the other hand, white guys have no end of opportunities to see people like them on film and in television. You could literally watch nothing but movies starring white guys for the rest of your natural life, and when you died, you’d still have barely scratched the surface of what’s available to you. So when some mouthbreathing internet racist complains that there’s too many darkies in his Star Wars, that’s not a legitimate complaint about his representation in mainstream media. That’s a shitty little person throwing a tantrum because he has to look at people who are the wrong color.
But in this movie the original white male protagonists are still there. Very much so. And there are plenty of other white male roles as well. So your hypothetical is completely inapplicable to this situation. (And of course, it was never just white males who liked Star Wars, either, so there’s no reason why it should represent only or overwhelmingly white males onscreen.)
And do you now understand why that complaint is ignorant racist garbage? These complainers are claiming that white males are being unfairly “excluded” from a movie in which most of the lead roles are white males.
Eh, like I said, I’ll wait til I see it.
For decades, it has been assumed that women are willing to watch shows and movies whose main characters are men and racial minorities are willing to watch ones whose main characters (and often every single one of the characters) are white.
And now it is being asserted that it’s racist to expect white men to watch a theoretical movie that has no white men as main characters.
I believe this is an obvious example of white fragility and an example of how a significant set of white men still have no idea what racism or sexism actually is.
Really? In order to know whether it’s racist to complain about white males being “excluded” from a movie in which the lead roles are predominantly white males, you have to wait until you actually see the movie?
What, you think the movie might suddenly reveal that Luke and Han were secretly black or Asian all along?
The overwhelming majority of white men don’t care and aren’t threatened by this at all. There’s no “white fragility” at play here in any significant way.
I don’t recall a controversy when Samuel L. Jackson was cast as Nick Fury and I don’t think it was because racist assholes were OK with it. It’s because the media didn’t pay attention to their patheticness, at the time, and rightly so.
Yup. The white male self-proclaimed foes of “political correctness” need to make up their minds which argument they’re going for here:
1. Are they arguing that viewers should identify with and be interested in well-written characters irrespective of race or gender, without worrying about whether the race or gender of the character matches their own?
Fine, then they need to quit howling like frightened puppies when a mainstream blockbuster movie has a significant number of women or racial minorities in lead roles. STFU and learn to identify with the character’s goals or quest or ideas instead of their physical characteristics, just as you expect female and/or minority viewers to do.
2. Are they arguing that viewers should see their own race/gender identities represented onscreen so they will be able to relate to the characters better?
Fine, then they need to quit pompously deploring the “ruining” of movies by “political correctness” whenever somebody opines that mainstream blockbuster movie casts need more racial/gender diversity.
But what they seem to be doing now is espousing position 1 when a movie shows overwhelmingly white male characters, and switching to position 2 when a movie reduces the white male dominance of the cast list by any significant amount.
And by the way, it’s not only white male viewers who are seeing films like Star Wars, either. As this survey reports,
And apparently, one of the most crucial target audiences is now considered to be Hispanics:
Whether or not white fragility is significantly on display over Star Wars in the world at large, there is considerable white fragility on display in Rigamarole’s posts.