Good news for Star Wars fans: when you finally get your chance to go see Star Wars: The Force Awakens in theaters, you won’t find yourself stuck sitting next to a white supremacist. Or Chuck C. Johnson.
Yes, it’s true, #BoycottStarWarsVII is a real thing, brought to you by more or less the same motley crew of racist trolls and “alternative right”-wingers who catapulted the term “cuckservative” into mainstream Republican discourse not that long ago.
Their complaint? That the upcoming episode in the Star Wars saga, directed by JJ Abrams, supports “race mixing” and therefore “white genocide.” Because one of the main characters is, you know, B-L-A-C-K. And some of the others are B-R-O-W-N. Oh, and JJ Abrams is a J-J-JEW.
I’ll let this Twitter dude explain.
https://twitter.com/DarklyEnlighten/status/655910679971389440
https://twitter.com/DarklyEnlighten/status/655911535710081024
https://twitter.com/DarklyEnlighten/status/656165064882302976
He’s also apparently worried about property values in the far-away galaxy where Star Wars takes place.
https://twitter.com/DarklyEnlighten/status/655911807949799424
Naturally, the boycotters took this as an excuse to make and post an assortment of new, Star-Wars-centric racist memes.
https://twitter.com/RealDoctorWhite/status/656260309993177088
https://twitter.com/awyattman88/status/656178020546383872
https://twitter.com/MemeMurderer/status/656192384867377152
https://twitter.com/DanielGenseric/status/656176982644928513
Others used the boycott as an excuse to post some old favorites:
https://twitter.com/leftisright4now/status/656268012891320322
https://twitter.com/leftisright4now/status/656262856145551360
https://twitter.com/leftisright4now/status/656239300770668544
https://twitter.com/awyattman88/status/656169620433469440
Do any of these putative Star Wars boycotters actually give two shits about Star Wars? Do they know how many suns rise and set on Tatooine? Could they tell a sarlacc from a hole in the ground?
Nah. Most of these guys are fake geeks trying to use the phony “boycott” as a way to spread some of their favorite white supremacist catchphrases into mainstream discourse — notably their daffy contention that “diversity = white genocide.”
https://twitter.com/officialCritDis/status/656268371407826944
https://twitter.com/KatieFromLudlow/status/656238508130996225
Apparently they don’t know, or care, that most of those who’ve even noticed the “boycott” are laughing at them — noting how fragile their “whiteness” must be if the very thought of a black guy playing a stormtrooper causes them to screech about “white genocide?’
As one of the mockers put it:
https://twitter.com/ashleylynch/status/656207477394964481
But the boycotters aren’t the only opportunists here.
Everyone’s favorite internet garbage “journalist” Chuck C. Johnson has also jumped onto the Star Wars boycott in an attempt, presumably, to capture some of its notoriety (and traffic-driving potential) for himself. In a post on his garbage site, Johnson offers a tortuous explanation for his alleged outrage over the muticultural cast of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
“[T]here’s a disturbance in the force,” he writes, because he’s the kind of hack who thinks a reference to “a disturbance in the force” in a post about Star Wars is clever.
[A] group of white nerds are rightly upset that Star Wars is painting white people as the enemy.
Is the very white Star Wars being culturally appropriated by the Jewish J. J. Abrams? …
Star Trek is a productive of a white America whether or not we want to accept it. The action figures that made George Lucas a billionaire were purchased by suburban white families.
By “productive” he apparently means “a product of.”
It was white and Jewish-American nerds that put us into space and yet it’s Guatemalan-born (Oscar Isaac), Mexico-born Kenyan (Lupita Nyong’o), and the British-born white girl (Daisy Ridley) and the British-born Nigerian (John Boyega) who get to fight for the Rebel Alliance.
None of these countries even have a space program.
Wait, what?
I’m pretty sure muppets don’t have a space program either, but they’ve played a rather important role in the Star Wars saga.
Space belongs to the people smart enough to invent rockets and indoor plumbing. It belongs to a frontier people, thank you very much. And now the frontier is flooded with the Third World, drowning out the ambitions of those white nerds. … young white boys (yes, they’re boys) … won’t be much interested in a version of the future where they are cast as the villain.
On a small planet named “Earth” in the Milky Way galaxy, James Earl Jones looks upon Twitter and laughs.
It sounds like this:
Alan: A deterrent from WHAT? The Death Star was a derrerent against insurgency, not foreign powers with planet-killing weapons.
That would be like the Queen nuking Dublin to demoralize the IRA.
@ leftwingfox
Well the British Empire is a good example of how to deal with insurgency. Consider Malaya, Kenya, the Indian mutiny etc.
As to nuking Dublin, we’ll we didn’t have such weapons in 1921, but who knows what might have happened if we had?
The fact is that on the evidence of the films, there’s nothing particularly bad about the Empire. The only people to suffer at the hands of the Empire are the terrorists, and that’s purely as a consequence of the actual threat they pose.
Why is an unelected, racist, classist, self imposed Royal a better leader than a benevolent emporer?
Winding one another up is all fine and well, but as an Afrikaner I’m afraid that when things like that start getting said, it’s my cue to leave the conversation.
“The death star may have been constructed with an eye to security, a sensible precaution in view of the subversive elements at large, but it was known to the public. It’s rationale as a deterrent required that.”
Wrong. Its existence was entirely hidden from the public, and revealed *after* blowing up a planet.
Sorry, not suggesting that the actions are morally good, just that they’re good examples historically.
It’s interesting to look at the different approaches Britain used throughout its history. We tried pretty much everything and made all the mistakes possible.
In the end though we did become the go to guys for dealing with internal strife with as little bloodshed as possible. The league of nations pretty much dumped that on us post 1922.
A planet that was explicitly stated to be unarmed, no less.
@ Olhman
Well, they waited until the F-117 had proven it worked before going public.
Alderaan was the perfect opportunity to both test the weapon and take out a terrorist Base and hub for the planned coup.
@ maistrechat
Yeah, but stated by whom?
In other word, it *was* a secret project with a gigantic budget and no democratic oversight at all. Which demonstrate the point : it’s an authoritarian regime who use its utterly remorseless arm to do all kind of horror.
If we stay at fact, Alderaan isn’t conclusively unarmed. The claim it did not have weapon at all is not very credible and done emotively. Not that it make it any better, since it have plenty of civil anyhow, and it did not have anything who would be a threat to the death star.
A lot of thing in the star wars universe right now are only assumptions, since most of the expanded universe have been retconned away. That’s why it’s flimsy to assume that leia had any legal protection ; however, the lack of protection is the hallmark of an authoritarian governement, as is the use of military for police duty, the torture, etc.
In a similar way, it’s impossible right now to know if stormtroopers are conscripts, professional soldiers, or brainwashed/blacmailed individuals, as well as the extent of use of tortures, or even the amount of population support of the Emperor.
Ok, I know we’re arguing about a fictional universe, but you are _dangerously_ close to justifying real-world atrocities there, so be very careful with the Devil’s Advocacy there.
You’re also using a double-standard of evidence to make your case.
We know the Empire has summarily executed prisoners (Vader crushing the interrogation victim’s throat), slaughtered Jawas for salvaging droids, murdered Owen and Beru, and used a weapon of Mass destruction on a civilian target (Moff Tarkin: “You would prefer a different target? A military target? Then name the system!”), then ordered the execution of a suspected rebel, all without any sort of due process or declaration of war.
I don’t know who would want to be subjected to that “benevolence”.
By using ONLY the events of the original movie, the rebels have managed a single victory against a military target (opening crawl), and stolen classified materials. When the weapon of mass destruction, already used against a civilian target, was turned against them, they fought in self-defence.
Moving away from the first movie, Leia’s is not the leader of the Rebellion, that’s former senator Mon Mothma, who is seen in Return of the Jedi. Padme was a “Queen”, but in Attack of the Clones, they make it clear that on Naboo it’s an elected position; an alternate spin on a constitutional monarchy.
Alan, at some point here you’re just saying “The bad guys aren’t bad if we decide that all bad things are actually good things.”
@ leftwingfox
I think one of the most interesting things about the original film is just how ambiguous it really is about who’s in the right when you look beyond the immediate narrative.
But is a message that princesses have a divine right to be obeyed or religious belief and motives justifies lying to people and manipulating them a particularly good one?
On the face of it the Empire was responsible for maintaining the stability of countless worlds. There’s nothing to suggest they weren’t very successful at that.
We see no evidence of oppression of any citizens. On the contrary, they seem to live completely freely.
It’s a small bunch of self appointed elitists who want to topple that and take over. If the Senate was the area where that was allowed to fester then the Empire were right to disband it.
The Empire doesn’t do anything that most earth states haven’t done in self protection, with most citizens of those states being grateful for that.
@ Katz
More that things that at first glance seem bad aren’t when you put them in context.
There are very few acts that are inherently bad (the only one I can think of is sexual assault)
Killing can be bad but at other times it can be the most moral thing to do.
Even terrorism is a tactic rather than an ideology. I would argue it was perfectly legitimate in occupied and Vichy France for example.
So to go back to Star Wars, both sides kill indiscriminately, inflict massive amounts of collateral damage and are willing to use threats/torture of captives for tactical advantage.
The “rebellion” doesn’t appear to derive legitimacy from anywhere. It’s just another privileged group vying for power.
Does Leia give a toss about anyone else? She’s contemptuous of non humans and actually murders the slave girls in Jabbas palace.
And Kenobi lies to a boy he’s been grooming just for political ends.
I honestly don’t see why people root for the rebels, they are by any definition terrorists. The only issue is whether you share their elitism rather than the Empire which is at least inclusive if Lukes ambition to go to the academy is anything to go by.
Alan, I’m going with “Any organization that wipes out an entire planet probably is not the good guys”.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the good guys are “good guys”, but at least they aren’t into the whole “destroying an entire pacifistic planet” thing.
We also don’t have any evidence to support the whole “rebels torture captives” thing. Admittedly, we can’t say 100% they didn’t, but there was no evidence for it!
…and Han totally shot first, but that was before he joined the rebellion.
See, I spent too much time in the extended universe to see arguments like “the empire isn’t actually evil” as anything but bullshit, mostly because it’s actually the empire that’s crazy xenophobic and anti non-humanoid alien.
Also, tangentially appropriate, but every discussion like this makes me think of this:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0763.html
@ contrapanglos
Well, admittedly from a PR point of view the Empire does need to spin that a bit.
But of course, the only evidence we have that it’s a “pacifist” planet comes from a demonstrably non pacifist citizen of said planet in the middle of a conversation where she’s lying about everything else.
As for treatment of prisoners, judging by the end of ROTJ, the rebels eat there’s whilst having a sing song. That is not in my opinion a sound basis for governance.
@ binjabreel
Love that cartoon. Must confess, I can see the dad’s point!
Come on, you’re just playing the Empire’s disingenuous advocate.
You more than anyone should know damn well what the Senate’s role is in a democracy, which also happens to be the one democratic institution which is supposed to represent the widest arrange of diversity in a society.
Shutting down the Senate by an Executive order is the definition of every single fucking US sponsored coup d’etat in all fucking Latin America.
I could bear with you on the idea that if the Senate debated and declared its own superficiality, and demanded it’s own dissolution, it could be a democratic act.
But someone else shutting it down, ANYONE else?? Fuck no, that is entirely antidemocratic and you should know better.
If it was a light hearted joke, it was fucking offensive and I hope you can tell why.
We have officially entered the “stoned college students at 3 AM” stage of the conversation.
@Alan:
Since OotS has been brought up, D&D, and what-is-evil-sophistry…
This one time I was playing a Lawful Evil half-fiend warlock/favored soul of Tiamat in a D&D campaign (with the understanding that I’m playing the character in party-compatible mode, more like she’s got a long con to pull), and someone cast Detect Evil on her, and then pointed at her and declared so.
“Oh please, evil?” she said with ice cold tone, “I take offense to that. It is not evil, it is alternatively aligned. Such bigotry, I never believed I would hear that from you.”
In other words, she relied on good ol’ trolling tactics of “twist things said into pretzels” and “reflect the bad on speaker”; high Charisma and skills of social manipulation… really knew what strings to pull. Of course she knew what she was, she embraced it completely; she was fiercely proud of having grown up in Baator and knowing the plane inside out (or at least claimed that). Nonetheless, she was also loyal to the party, since she was duty-bound to their employer and the other PCs figured out how far they could go before her Lawful part kicked in.
What about the Ewoks? Don’t you dare pretending there are no Ewoks.
*angry Ewok noises*
http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/image/upload/c_fill,h_421,w_626/t_mp_quality_gif/blinking-ewok-george-lucas-won-t-ever-stop-changing-star-wars-episodes-iv-vi-gif-121212.gif
… said non pacifist citizen was also the daughter of the Imperial lackey. Since luke apparently inherited Darth’s problem with sitting still, I’m going to say that in fictionland of terrible genetics and behavioral inheritance models, Leia inheriting Darth’s anger management issues might be par for the course.
Also, they probably weren’t eating the stormtroopers. Well, the little bear-people might have been eating the dead ones, but there’s no evidence they were eating POWs.
Also, having a party after blowing up something you were pretty sure was going to kill you? Worthwhile.
I’d rather not argue anymore, because I’m pretty sure you can’t convince me otherwise and I’m just going to stare with more squinty-eyed suspicion at you the more this goes on.
It’s cool to have pet theories, it’s even cool to totally disregard conventional wisdom in favor of tiny details, (I kind of do it myself with certain series) but…
… when other folks start getting a little weirded out by you defending the villain, it might be time to stop. At least in that group.
@ Katz
Well, that’s not necessarily a bad stage, especially when we’re talking about a film series.
Are there any acts though that are always bad and can never be justified other than sexual assault. I ask that as a serious question.
Violence can often be morally justified. Self defence or defence of others for instance.
Theft can be justified morally if not legally by necessity. If someone is starving for instance.
My animal rights friends have a lot to say about property damage.
So it seems nearly everything that is generally seen as bad can be justified in certain circumstances.
There are probably things I’ve missed though so open to suggestions.
Dude, if you don’t know why it’s obnoxious to sit around going “but why is THAT bad” in reply to anything anyone else says, then I can’t help you.
I’m so glad I’m not in college anymore.
@ contrapanglos
Well I’m nor convinced that conventional wisdom is necessarily a good thing. At best it’s appeal to popularity and I’m sure folks on here better than most recognise the danger of tyranny of the majority.
And defining one side as the bad guy is begging the question.
We can agree to differ though.