As you may have heard, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has taken in more than a billion dollars worldwide, so far. $1.09 billion, to be exact.
But the folks over on Return of Kings still think that their “boycott” of the film was a HUGE SUCCESS. How’s that, you ask?
Well, as RoK contributor David Garrett figures it, if Return of Kings hadn’t warned the men of the world that The Force Awakens is “SJW propaganda,” the film might have taken in roughly $4.2 million more than it did.
That’s right: it could have made $1,094,200,000 instead of the paltry $1,090,000,000 it’s taken in so far.
IN YOUR FACE, SJWs!
So how exactly does Garrett arrive at that $4.2 million figure? WITH SCIENCE.
Fifty-five percent of respondents to a Return of Kings Twitter poll have said that online reporting of the social justice nature of The Force Awakens influenced their decision whether to see the film. Extended across our readership, with over 900,000 users accessing ROK between November 21 and December 21, this amounts to a potential direct impact of $4,219,456.54 (55% x $8.38 x 915,482) on total revenues. $8.38 is based on the average cinema ticket price in the US, which is now an all-time high.
Well, you can’t argue with that!
And that $4,219,456.54 figure doesn’t even take into account the other right-wing media outlets that warned their readers about the evil SJW agenda behind The Force Awakens. Add that in, Garrett suggests, and the total cost of the right-wing “boycott” is in the “tens of millions of dollars.”
I have done a similar calculation to determine how much of a financial effect my writings about their “boycott” have had on the box office of The Force Awakens.
8.38 (ticket cost in dollars) x 7,390,966,099 (the number of people who might have been influenced by my posts, based on total world population) + 0.47 (amount of change in my pocket) – 7.67 (estimated cost of lunch today) / 2 (number of cats in my apartment)
So that comes to $61,936,295,906 per cat in my apartment. In other words, without my influence, The Force Awakens would have lost $60,846,295,906 at the box office (per cat in my apartment), making it the biggest financial disaster in Hollywood history. (I think. I’m not really that good at math.)
A loss of that magnitude would have had a disastrous effect on the world economy, including my cats. And I have prevented it.
You’re welcome!
But how many people saw the movie specifically because it was called and SJW propaganda? I bet it was the other 45%. I think they boosted Mad Max Fury Road even moreso.
I think one of the bigger problems with the damsels in distress thing is that the woman’s capture is usually because of her gender or as a means to get at the male main character. She’s either her gender, or an extension of the male character rather than her own person. In the first movie, Leia’s capture is about her as a person. They need her to get the information on the rebels. She is a rebel captured by the empire. As for Return of the Jedi, I will refer to what Policy of Madness said above.
WWTH:
There’s also the fact that in fiction, when men are captured, they’re less often passive and waiting to be rescued.
@raysa
I was totally inspired by Princess Leia in the first Star Wars. I don’t recall all the plot points. But I do recall that she was smart, fierce, and fought for her planet. There was no romance in the move — not that I don’t like romance — but it’s nice that it’s not mandatory. And her wardrobe was robes — not that I don’t like stylish clothing, but it’s nice when a female character wears something else. Also, her hairstyle is best described as odd.
My own opinion is that George Lucas, in an attempt to be cutting-edge, was reflecting the then-current state of feminism (as he saw it) in his first film. And in the second film (the notorious bikini!), he was reflecting the backlash against feminism (as he saw it).
True. If you get taken prisoner by a foreign government, it’s best to wait and avoid angering your captors. The US and many other countries will try to negotiate your release. But none of that applies in (expletive) action movies.
I’m sure Bob Iger will spend many sleepless nights thinking about the impact those $4m would’ve had on his $180b company.
(Seriously, you could steal four million from Disney and nobody would notice)
I appreciate all of the responses, thank you.
That scene with Leia as prisoner is so iconic, even I am aware of it. But the context is very important, thanks for putting it to picture for me.
Oh, absolutely. But when male characters are taken hostage and wait to be rescued or otherwise don’t make escape attempts I don’t really see people characterizing them as weak. Spike in season 7 of Buffy getting taken by the Ubervamp and bled and remaining hostage until Buffy slays the Ubervamp and rescues him comes to mind.
Although the damsel in distress trope is problematic in many, many ways I just don’t think being held hostage and not being able to kick ass and escape make characters like Princess Leia or Sansa Stark disqualified from being labelled strong.
I’m probably not expressing myself too clearly right now and haven’t put all my thoughts together yet, but I’ve noticed a troubling pattern in discussions female characters in genre stories. If she’s really strong and wins physical fights and/or battles of wits with male characters, she’s a Mary Sue and not believable or relatable. If she sometimes is physically overpowered or if she has lots of character flaws or if she ever gets tricked or manipulated, she’s weak, selfish, stupid, and none of her positive qualities except maybe beauty count for anything.
Female characters never seem to just be viewed as regular humans with good and bad points but they aren’t allowed to be wish fulfillment role models either. It’s very grating!
BTW, Raysa, don’t think I’m attacking as you doing because you asked about Leia. I just kind of went off on my own train of thought and started rambling.
re: “slave Leia”:
Carrie Fisher’s response to worries about its impact on children: “Tell them that a giant slug captured me and forced me to wear that stupid outfit, and then I killed him because I didn’t like it. And then I took it off. Backstage.”
And that’s my reaction, too, to the image / plot point itself.
The marketing of it, though…
…I mean, there have been plenty of times when (if you get an image of Leia at all) that’s the one you get.
Example: It was the sole representation of the character in a set of Star Wars wall decals I bought for my kids. “Slave Leia” wasn’t even in context – there was no Jabba, no Han Solo in carbonite, nothing. Just half-prone Leia in a metal bikini looking fearfully into the distance, her mouth slightly open.
If there had been other “Jabba’s Domain”-specific images it may have been a different story, but as it was – fuck that noise.
That shit didn’t go up.
If Disney decides to completely ban distribution of the image, I’m opposed – it is a part of the story and is a part of the character’s development – but I am 100% behind it being removed from its place as Leia’s primary representation.
@Luzbelitx – Thanks for the link!
I’ll take a look when I can hop on my laptop.
For newer commenters who aren’t aware, Bryce has been trolling with whiny ‘splainy WATM crap for, what, a year now? But has flown under the mod radar somehow. So don’t take his “Film critiques” seriously, he’s just annoyed at there being female characters he can’t wank to.
An aside regarding slave Leia: I was born in 1980 and can’t remember a time when I didn’t know what Star Wars was.
I had Star Wars toys.
I had Star Wars action figures.
(Probably enough to finance a house now if I still had them in their original packaging.)
I had Star Wars clothing.
Hell, I had Star Wars sheets and a Star Wars Bed Tent.
(It was about 1000x more awesome than this one, but that’ll give you an idea. I’d zip myself up in it and listen to this on my nearly indestructible portable tape player. It was majestic.)
And I can say that I remember that little mockingbird noticed that Leia seized the opportunity found in the chaos at the Sarlac pit to strangle the thing that had chained her up and had made her a slave.
“Strong female character” is a problematic phrase, not in itself but because of the assumptions that underpin the idea.
Note the adjectives “strong” and “female,” qualifying the word “character.” We need to specify “female” because otherwise the presumption is that characters are male, and we need to specify “strong” because otherwise the presumption is that female characters are weak.
The alternatives to the “strong female character” are just “character” (which is to say: male character) and “weak female character.” There are no other options admitted by this formulation. You have to re-formulate if you want other options.
We all know this character: she’s (conventionally) attractive, kicks ass (usually physically), and needs no man but usually somehow winds up in a romance anyway. She’s independent, headstrong, usually intelligent, fearless, and probably also witty. You typically see male characters surprised and pleased to discover that her beauty doesn’t make her less of a badass.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer was very much in this role, but I first noticed this happening in Lethal Weapon 3. It is super-egregious in that movie.
You can easily see the problems with the assumptions in the “strong female character” archetype in the way they manifest into the above list of characteristics. That’s an extremely confining and narrow characterization. Having this as the only option besides “weakness” tells girls and women that they need to be able to literally kick a guy in the face, or else they are failures.
This reaches its extremely harmful conclusion in the stereotype that black women are “strong” or, more recently, “fierce.” Like, are black women not allowed to just be people? They really have to be fierce? We’re really going to make them shoulder the stress of having to hold up the world and sigh with disappointment if they get tired and want to lay down for a while?
It’s better to have this in addition to “weak female character” than to have the weak characterization only, but it would be a far greater improvement if female characters (and especially female characters of color) were allowed to display the entire range of the human condition, the way male characters can, instead of just a strong/weak binary.
I liked Rey a lot, but am I the only one who was really happy about Finn? I expect a modern sci-fi film to contain an ass-kicking girl somewhere, but I’m still surprised when a non-Will Smith black guy gets a lead role in anything, and I really love the choice to make a stormtrooper a main character.
Plus he’s just so John Boyega-ish. Certain scenes were very reminiscent of this.
Obligatory Spoiler Alert:
The gender of her adversary isn’t the issue – Rey manages to defeat a Sith Lord without one iota of Jedi training. How are the fans supposed to accept that? It’s not exclusive to her either, Finn holds his own for a time and he isn’t even force sensitive.
In the SW canon films, books and games it’s made clear that those who aren’t trained to be proficient with lightsabers are just as likely to cut off their own limbs. Luke has some instruction via Obi Wan and Yoda before the the first encounter Darth Vader, which at least explains how he can handle himself (and he’s still thoroughly beaten and made helpless).
OH MY GOD A MOVIE PROTAGONIST GOT IMPROBABLY GOOD AT A SKILL IN A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME
THAT’S NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE
Luke, meanwhile, got like five minutes of training from Obi-Wan and that was enough to make him the only person who could blow up the Death Star.
Luke flew a T-16 back on Tattoine, prior to the Battle of Yavin, and his wasn’t the only X-Wing on the run to the Death Star’s exhaust port.
WWTH:
I know that you aren’t attacking me. I don’t feel attacked at all. But thanks for saying.
This trope is really bothering me. I somehow managed to internalize the “weak damsel in distress” without knowing a thing about it. Why did I do that and what does that say about me? I’m not asking anyone, it’s just a thought process that has been tripped in my brain.
Women are judged way more harshly, no doubt. My husband, who is very pro-feminist and whom I trust 100%, annoyed me by trying to tell me that Leia was so pro-woman when I can only associate that one thing with her. I don’t know why I felt that way, either, but it’s bothersome to me that I did.
And now, I rambling. I agree with what you have posted. Being a woman should not have all of this bullshit undercurrent and obvious misogyny attached to it. It’s exhausting, and I feel like I doubt my reactions to things all the time. But it’s the world we live in.
And you know what, exactly, about Finn’s training?
the expanded universe is no long canon so if they want to say light sabers are easer to use then they’re easier to use. Hell,in issue 12 of the new star Wars comic Han,Leia and Chewie all use Lightsabers to help rescue Luke from a Hutts gladiator arena.
I just want to take a moment to point out that Bryce is griping about realism in TFA while having no problem at all with Luke defeating Darth Vader after about 4 hours of training with Obi-Wan and about a week with Yoda.
Because that is super-plausible and completely internally consistent, whereas a trained soldier being able to hold a weapon without running afoul of the business end defies belief. And an obviously incredibly-powerful Force user defeating a seriously injured Sith with an actively-bleeding abdominal wound, just by trusting in the Force, is completely outside the realm of possibility. But Anakin Skywalker, the most talented Force-wielder of all time, who killed many highly-trained and skilled Jedi after his little accident, going utterly down to a rank amateur presents no problem whatsoever. Okay, then!
Rey was learning from Kylo. Did you miss the bit where she got into his mind after he got into hers? She sensed that he was afraid that he was only a bargain-bin Vader.
She had to take two tries to get the stormtrooper (Daniel Craig!) to let her out.
She wasn’t completely ignorant of the Jedi Knights, like Luke was. She’d heard of the mind trick, and maybe the telekinesis.
By the time they had the fight in the snow, Kylo was badly injured. Chewie shot him in the torso, and Finn managed to get him in the arm. Even then, he almost won. I have no trouble accepting that a woman who has had little formal teaching, but who has strong faith in the Force and is uninjured, can beat a wounded man on the ragged edge of his endurance and his faith, especially when it’s dramatically appropriate.
I mean, what — after all that, after Han, you’d rather he cut some bits off and walk away with Anakin’s saber without breaking a sweat? I nearly squeezed Beloved’s hand off starting from when Han stepped out onto that bridge. I didn’t let go until Rey pulled the saber right past Kylo’s head, and then it was only to ball my fists up and root for her. That fight was fuckin’ cathartic, man. Fuck you for your lack of disbelief.
And who definitively said Finn’s not Force sensitive?
Six.
Six pilots died in that trench before Luke even started his run.
(Well, okay — four died in the trench, two died leaving it).
Only Boss got a shot off, and he used the targeting computer, and he missed.
I bet the Dark Lord of the Sith wasn’t breathing down Luke’s neck when he was bulls-eyeing womp rats (not much bigger than two meters!).
This is exactly the same sort of dramatic moment that Rey had, but I don’t see you harping on its incredibility. (Seriously. You know shit’s gotten tense when the brass in the orchestra, which has spent the whole sequence championing the Rebellion in a major key, switches to a minor key and starts vamping.)
And it’s “Tatooine,” you fake geek boy.
I love how unashamedly transparent Bryce is being. Anytime Luke does anything improbable, he immediately grasps for any possible extenuating circumstance that makes it make TOTAL SENSE YOU GUYS.
But anytime Rey does anything, it makes her a bad character who’s ruining Star Wars. There are never any extenuating circumstances for her or Finn; presumably they spontaneously materialized at the start of the movie and never did anything before that.
Yeah, I should probably not engage.
Neeeeeerrrrrds.
*stomps off to room to create D&D characters*