What Fandom Racism Looks Like: The Star Wars Fandom (Part One, Probably)

December 14, 2019April 16, 2021 Stitch11 Comments

Few fandoms fill me with the kind of anger that the Star Wars fandom does.

In fact, there are times where I’d go so far as to say that I hate it.

Times like Wednesday night.

When I got home Wednesday night from my first A.C.E concert, I was flying high. It’d been a great night with fantastic music and a stellar performance. Everywhere I looked, I saw fans loving their thing and loving that they got to share that thing with other fans. For a few blissful hours, I’d experienced fandom at its best: people coming together in joy and in celebration over something brilliant.

And then I was rudely reminded that the Star Wars fandom exists and that a whole huge chunk of the Rey/Kylo shippers who dominate much of the fandom discourse is made up of just really terrible people.

Finn, Reskinned

June 5, 2019June 5, 2019 Stitch3 Comments

Originally Posted On Patreon: February 12, 2019

Quote Source: Who the heck is Ben Solo?

Fandom’s Ben Solo is just a reskinned Finn.

There, I said it.

Actually, I’ve been saying it for years and so have many other people in the Star Wars fandom who have seen the way that fandom claims to love Kylo as a villain while the majority of the fandom writes/treats him like a reskinned version of Finn.

I’m not surprised though.

Fandom has long been a space where “good” characters of color – like Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), Finn (Star Wars: The Force Awakens), or Sam Wilson (Captain America: Winter Soldier) – are always either brushed off for being “too boring” or vilified for their goodness.Read More »

Fleeting Frustrations 6.5: “We Can’t Have Anything, Can We?”

May 29, 2019January 24, 2021 Stitch4 Comments

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker is the focus for the cover story for Vanity Fair’s Summer 2019 issue and readers were “blessed” with dual covers – one with Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren and the other with Daisy Ridley’s Rey. Written by The Magicians’ author Lev Grossman and interspersed with photos from Annie Leibovitz, this massive article was the talk of the Twittersphere for days after its release.

Grossman’s Vanity Fair article is… alright. It doesn’t really focus on Finn, but I gave up on folks remembering that Finn was supposed to be the male hero of the franchise – and just as heroic as Rey – back when The Last Jedi came out.

In the article, there’s a particularly stunning photograph of John Boyega’s Finn and newcomer Naomi Ackie’s Jannah sitting astride a pair of orbaks – an equine adjacent species new to audiences. It’s an iconic photo as well because Jannah is only the third Black female character with dialogue in the franchise – and the first to be in a main trilogy – and this is the first time that the Star Wars franchise has had two Black characters interacting like this.

It’s something that clearly belongs to Finn and to Jannah –

So, of course, someone had to make it about ~~Kylo Ren~~ Ben Solo.

Fleeting Frustrations #6: “At Least Kylo Never Lied To Rey”

May 4, 2019January 24, 2021 Stitch3 Comments

“I’m not a hero. I’m not Resistance. I’m a stormtrooper.”

That silenced her. He might as well have hit her across the face with the business end of a blaster.

“Like all of them, I was taken from a family I’ll never know,” he continued rapidly. “I was raised to do one thing. Trained to do one thing. To kill my enemy.” He felt something that should not have been there, that was not part of his training, well up in him. “But my first battle, I made a choice. I wasn’t going to kill for them. So I ran. As it happens, right into you. And you asked me if I was Resistance, and looked at me like no one ever had. So I said the first thing that came to mind that I thought would please you. I was ashamed of what I was. But I’m done with the First Order. I’m never going back.” Suddenly he found it hard to swallow, much less to speak. “Rey, come with me.”

– Foster, Alan Dean. The Force Awakens (Star Wars) (p. 222). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

I know that this is a “Fleeting Frustrations” post which means that I should be able to get over the grievance I’m airing once it’s been aired, but let’s be real here: when have I ever let go of a single grievance in my life?

I haven’t yet and I won’t with this one.

In this rantypants installment of my grouchiest series, we’ll be talking about one of the Star Wars fandom’s most obvious signs of fandom racism: the idea that Finn’s biggest flaw to some folks in fandom is that he’s a liar… for not telling Rey that he was a Stormtrooper on the run mere moments after she’d beaten the crap out of him for thinking he was a thief.Read More »

What Fandom Racism Looks Like: Woke Points For What?

April 15, 2019April 14, 2019 Stitch4 Comments

In and outside of fandom spaces, performative allyship is a thing to be wary of.

In a piece for The Wooster Voice, writer Sharah Hutson describes performative allyship as, “when folks pretend to care about a cause but magically forget to keep the fight going outside of certain spaces”.

We’re talking about people who only seem to care about the plight of the underprivileged when it looks like they can get something out of it.

You know, like folks who record themselves helping disabled people cross the street, people who post about how they helped the neighborhood homeless person get breakfast on social media, and white saviors who travel to Uganda and Haiti to “help” but are really just participating in imperialistic voluntourism that does so much more harm than anything else.

These people may mean well and they probably even see themselves as actual allies, but their allyship seems skin-deep and conditional on the attention they get or the marginalized people’s compliance and subservience. The second they’re no longer getting praise or when the person or group they’re trying to help isn’t compliant, the person in question stops being an ally.

But you know what’s not performative allyship?

A Black person in fandom talking about what they find racist in a piece of media or fandom space.Read More »

What Fandom Racism Looks Like: Beige Blank Slates

January 1, 2019January 6, 2019 Stitch9 Comments

“certain bodies could be read as blank slates not already overdetermined by race” – a partial quote from page 17 of Melanie E. S. Kohnen’s Screening the Closet: Queer Representation, Visibility, and Race in American Film and Television.

Some of fandom’s favorite characters are “blank slates”.

Beige blank slates, that is.

General Armitage Hux from the Star Wars sequel trilogy.

Arthur and Eames from Inception.

Q from Skyfall and Spectre.

Clint and Phil Coulson in the first Thor movie.

Various minor white male characters in a show or film that somehow became one of/the most popular characters in their source media or fandom.

In this installment of “What Fandom Racism Looks Like”, we’ll be looking at the idea of the “blank slate” primarily in Western media-focused slash fandom spaces.

We’ll be asking what a blank slate looks like, what these fans and fandoms get out of these characters, what characters will never be considered blank enough to be loved, and how, while the claim that fandom prefers “blank slate characters” might well be true and there are many instances where the Beige Blank Slate provides necessary representation within fandom, the preference that prioritizes white male characters above all others kind of messes up something that has the potential to be great.Read More »

[Stitch Likes Villains] Thrawn

December 21, 2018December 3, 2018 Stitch3 Comments

If left unchecked, there’s no limit to how many times I’ll bring up Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn (the 2016 novel and its titular character) in a conversation about Star Wars.

Thrawn is hands down my favorite villain in the Star Wars universe and I think he’s an incredibly well-written villain that’s the straight up star of his own set of books. Like I literally wish I could write a villain as good as Thrawn, a character who is interesting and compelling while also frustrating enough to make you want to beat the holy heck out of him.

I’d like to blame my friend Justen for my whole Thrawn… thing. He’s encouraged my Thrawn obsession for the longest time now and he’d be the easiest person to pin my Thrawn-obsession on. Except, that wouldn’t be fair or entirely true. Read More »

[Image Post] Finn Needs A New, Less Racist Fandom

November 16, 2018October 26, 2018 Stitch2 Comments

Source: Where Are Y’all Getting Your Characterization From? Finn Isn’t A Coward, Or Selfish, And He Doesn’t Need A Damn Redemption Arc.

I love Finn from Star Wars. It’s not just because I not-so-secretly want John Boyega to fall wildly in love with me and marry me (but like…), but I think Finn is one of the most compelling characters in the sequel series.

Which is why I can’t get over the fact that so many people disagree with me on how amazing Finn is. Heck, I still can’t believe that folks think Finn is up there with Jar-Jar Binks as the worst character in the ~Star Wars Cinematic Universe~.

Or that many of his so-called fans wish he’d just… die.Read More »

[Stitch Likes Stuff] Shipping, Fandom Racism, and Reylo

September 17, 2018 Stitch

I came across this video thanks to one of my old mutuals on tumblr and I think it’s a pretty great overview of the way that shipping trends and fandom racism are often one in the same.

The video’s narrator, Moth, starts with a “Shipping 101” introduction for the uninitiated and then jumps right in. They focus on a couple of specific areas that I feel are important to take into consideration in fandom/as a fan:

The popularity of “unhealthy” non-canon ships with two white characters over “healthy” canon ships with one character of color being shipped with a white character (Moth uses “unhealthy” to refer to ships involving minors in sexual/romantic relationships with adults, incest, one character being a noted abuser in canon, that sort of thing.)
The excuses fans in fandom give for why they’re not racist for being almost solely invested in ships between white characters — especially white villains and the white characters fighting against them.
And the Star Wars’ fandom’s Rey/Kylo shippers and several of the racist excuses that some of the fans of the ship use to explain why they can’t find Finn a “worthy” partner for Rey (but insist on shipping her with someone who she calls a monster and can’t stand).

Obviously, this sort of video hits a lot of my buttons because these are things I talk about on my website. I think it’s a really insightful video that clearly lays out what fandom does, what characters are impacted the most, and why it’s a set of trends that is racist. Much of the video focuses primarily on the Star Wars fandom, but as I think that’s one of the most racist fandoms active right now… Obviously, I think that’s a great thing to zero in on.

So please, go to Moth’s video and let them know how much you appreciate their work and upvote the video (because folks that talk about race and racism in media or fandom definitely get the short end of the stick and tons of abuse from assholes who don’t seem to get that they’re just… proving that fandom is racist).

I’ve Got Some Complicated Feelings About Rose Tico’s Characterization

June 30, 2018May 28, 2021 Stitch7 Comments

Edit 5/28/21: if you’re here because a Rey/Kylo or Kylo/Hux shipper linked this post as “proof” that I was somehow anti-Rose or anti-Asian people and therefore didn’t deserve to interview Kelly Marie Tran, please note that you’re being led by racists (and yes this includes other people of color) who have spent months and even years in some cases harassing me. In February, they actively tried to get me fired and they constantly misrepresent what I actually write (which is some ship of theseus shit) in the most negative light. You’re following the words of active anti fans and the thing they’re anti… Is me.

“Poe, this will save the fleet and save Rey,” Finn said. “We have to do it.”

Rey Rey Rey. Rose really wanted to stun him again.

–— From Jason Fry’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi novelization

One of my biggest issues with folks who really loved The Last Jedi is that they keep trying to lump everyone that dislikes the film together. Everyone that hates The Last Jedi has to hate it because they hate seeing women and people of color in charge, right?

Except, I went into The Last Jedi expecting that Finn would continue his heroic arc alongside the Force-focused plot with Rey (or, if not, that he’d have something focused on himself and figuring out who he is on his own). I went into the film expecting Rose Tico to be AMAZING and for her and Paige to be significant and positive characters.

What I got was Paige dying in the first part of the film, Rose’s unbelievably frustrating interactions with Finn, and my boy Finn being frequently reduced to comedic relief and a naïve child with no common sense or intelligence as Rey tried her darndest to find the good in Kylo Ren for most of the movie.

I keep being told that Rose and Finn are great representation in The Last Jedi and that I shouldn’t complain because that’s just mean, but… Representation in media or fandom isn’t a “one-size fits all” set up where it works for everyone in the group being represented.

Additionally, why does Rose’s status as the first East Asian (specifically Vietnamese-American) female main-ish character in a Star Wars film suddenly mean that I can’t critique her behavior towards Finn or the fact that the writing for her characterization is weirdly nonsensical? (And note that Finn being the first Black character with a main role in Star Wars didn’t stop certain parts of fandom from criticizing the hell out of him and John Boyega for stuff neither character nor actor did… They still do it even when asked not to!)

Where Are Y’all Getting Your Characterization From? Finn Isn’t A Coward, Or Selfish, And He Doesn’t Need A Damn Redemption Arc.

June 2, 2018May 27, 2018 Stitch5 Comments

I’m not Resistance. I’m not a hero. I’m a Stormtrooper. Like all of them, I was taken
from my family I’ll never know. And raised to do one thing. In my first battle, I made a choice. I wasn’t going to kill for them. So I ran, right into you. You looked at me like no one ever had. I was ashamed of what I was. But, I’m done with the First Order. I’m never going back.

— Finn to Rey in Maz’s cantina in Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I know that the Star Wars fandom – both the dudebro hubs and the supposedly feminist and progressive parts on Tumblr and Twitter – is racist as shit, but I still can’t believe the audacity of people calling Finn a coward and demanding he be killed off as like… a form of progressive protest on his or Rey’s behalf.

In her article “Star Wars: The Last Jedi Could Have Been Better If This Character Had Died” author Alessia Santoro goes above and beyond in order to “prove” that The Last Jedi would have been a better movie if only for one death – that of John Boyega’s Finn. She does so, of course, by completely crapping all over his character, problematizing his behavior and, wishing for his death because that’s the only possible way for him to matter to her.

Despite the fact that she – and many other members of the Star Wars fandom – claim that they really do like the character, there’s no bigger sign of disliking a character than by wanting them dead.Read More »

When White Villains Get Woobiefied: Kylo Ren Is Just A Monster In A Mask

April 23, 2018April 23, 2018 Stitch13 Comments

Notes: The following post will mention childhood abuse (and who gets to have that kind of trauma respected/made up for them to give them weight and validate their actions) and spoilers from the film and novelization versions of The Last Jedi as well as mild spoilers for Last Shot. Images come from StarWarsScreenCaps.Com.

More care has gone into fabricating a sobbing wreck of a backstory for Kylo Ren where he’s been dealing with childhood abuse (that is supposed to explain why he’s somehow the most interesting/compelling character of the sequel trilogy) than has gone into showing any empathy or interest in analyzing the one character in the sequel trilogy who does have that backstory, but gets none of the empathy: Finn.

Today in “that’s literally not canon”, I’m going to be picking apart an article from The Mary Sue about how Kylo Ren’s story is about childhood abuse; one that says things like:

“Rey and Kylo relate to one another about their childhoods, which included parental abandonment and neglect, and abuse, as well as their Force abilities.”

First off:

As far as I know, there’s nothing that shows that Ben’s childhood included parental abandonment and neglect. Nothing. Nothing across two movies. Leia sending her Force Sensitive son (who was in late teens/early adulthood) to train with her Force Sensitive brother is not neglect.

We currently have ZERO canon that shows what his childhood was like, but we know that the whole point of the Ben-to-Kylo Ren transformation was that it came out of nowhere and that nothing in Leia’s relationship with her son prepared her for his full leap not just to the dark side, but to full on fascism.

The most we can say with confidence about Ben before he was Kylo, is that he was radicalized by Snoke who preyed on his insecurities at some point most likely when he was a teenager.

But we don’t know anything about what Snoke did – that presence probing Leia’s uterus back in that Chuck Wendig book does not count — but I suspect we never will considering his abrupt death in The Last Jedi.Read More »

Queer Coded Villains Aren’t That Awesome

February 23, 2018January 18, 2018 Stitch3 Comments

I woke up on MLK Day swearing that I’d dreamt up a tumblr post where someone quoted Martin Luther King Jr. in order to defend Hux, Kylo Ren, and the First Order. When I went through my archives, not only did I find out that the post was real, but I then stumbled back over a post I made in response to one arguing that Star Wars’ Hux was coded as queer and that said queer-coding was a good thing.

And I mean –

A fair amount of people not only read Kylo Ren and Hux as queer-coded within their canon, but:

Queer coded villains are actually kind of shitty and they definitely shouldn’t be something to aspire to or admire, and
I don’t know how they leap to that conclusion of Hux and Kylo as queer coded in the first place.

For one thing, there’s a difference between a character – especially a villain – being coded as queer in their canon (typically via stereotypes about femininity/masculinity, style of dress, speech, interactions with other characters) and a queer fan deciding to read a character as queer because they see themselves in the character.

If they’re actually present in canon, queer coded villains typically come from a place of homophobia – conscious or otherwise. They come from a fear of supposedly non-normative genders and sexualities and from society straight up repurposing queerness (or stereotypes about queerness) as a go-to for “spooky and scary” because well –

Heterocentrism kind of needs to portray queerness as a dangerous avenue to stroll down.Read More »

Creche Duty: A Star Wars Fan Fiction

January 26, 2018January 18, 2018 Stitch1 Comment

Before Before the Awakening, stormtrooper FN-2187 is assigned creche duty. The experience is… illuminating.

Typically, FN-2187’s work assignments never take him through the creche. That section of the ship has their own sanitation workers and FN-2187 is not one of them. The hallways look unfamiliar as he walks through them and several times, he has to be nudged in the right direction by the impatient beeping of a sentry droid.

He hasn’t been back in the creche since he was old enough to handle a blaster properly. The creche is purposefully kept on the other side of the ship from recruits his age and the Stormtroopers that work with the children rarely knowingly interact with the children they once took care of. How could they, when everyone above the age of ten cycles wears a uniform?

However, after the creche on the Supremacy receives a larger than normal group of new recruits from a recent stop at Hays Minor, several of its former inhabitants are repurposed in order to help. It’s supposed to be a temporary assignment, especially for FN-2197. While his shifts in sanitation are on hold until other creche minders can be relocated from smaller, lesser ships in the First Order, his training – on Captain Phasma’s orders, no less – is still ongoing.

FN-2187 can’t allow himself to get used to working in the creche.

Not that there’s anything for him to get used to, of course.Read More »

The Last Jedi: Thoughts

December 17, 2017December 17, 2017 Stitch1 Comment

I don’t have the energy to write a full review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. I mean, I literally don’t have any energy. I’m exhausted from not sleeping well the night before and I’m literally trying to write this before I fall asleep again.

If I get a chance to see the film again, I might write more about some things that stood out to me, but that’s probably not happening until January so… yeah. Instead of a couple thousand words of relatively insightful criticism, y’all get a bullet-point list full of MAJOR spoilers and complaining.

Straight up, I’d give this movie a six or seven out of ten. Maybe. If I rewatch it the way I want to with my notebook in hand, it’ll probably drop down to a solid five. Let’s get that right out in the open. I left the theater overwhelmed with emotion and I had lots of laughs/tears throughout, but it’s not a movie I see myself rewatching until I’ve memorized the dialogue the way I’ve done The Force Awakens. (Also, it kind of feels like the second of like four movies and not the central piece in a trilogy…)

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