Never read the Star Wars comments
The Acolyte proves once again how toxic some segments of the Star Wars audience can be when something new gets released
I’m three episodes into the brand new Star Wars series The Acolyte and, no word of a lie, I’m intrigued to see more. The setting and characters are unique and, for the most part, turning in good performances (especially Squid Games’ Lee Jung-jae as Jedi master Sol, and Jodie Turner-Smith in a guest role in Episode 3). I love the mixture of the Force and kung-fu that they’ve used to stylise the combat scenes. And, come on, its Star Wars. Star Wars is cool.
The first three episodes haven’t been perfect, and I wouldn’t say The Acolyte is my favourite new show of the year (or even my favourite Star Wars series; that would be Andor). But I like it. And I’m legitimately interested to see where it goes.
One thing I will not be doing though?
Reading or watching reviews of the show.
Let me put this as simply as I can: the internet is not a place where the majority of contributors are sharing their thoughts on media in good faith. I think Sir Alec Guinness described the internet best in the original film when his character, Obi-Wan Kenobi, said “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” Back when I was blogging at Stuff, the warning was ‘never read the comments’; people like to use anonymity to hurl abuse at anyone they think they can hurt. I never listened though. And I certainly appreciate the comments you leave here.
When it comes to Star Wars, though, its even worse. Every new Star Wars project seems to be hit with accusations of wokeness, of pushing social agendas, of disrespecting George Lucas’ original vision. A lot of the comments come down to embedded homophobia and racism. Online trolls have started referring to The Acolyte as ‘The Wokelyte’, criticising the inclusion of cast members of colour, of the inclusion of same-sex relationships.
They’re the same kind of criticisms that have been levelled at the series since the start of the sequel trilogy. Back in 2015, ahead of The Force Awakens release, there was coverage online about the fact that the leads were a woman and a black man. Time and again, cast members have had to step back from social media, notably Kelly Marie Tran following her appearance in 2017’s The Last Jedi. It seems to have stepped up a notch since series started to appear on Disney+ with many of the harshest and most unfair criticisms being levelled at shows like Ahsoka and, now, The Acolyte.
There are some legitimate and thoughtful criticisms of the show. But they’re buried under one big pile of shit-talking trolls. Pardon my language, but if your criticism is that the lead is a woman or a person of colour, you can fuck off.
“Well, the problem with any established thing … is that everybody has their own idea about what it should be like,” says Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz. “It doesn’t mean it can’t be done, but it’s much more difficult.”
Gary Kurtz was a producer on both Star Wars: A New Hope in 1977 and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back in 1980. Following a career that started in 1965, he passed away in 2018 following a battle with cancer.
The comments quoted above were made in 1976, during an appearance with Mark Hamill at MidAmeriCon to discuss their forthcoming project, an obscure science fiction film from American Graffiti director George Lucas, for which only a couple of images had been released. The panel was wide-ranging, but one punter asked about appealing to diverse groups. Kurtz replied:
“It’s very difficult to tell what those groups are out there. You’re better off in a lot of cases making the movie for yourself. If some people like it and some don’t, that’s the way it goes. To try and sit down and figure out what the various groups are going to like is impossible.
Now, you can make certain adjustments. There are certain things…we went through 8 or 9 different screenplays. Mostly for cost reasons, and also condensing the story in to a cohesible unit. Some of the things that were in the original screenplays were almost impossible to do, like having 300 Wookies on the Wookie planet. Just physically, we couldn’t find the people or had the make-up people to handle that.
So, in our case, we went through that, but basically, we’re making the films for ourselves. It’s what we would like to see and it has to be that way because you have no other basis for your criteria. You can do all the research you want, but it really wouldn’t be worth much when the film comes out.”
The full panel has been saved on YouTube and is embedded below.
So where does all the hate come from?
After all, most people manage to say ‘hey, not for me’ and move on - its a vocal minority that dominates the online discourse around the Star Wars franchise.
“The origins of this toxicity aren’t difficult to figure out,” writes Lyvie Scott in a recent piece for Inverse titled The Acolyte Isn’t Ruining Star Wars — You Are.
“At the end of the day, it boils down to entitlement: many male fans feel like they own the franchise, and are determined to safeguard it from anyone that could challenge that ownership,” they continue. “That makes it hard for disparate groups to coexist, and it’s even harder for any non-white, non-male creatives hoping to tell stories within the franchise.”
The same sense of entitlement permeates so much pop culture - but it seems much more toxic in the corners built around so-called ‘nerdy’ content: science fiction, fantasy, video gaming, comic books. We’ve seen similar outbursts about the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and especially She-Hulk: Attorney At Law), for example. Writer RF Kuang wrote her most recent book Yellowface as a satire after outrage followed her success with fantasy novel Babel. If you look a certain way, it is an unavoidable part of your participation in the sub-culture.
In the third episode of The Acolyte, Jodie Turner-Smith’s Mother Aniseya breaks up an argument about the ethical leanings of the Jedi, saying “This isn't about good or bad, this is about power, and who is allowed to use it.”
Its hard not to think of that line applying to the more toxic responses of the Star Wars audience. It doesn’t really matter whether The Acolyte was good or bad. The response is about power, and who is allowed to tell Star Wars stories.
Thanks for reading, whanau. See you later in the week!
Chris