Hi everyone, hope you re doing well, because I m not. I was! I d just come back from a
lovely stroll into town with a latte and a pain-au-raisin. It was a great afternoon.
But then I made the mistake of opening Reddit, where I had the misfortune of seeing this post
from r/StarWars at the top of my screen. In case you ve got this on in the background, or in case
you ve taken a vow to never read anything from r/StarWars ever again, let me describe to you
what we re seeing here. There s a quote from Moses Ingram, who plays the new Sith Inquisitor Reva in
Obi-Wan Kenobi, promoting the show saying Obi-Wan is going to bring the most diversity I think we ve
ever seen in the galaxy before. To me, it s long overdue. If you ve got talking droids and aliens,
but no people of colour, it doesn't make any sense. It s 2022, you know . That s the
quote. It is, of course, presented out of context, without any link provided to the original article.
Huh, I wonder if the rest of the article will be relevant later (foreshadowing!)
Now, if you ve ever waded into the Dragonsnake-infested swamp that is the Star
Wars fanbase, you re probably already thinking, hmm, I bet this isn t going to go down well . And
you d be right, because that quote is positioned next to a collage showing all of Star Wars
non-white characters, with the post being titled Has She Not Watched A Star Wars Movie? Normally,
I d just downvote this and keep scrolling, but this really got under my skin to the point that
I ve put on hold the video I was meant to be working on today. Because I m sick of seeing
posts like this and just moving on, taking their existence for granted. In this video,
then, I m going to exhaustively break down this post, what it's saying, what it s insinuating,
and how it works on multiple levels to spread hate and bigotry. So! Let s begin.
This collage of non-white faces in Star Wars includes some iconic characters, like Lando
Calrissian, Mace Windu, and, shit, Lando again, I guess, but it also contains a tusken raider which,
fucking YIKES. You know, there s probably an interesting video essay to be made about the
evolution of Tusken Raiders in Star Wars media, from the othered savages of the 70s, standing in
as they did for the similarly suspect depictions of native americans in the western genre,
to the more nuanced figures we see in more recent projects, but this isn t that video, and either
way, it s really not a great sign that the collage of significant non-white figures in the galaxy
far-far away had to puff up its numbers with a recast, a minor character from one episode of
the Mandalorian, and, oh yeah, again, a TUSKEN. Just for fun, let s see what this collage looks
like with some context. Here s this collage, minus the tusken for obvious reasons,
stripped back to all the non-white characters from the original Star Wars movie. Hmm, that s odd,
it s just a black screen. Have I turned my monitor off by mistake or something oh, right, yeah,
silly me. You know what, let s extend it to cover all of the original trilogy. Ah, that s better!
I m obviously not including Boba Fett by the way as before Episode 2 established Boba as a clone of
Jango, and before The Mandolorian showed us Temuera Morrison in the role, Boba Fett was
played by Jeremy Bulloch. This is a fun game, lets keep going! Here s the collage expanded to
the prequels. Yup. Everyone else is from the last, like 6 years, the Disney era. Even if
you were trying to make the point that Star Wars nowadays is a diverse paradise of representation
and racial sensitivity, which, you know, would be an openly farcical argument you d have to admit
that having only this many non-white characters in a then-30 year old franchise, two of whom barely
got to do anything, is kinda fucking sus. P.S. There s some mixed-race and Hispanic
actors here, and I m not sure who amongst them would identify as white, or non-white, and since
racial taxonomy is not something I m interested in pursuing here, I m just going to leave them in
the collage. At the end of the day, white and non-white are both made-up categories anyway,
but for simplicity s sake I m not going to dispute the collage s selection any further.
Here's the kicker, I was originally planning to show you all of these images side-by-side with
all the white characters in play at each point, but I dropped that during editing,
because it would have taken forever, because, oh yeah, at literally any point in the process,
even during the Disney era, the non-white characters are DWARFED by the white ones.
To be perfectly clear, the point I m trying to make with such comparisons isn t that
Star Wars is bad, because there are more white characters. Hollywood s majority-white hegemony
is a phenomenon which goes far beyond this particular franchise, and while more resistance
to this hegemony might be nice for a number of reasons, I m not saying that this imbalance
makes the whole series worthless, or anything like that. No, I m simply making these comparisons to
throw the idiocy and bigotry of this post into sharp relief. Did Ingram even watch the Star Wars
films, OP asks? This is intended as a rhetorical question. The answer this post suggests is,
no, she can t have seen the films. If she had, she would see that, across 11 films,
14 characters aren t white. That s diversity! Star Wars is diverse! It doesn t matter how little
most of these characters are given to do, when compared to the almost-exclusively white leads,
and it doesn't matter how poorly some of their stories were wrapped up. Or, rather,
weren t wrapped up. No, 14 non-white faces across 40 plus years of cinema tells us that Diversity
has been achieved. This is obviously a facile oversimplification of what people actually mean
when they talk about diversity in good faith, and indeed resembles fairly closely in mental
acuity the answer you d get, were you to ask a lump of wet pizza dough what it thought about
diversity in star wars. But there s actually a more sinister dynamic going on here beyond
mere stupidity. Let s go back to that title. Has Moses Ingram not seen the films? Well,
that gives us two possible answers, doesn t it? Yes and no. Let s explore what each answer would
mean within the framework of assumptions this post is working with. As we discussed above, the post
implies that no is the obvious answer, that, if Ingram s making this statement, she can t have
seen the films, because the diversity of Star Wars is self-evident. The argument implicit here, then,
is that this small collage of non-white faces is *enough*, that people of colour should be happy to
make up even a quarter or so of the spaces that Disney Star Wars allots for its new characters,
and thus that Ingram is ignorant for not seeing and realising this. If the answer
to the question is no , then, Ingram is cast as the latest in a long line of Star Wars grifters,
following the likes of Kathleen Kennedy, Rian Johnson, and many others who, in the
dominant narratives of the modern Star Wars fanbase, didn t get Star Wars,
didn t care about Star Wars, and thanks to various forms of self-interest - mucked it up.
But the open nature of this title-question offers another possibility. The yes . So what s the post
suggesting if this is the answer, if Ingram has seen the films? Well, as we ve already noted,
OP frames the existing diversity of Star Wars as self-evident, and judging by the comments,
this is a common opinion in r/StarWars. Star Wars is already diverse, apparently. Ingram,
though, claims that there s no people of colour here, and that diversity is long overdue . This
appears to be an untrue claim, particularly when stripped of its context. As suggested above, if
Ingram hasn t seen these films, if the answer to this question is 'no , then this seeming falsehood
is the result of ignorance on her part. BUT! If the answer is yes , if Ingram has seen the films,
then this seeming falsehood isn t the result of ignorance it s the result of malice. It s
a deliberate lie. The Star Wars fanbase is being gaslit! They know these films are diverse enough,
and if Ingram has actually seen them, then she must know this, too and yet she s claiming they
aren t! She s claiming there s no representation, no diversity, no people of colour! And if
Ingram isn t lying accidentally, as a result of ignorance, then she must be lying on purpose.
So those are the two options this post gives us, the two interpretations we re allowed for
why Ingram said these words. And, in real life, since she obviously has seen the films, the user
reading this post is pushed towards the latter, the idea that Ingram s lying about the diversity
of Star Wars deliberately. There s a conspiracy being proposed here, then. Because when we bear
in mind what have been the dominant narratives of the star wars fanbase since the Disney buyout,
there s only one major motivation this post can be evoking. The elephant in the room. The only
made-up boogyman more terrifying to the Star Wars fanbase than the Empire, or the Sith,
or the First Order. And that s the WOKE AGENDA. I don t want to spend much time on this section,
because A: the woke agenda doesn t exist, and B: the woke agenda doesn t exist, but this is the
logical end-point of the snide little suppositions being made by the post in question. It s one
massive dogwhistle the collage, presented in isolation, attempts to show that people
of colour exist in Star Wars, and that Ingram s words are therefore untrue. The title then
offers us a false dichotomy either Ingram s lying on purpose about this, or she s a self-serving
ignorant who doesn t care about Star Wars. And if she is lying on purpose, that s even worse,
because that means she s an agent of the woke agenda, infiltrating our sacred Franchise,
in order to put estrogen in the action figures and turn all the chad star wars enjoyers into Joe
Biden s femboy army, or whatever the fuck the secret endgame of the Woke Agenda is supposed
to be this week. At this point, we can t even say for sure that these implications are intentional.
It might simply be that OP was parroting the bigotry they d seen elsewhere in the fandom,
without properly thinking through the implications of their own post, as we ve done here. But even
if the fascist dogwhistling isn t intentional, the more boring, standard racism surely is. But
before we get to that, let s dismantle this meme and its twisted faux-logic once and for all.
Here s the trick. This feigned outrage at this perceived lie, upon which this whole conspiracy
of malice depends, results entirely from an unreasonably literal interpretation of Ingram
s words. No reasonable person would see these words and assume Ingram actually believed that
no person of colour had ever existed in Star Wars she s clearly speaking hyperbolically,
in reference to the franchise infamous history of having, like, 3 black people in 30 years. This is
slightly clearer in the full article, which we ll get back to, but, come on it s fairly
obvious here, too. When you realise this, that the rhetoric of this shitty meme hinges on an
utterly unreasonable misinterpretation of Ingram s words, the overall picture becomes a lot clearer,
and any semblance of logic to the post s complaints and implications falls apart. It
becomes extremely clear what s actually going on here: OP doesn t like the fact that Ingram isn t
happy with Star Wars historical lack of diversity, and wants to attack her, call into question her
intelligence or her integrity, in response. This is yet another example of the time-honoured
tradition within Star Wars culture bringing gatekeeping into conversation with bigotry,
because -again -the point being made with this little collage is that this is *enough* diversity.
So why can t you be happy with this meagre representation, the poster of this meme seems
to ask some imagined diverse conglomerate of which Ingram is a part. There s an amount of ingratitude
being projected onto Ingram here, along with anyone else who feels that Star Wars casting
record isn t diverse enough. And this idea? That actors of colour, that people of colour,
should be grateful to Star Wars and its white fans for being included at all? That s deplorable.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking. Gee, Pillar of Garbage, that s not a very charitable
interpretation of this post from you! Gatekeeping, sure, but this isn t racist! Where s the racism!
I can t see any explicit racism, or any references to woke ideology, so I think you re reading too
far into this! If that s you, then listen up, because I m about to clarify all that. First,
so far we ve only been talking about this one post, in the main Star Wars subreddit,
but OP crossposted it to a bunch of other subs, too sometimes with different titles. Take this
one, for instance, in r/PrequelMemes, which is titled The ability to speak does not make you
intelligent . That s a quote from the movies. Fun! It s also extending the Moses Ingram hate from
what we had already that is, selfish ignorance and malicious lying and adding just, a general
accusation of stupidity. Haha, this actor wants to see more underrepresented ethnic groups show
up in a beloved franchise, this post says. Isn t she dumb! Second, though, and more importantly,
if you re upset that I ve been reading between the lines here, looking at implications and
suggestions rather than simply the text on the screen that s how everyone else has viewed this
post too. The comments across these posts made the same inferences I ve made in this video that is,
latching onto the subtextual suggestion of a woke agenda, and so forth, and embraced them. This is,
like, textbook dogwhistling, and the very visible examples of other bigots detecting and amplifying
these elements only makes that clearer. And, in case any of you are still in denial about this,
guess what? In a real plot twist, an unexpected sequence of events which
nobody could have predicted, Moses Ingram has been publicly and directly targeted
by racist abuse and death threats in the time since I started writing this video.
WOW. WHAT A BIG SURPRISE. DIDN T FUCKING SEE THAT ONE COMING. And it seems like there s a direct
causal link between the post we re discussing and the messages she s received since some of
the messages which have been made public hinge on the same context-stripping, overliteralising
misrepresentation of Ingram s words which this post makes, the obviously farcical
idea that Ingram s the first actor of colour to feature in Star Wars. So good job, r/StarWars,
for creating and amplifying the bigoted nonsense which has led to the latest Star Wars creative
being attacked by sweaty little incels and fascist morons. And isn t it a funny coincidence how often
these fan-led circlejerks of gatekeeping and bullying tend to focus on women and minorities?
Real big coincidence there, huh? Part of me is hesitant to describe these
people as Star Wars fans, because a wise fellow once pointed out to me that to call toxic vocal
minorities fans of a property legitimises anger and abuse as forms of fan love, by maintaining
that those being toxic are still genuine fans. But the ugly truth is that, in the Star Wars fanbase,
I m getting less and less convinced that this is just a toxic minority. How long has it been since
the last time Star Wars viewers were so vile and abusive toward an actor that they actually
damaged their mental health? No, not that time. No, nor this. No, not that one either. Oh right,
not very long. It s got to the point that Lucasfilm are actively briefing people of
colour that they re almost certainly going to face racist abuse if they take the role. And, hey, d ya
wanna hear something fun? And by fun, I obviously mean enraging and depressing. This article? About
how Star Wars viewers are so toxic and racist that new actors are being made aware that their
harassment is a question of when , not if , which, incidentally, has been proven right less than a
week after the Kenobi series premiered? THAT IS THE ARTICLE FROM WHICH THE MAKER OF THIS IMAGE
PULLED THE QUOTE, WHICH THEY USED TO MAKE THE MEME THAT DIRECTLY LED TO THIS LATEST INCIDENT
OF RACIST ABUSE (hey, the foreshadowing paid off!) How is it possible to have this little
self-awareness? Did OP read the article and just think, hmm, yep, better prove Lucasfilm right as
soon as we can ? It's just, like, Jesus Christ. At the end of the day, everyone who watches these
films and enters spaces such as comment sections, Discord servers, or subreddits to discuss them
or to celebrate them has a duty to call out racism, toxicity, or other forms of bullying,
and either not enough real fans are acting according to this responsibility,
or we re just outnumbered by the wankers. Either way, I m getting really sick of it. And
the worst part? This is one post, of literally thousands of similar things which get posted
across the internet on any given day. You could sit down and work through any number of them,
and find similar dogwhistles or hidden levels of bigotry operating within. This problem is
so far from unique to this one post that even attempting to think about the real
scale of these issues is almost impossible. Star Wars fans can moan about declining quality,
oversaturation, or any of the literally thousands of things they complain about but when I finally
check out of this community, when I finally stop engaging with new Star Wars media, I have
a feeling it s not going to be due to any of those things. It's going to be because I ll no longer be
able to stand associating myself with the Star Wars fanbase . Because the benefits of seeing
Cool Space Wizard #33 defeat Robot Samurai number 12 to save Gulp Shitto one more time
will no longer outweigh the cost of being lumped in with the imbecilic, room-temperature
IQ brainlets who post dreck like this, and the cost of tacitly affirming, in some small way,
this deplorable hatred and bigotry. That s the video, we re done. Star Wars community,
try not to be worthless human beings challenge, fucking, impossible, I guess. Jesus. (sigh)
Thanks to all my Patrons onscreen now as usual, especially Kevin Douglas and Ian Fyfield. Now,
if you don t mind, I m going to go and slam my head repeatedly against a wall.