To
be clear: I loved Rogue One. I watched the movie because I am a Star
Wars fan. I’m just curious as to why some people dislike that there was a
diverse cast. What’s wrong with having a cast that is diverse?
There are a number of factors that play into the diversity of the cast in Rogue One:
There’s
a recognition that Star Wars has not always provided great
opportunities for women and non-white actors. I'd argue it was sometimes
better than other contemporary movies — Leia set the template for the
“strong female character” and Lando was a black man presented without
comment and not playing to a stereotype (very unusual for an action
movie in the 80s). On the other hand Leia was the only female main
character until the prequels where she was replaced with an ineffectual
wallflower.
Another factor is that China is now
a lucrative market for movies but only a limited number of foreign
films are allowed a release each year. Star Wars was never a thing in
China so trying to gain a foothold was a tricky proposition. I don't
think anyone would disagree that the presence of Donnie Yen and Jiang
Wen was in part motivated by a desire to sell Rogue One to China.
So long as it's not shameless pandering and the actors actually feel
integral to the movie, which I thought they did here, I don't see why
that's wrong.
Honestly, the people who object to diversity in the cast of Rogue One
are… well, there's not really a nice way to put this… they're assholes.
The alt-right, MRAs, gamergaters, embittered young men, actual racists.
As soon as the first information about Rogue One
was released there was a chorus of “not another female lead”, “Jyn will
be a Mary Sue”, “Jyn is a Disney princess”, “they're trying to sell
Star Wars to little girls”, “it’s Kathleen Kennedy’s feminist agenda”,
etc. from the shittier corners of the internet.
There
are accusations of casting by quota (so why are there no black people
in the Rogue One team?) Wilful misinterpretation of what has been said
about the possibility of hiring a female director for a future movie
(still hasn’t happened so that's some mighty feminazi conspiracy at
work), threats of boycotts (how’d that work out?), claims that only
white men are allowed to be bad guys (ignoring Saw Guererra being at best untrustworthy and Benicio Del Toro being cast as a villain in Episode VIII), etc.
Don’t listen to those people. Don't read YouTube or Facebook comments, they're an echo-chamber for morons.
There’s an axe some other people
are grinding which is that anything “Di$ney” does is bad and motivated
by nothing but money and selling toys. Like a) Lucas was never about the
merch or b) art and commerce are somehow incompatible (bullshit). There
are some fans who are annoyed that the EU was de-canonized so resent
the new movies because their canon replaced the old one. There are some
fans who were so defensive of the prequels that they now resent the new
movies as they see them as pandering to the prequels’ critics. Fanboys
who have a party line about what is and is not acceptable and judge new
material on that basis or who wish to set themselves up as gatekeepers
of who does and who does not get to count themselves as a fan. They'll
jump on the China thing as evidence of corporate soullessness. Not
because there's any merit to the accusation but because it's a
convenient stick to beat their chosen target with.
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