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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Discussion Diversity In the New Saga [See OP Warning]

Discussion in 'Star Wars: Future Films - Spoilers Allowed' started by Pro Scoundrel , Nov 20, 2016.

  1. Pro Scoundrel

    Pro Scoundrel New Films Expert At Modding Casual star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 20, 2012
    Ok people, It's been made clear that it will be impossible for Lucasfilm to cast ANYONE in these movies without a diversity debate breaking out. THIS IS THE PLACE TO HAVE THOSE DISCUSSIONS. DO NOT bring up those debates in the actors individual threads, or anywhere else. As usual, the "No racism/sexism/hate speech" rule applies, so behave yourselves. BE CIVIL. We will be watching this thread very closely. Do not force us to try an alternative form of persuasion.

    [​IMG]
     
  2. B99

    B99 Force Ghost star 6

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    Nov 10, 2014
    COOL!
     
  3. BucMan-55

    BucMan-55 Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Nov 2, 2004
    Basically the director/writer has a vision for their story. If the character in question calls for a certain race or sex, I would hate to have that altered down the line for the sake of diversity. If the character is open or more abstract, then let a diverse selection of actors/actresses try out for it and cast it on merit.
     
  4. Thrawn082

    Thrawn082 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 11, 2014
    I've never really bought into the whole "the director's vision/pick the right actress for the part" excuse. Because it often comes across as exactly that, an excuse (especially since Hollywood's "questionable" history/philosophy when it comes to this issue has been well-documented). And it's certainly true of these big tentpole films since it's often apparent that it ISN'T completely the "director's vision." The studio very much has influence over the production.

    Also I keep seeing films, and going to myself "that character didn't need to be played by a White actress. There's nothing in how they're written that demanded that they be cast that way." You start to notice a trend/pattern emerging.

    And in the case of say, the Han Solo movie, what really bothers some people is the idea that pretty much all of the rumored casting candidates (Tessa Thompson, Naomi Scott, Zoe Kravitz, Kiersey Clemons, Jessica Henwick, etc) were WOC (which kind of undercuts the idea that this character was written to have a specific racial/ethnic make-up).. And yet, they went with Emilia Clarke instead (another White, dark-haired pretty British women).

    It's not hard to see why many are disappointed (and it's not just here either).
     
  5. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    I think there are character visions that can be flexible and sometimes it is audience members who have projected a certain race or gender onto a character and end up being disappointed. See: Hermione being played by a black woman in Cursed Child. J.K. Rowling liked the change, but some Potter fans had a fit. See also: the new Ghostbusters movie, whose cast was subject to an absurd amount of misogynistic whining and attacks.

    I don't think representation should ever be done for its own sake or to prove how modern anyone is, but I don't think it should be shied away from because someone might be offended either. See: interracial or same-sex relationships. Don't shoehorn them in for the hell of it but don't avoid them either.

    As far as Emilia Clark, I'll withhold judgment until I see what kind of character she plays and whether she plays it well or another actress would have played the character better. I only hope she is not there just as a love interest.
     
  6. General_Leia_Organa

    General_Leia_Organa Jedi Knight star 3

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    Feb 23, 2016
    One of the reasons I'm really loving Star Wars is because it's starting to make strides to better reflect earth or even america as a whole and include people who aren't explicitly white Males in their stories. TFA upped the role of women significantly not just in plot relevant roles but with background characters on both sides of the fight. Its one of those things you don't realise you were missing until it's finally presented to you, and it definitely enriched my experience with the film.

    Rogue One is great in that this core team seems to be made up of a very diverse bunch,however, I do take issue with the fact that finding other female rebels is a bit like where's waldo. I don't see any reason for there not to be another woman on that team, especially if it meant hiring a woman who wasn't a white brunette. The novels and the comics and the TV shows have no issue showing a wide variety of people in the conflict, so seeing the film not do the same in terms of gender parity is a little weird, simply from a canon perspective.

    If people are annoyed with Emilia Clarke's casting, its because she falls into the mold set by the eight films prior, and there's no reason for that mold to exist, especially in an anthology film. She's not that stellar of an actress and she beat out tons of WOC for the role. That reads poorly, whatever the intentions of the filmmakers may be. The only way I think her casting will feel better to me is if she ends up being a Twi'lek or another humanoid alien, as that will keep more of the sameness of her casting at bay. And then the filmmakers have dodged the repercussions of casting a WOC into an alien role, which has its own issues. Emilia would honestly look fantastic as a Twi-lek IMO, so I'm really truly rooting for this to be the case.

    I'm really happy with the inroads the franchise has made in terms of diversity, but they do need to do better in some respects. And I don't see any issue with asking the film makers to do better going forward. Women are diverse, humanity is diverse, and this fictional galaxy is most certainly diverse. Let's see more of it :)
     
  7. Valairy Scot

    Valairy Scot Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 16, 2005
    As someone (and a mod [face_batting] ) who favors a diversity thread, I think there is plenty of discussion to be had concerning the casting of roles, the writing of roles, and the perception of how those roles are received. History shows us that there is a default to white male (lead) white female (romance, often a role downplayed once the man lands his woman), and POC (all too often the sidekick or supporting character) I hope no one doubts that.

    There are concerns about how fast this is changing, is this changing, why were certain decisions made, etc. and those topics are ones that I find interesting and I look forward to hearing the viewpoints of everyone.

    It's been brought up before that blind racial casting has only reinforced certain ideas because the POC ended up in a role that wasn't that different from the "stereotypical" and deliberate casting of a POC. This kind of discussion should be fine within this thread, but assigning motives to good intentions gone wrong - or - just assigning bad motives in general - and continually harping on this within the thread will have repercussions.

    Misdirection to the audience also falls into this category, and many of you will know exactly what I'm talking about. I'd like to encourage everyone to reflect on their posts and the posts of others when responding.

    Remember, as well, Star Wars alone cannot and should not be held responsible for all the past ills; Star Wars is under no obligation to wipe away the past in one or two movies. Discuss the pace of change - glacial, slow, too fast - why you hold that view, what you would like to see done and how you would like to see it down.

    For myself, I'm glad to see an expansion of female roles; I'm hoping for greater inclusion and diversity for ALL folks to a point we don't have to discuss diversity or the lack of. We may have it made when we have a lead female of color who doesn't fit into the stereotypical "beauty" (on the outside) - it seems gains come in the form of female, males of color, and eventually females of colors.

    If my perception is wrong, tell me!
     
  8. cerealbox

    cerealbox Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    May 5, 2016
    Not going to lie. Let's say Emilia looks like herself in Han Solo. She's already cast. No use crying over spilled milk.

    Hypothetical situation. Now it's 2018. And casting for the 2020 Anthology Star Wars film is underway.

    If they cast a young brunette British Caucasian as its female lead. What is there left to say?

    What would you say? The same things as now? Just curious.
     
  9. Valairy Scot

    Valairy Scot Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 16, 2005
    Personally, what would I say? A big "hmmm..., why is that?" If the chosen actor was the best for the role (but, of course, that in itself is subjective), than I might wonder why that role was written in such a way that it favored casting a white, brunette female.

    (While brunette is overused in Star Wars, in a sense, I personally am tickled, having grown up in the 60's. Just shy of 100% of us girls started out blonde, before our hair darkened to brunette or red, although in my old age I misremeber the actual percentage. So my hair was darkening to its ash brown and "Blondes have more fun" was the actual advertising for a hair color. I resented the heck out of it - I'm in elementary school for gosh sake's, a kid and as yet pretty much unaffected by feminism - and the implication that blondes were more desirable and as it turned out, better paid in the workplace - irritated the heck out of me. Most of the truly successful younger actresses were dyed or natural blondes - they were the funny, possibly romantic lead, and the brunette the faithful friend. {{Three's Company: John Ritter, male lead, Suzanne Somers, blonde "pretty one" (and admittedly "ditzy one") and Joyce DeWitt, brunette friend."}}

    So, I would wonder why no female blondes, or no female POC, but I would fall short of accusing the studio of "pandering" to an audience.
     
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  10. General_Leia_Organa

    General_Leia_Organa Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Feb 23, 2016

    Yes it's done and dusted, doesn't mean that the criticisms aren't valid. If we can make them known now, perhaps that would push them to really truly consider doing something different for the next anthology.
    If they do it again, then I feel the criticisms have even more ground to stand on. The mold doesn't have to exist, and it should be broken. I want my favorite stories to reflect society at large, not just me. If there's something to criticize about Star Wars, I'm going to do it, because I want it to be the best it can be. Seeing the same woman on screen over and over and over does not encourage the stories to be the best they can be, IMO.
     
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  11. LinAjax

    LinAjax Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 18, 2016
    A lot to comment on.

    1) Ghostbusters, yes it got a lot of hate. However, I should note that Leslie bore pretty much 90% of the hatred easily as the Not Thin Black Woman. She is the only one that had racist twitter troll lead a campaign against her that culminated in her nude pictures leaking and his ban from twitter.
    2) On Clarke, I think she is there for name recognition in no way do I think she got the role because she is the most talented actress. We have had 3 British White Brunettes in a row. And only one had a resume that said you are talented when cast. Daisy was a total unknown as if fitting for the role and turned out pretty well. Clarke we have 6 season of her on GoT and I would hardly call her the strongest actress.
    3) I think KK is following the Marvel route but slightly better if only because they are casting more women and I guess more MOC in relevant roles. I mean a White Person and their POC BFF. Granted I cant hold this against Han Solo and Lando since that was established by Lucas and is locked in. But Rey with Finn and Poe, Jyn and Her Merry Band of MOC, Han and Lando. But again I cant hold the Han one against KK.
    4) The Finn problem is twofold one it apparently taking 7 months to cast John when his resume at that point took a dump all over Daisy's. Two, massive bait and switch advertisement that sold the audience a Jedi in the making and then turned out a movie where he became first lead to get beat by a trooper in star wars history while delivering plenty of comedy. Amongst other issues not a good showing for your first Black Lead. Especially when compared against Rey who was great at basically everything.
    5) Rogue One, it looks good sure but the lead is still a white women. I am not sure how much of a win for diversity it is when the lead is still white. At least this time the merry band wont be shown as woefully incompetent next to the female lead.
    6) On the flip side we have the smurfette problem where we only get one women of note in these movies who happens to be white which means no WOC of note exist.
    7) All this probably links to a lack of diversity in the writer room, director chair, producing room and behind the camera in general. Granted this could probably be remedied quite quickly if Coogler smashes BP and/or Ava smashes a Wrinkle in Time. Problem being a white guy can break through on like one good project takes more for minorities.

    So that covers my thoughts on the issue for now.
     
  12. CEB

    CEB Force Ghost star 5

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    Dec 3, 2014
    "a movie where he became first lead to get beat by a trooper in star wars history "

    I think we run into problems when we start judging story/narrative decisions by standards of how we want certain races/genders to be represented. The alternative (to exaggerate slightly) would be to create a situation where black characters would effectively have plot armour of some sort to ensure "strength" or something, which would be a weird thing to do.
    The films aren't sports or top trumps, so I don't buy into this "first character to be beaten by a stormtrooper" thing; part of what TFA sought to do was to make stormtroopers seem fearsome again.
    When dealing with grounded, real-world fiction, there's a real need to be aware of the context of characters from different backgrounds, and so adjusting script to account for characters who were written as race neutral to make sure the character isn't jarring makes sense. But once you start getting into fantasy and sci-fi, I think most decisions are explainable as "min this universe, race isn't the issue it is here, and we want our actors to play characters that exist outside of real world context'
     
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  13. vncredleader

    vncredleader Force Ghost star 5

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    Mar 28, 2016
    Nice to see this topic get a thread. I have discussed this in other threads but I will repeat it here: I am fine with another white, brunette, British actress in a SW IF they make her an alien. I already want more alien leads in SW films who are not comic relief or essentially the family pet like Chewie can be treated sometimes. A great way to do this would be to have a lot of the talented white actors out there who deserve to be in a SW film play them.

    I also would love some human characters who are blonde or redheads. Or in other words BRING BACK SCOUT DANG IT!!! Also Tycho. But yeah TFA and Rogue One did a great job with casting but I still want a POC lead. A lot of the best EU character are minorities and sadly many have been lost. Some could come back like Ferus or Nick Rostu and especially Scout. If we do a TOR era story I would LOVE one about Satele.
     
  14. CEB

    CEB Force Ghost star 5

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    Dec 3, 2014
    A thing that emerges from this discussion though is the way that for women, hair colour comes up as a thing way, way more often than it does for men. Aside from the short lived furore about a blond Bond, generally male actors don't get categorised according to hair colour, and it just doesn't register if people have blond or brown hair in film.

    I can definitely understand the "man, ANOTHER English brunette" criticism, but I dunno, I think the alternative of deliberately diversifying the hair colour is actually more something to cater for men's "type" than to represent different kinds of women; "redhead", "blonde" and "brunette" aren't kinds of women, just colours of hair, after all.

    I was hoping to see Sana in this film though. But as this thread and others show, you're never going to please anyone. Cast someone mixed race and there'll be plenty of people complaining of an agenda.
     
  15. Darth_Pevra

    Darth_Pevra Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    May 21, 2008
    Hm, I have a feeling this thread will quickly become a hornets nest. I personally would love to have more diversity in Star Wars and so far I have the impression that TPTB don't really care that much about it even though they are very loud in advertising their female leads. Maybe Kennedy is the only one who really seems to care, though she can only influence so much.

    We still haven't gotten a good female villain in the movies and important alien characters are few and far between. Rogue One will be more humanocentric than even most of the OT where you had characters like Jabba to mix things up. Also, it's nice that the team leader in Rogue One is a woman, but why aren't there any other women on the team? Except for Jyn you could call it a sausage party. The only other important woman is Mothma and she is only in it because of the OT. In TFA instead of giving Gwendolyn Christie an important role (for example female Snoke), she was advertised as a feminist symbol and then stuffed into the trash in the movie.
     
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  16. vncredleader

    vncredleader Force Ghost star 5

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    Mar 28, 2016
    The reason I bring hair color up is because as a comic book fan I see a lot of hair colors changed from the comics which can be annoying. Like most blonde characters have darker hair. Barry Allen has been given dark hair 3 times now. ollie twice. Matt Murdock is a redhead but was given darker hair in the movie. It is fine to cast someone even if the hair is not right I get that. However I do kinda get sick of the fact that most characters are either dark haired or are dirty blondes. It has nothing to do with catering for men's "types" though sadly that might be the case for other people. Despite having dark hair (my whole blood is essentially Italian and British) I do wish for more hair colors in protagonists. It is not really important but hey even the more trivial stuff is worth mentioning. Side note has anyone noticed that rarely do alien races have hair in the GFFA? They are either bald or are covered in hair head to toe.

    Yeah people are gonna cry about an agenda no matter what. Just let them cry I say.
     
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  17. CEB

    CEB Force Ghost star 5

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    Dec 3, 2014
    I'd take issue with a fair bit of that, tbh.

    "TPTB don't really care about it that much"
    I'm not sure the evidence supports that statement; in two films we have one in which the main hero is a woman and the other lead is a black guy, we have rogue one with a cast of Asians, black guys, a British Muslim and the second female lead in a row, and we have the people in charge making it clear that this is a deliberate choice (as well as making it clear they're up for further representation, with talk of gay people in Star Wars etc); it's fair to say that they haven't covered *all* their bases, but they're certainly making progress.

    "Kennedy can only influence so much"
    She's probably the single most powerful person regarding Star Wars and decisions relating to it.

    "We still haven't gotten a good female villain "
    Agreed, but could we have had that in Disney Star Wars yet? Not without making TFA basically a female antagonist and protagonist. That in itself would have caused lots of issues for some. Look at ghostbusters for how people react when something becomes belfry female.

    "important alien characters are few and far between"
    Surely we need to differentiate here between diversity of actual, living types of human, and diversity of types of alien? They're totally different issues, one being about the aesthetics/design of a fantasy world, one about representation of types of actual people. Overlapping the issues will muddy the waters slightly


    "she was advertised as a feminist symbol"
    No she wasn't. There's a distinction between feminists being pleased that a female villain character in a film can be portrayed visually without overt stereotypical feminine qualities or sexualisation, and a character being "a feminist symbol"

    "and then stuffed into the trash in the movie."
    This part of the sentence wouldn't contradict the first half, even if the first half were true
     
  18. LinAjax

    LinAjax Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 18, 2016
    1) I don't want special treatment black characters. I want the same treatment you can expect for a hero in these movies. Ergo I want some skills and some wins. They didn't have any trouble doing that for Rey or even Poe as limited as his screen time was. They also didnt false advertise those two as something they weren't. And I bet good money if the roles were reversed and it was Rey who was losing every fight and shown as outright inferior skill wise to the guys you be singing a different tune.Heck I settle for the treatment Black Characters got under Good Old George with the corresponding boost in screen time that being a lead requires.

    2) Explain where stormtroopers looked good outside of interactions with Finn? Rey was outflying them the first time out in the MF. Poe was running up the score shooting them down like he was at the arcade. And Han was no look shooting them like nothing changed in 30 years. I buy the argument JJ was trying to make stormtroopers scary if they looked good against anyone but Finn. As it stands that is not the takeaway from the movie for the GA. The takeaway Finn is a joke which is pretty sad after 2 decades of training that he sucks in his only skill. Probably would have helped if Phasma didn't get do nothing and then got tossed down the garbage chute.

    3) Well if I had to guess. I would assume its because most American Guys don't have blonde hair. Ergo that is why all those blondes get changed to darker hair colors.
     
  19. vncredleader

    vncredleader Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 28, 2016
    We should discuss female villains cause that is something I think all of us agree is an issue thus far. In the entire new canon we have quite a few female anti heroes (Aphra) and villain protagonists (Rae) but not many antagonists. Mainly just Talzin, Ventress to a point, Pryce, Phasma who did not get much, Lady Claris, the 7th Sister, and the root of all evil herself Mon Mothma. Has anyone else noticed that we have one female Sith and even then it is just a voice in a holocron with no real character. If we do a TOR film I think a cool twist on things and a way to kill two birds with one stone would be to make female Revan canon but have the dark side ending of KOTOR be canon. That or have a story set in the Mando wars so we can see a female Sith. I guess the Bandon equivalent could be a woman though. A Bane story could use Githany and Zannah.

    1) Agreed on not wanting special treatment though I do think that Rey being able to do a mind trick and force walls seeming to no longer exist is troubling (her piloting was perfectly fine especially with "Before the Awakening) and as much as I love Poe (I have a shrine and everything) I do feel that he was way to op and, outside of when they had to crash, nigh invulnerable. That's more of a nitpick and neither had anything to do with special treatment though. Just personal nitpicking that can easily be improved in time. I don't get the advertising point though.

    2) What does stormies being strong have to do with diversity?
     
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  20. LinAjax

    LinAjax Jedi Knight star 3

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    Sep 18, 2016
    Sure and really only Talzin had her own agenda the whole time. Ventress went more to anti-hero as things progressed. Pryce is Thrawn's BFF. 7th Sister was cool I guess but again doing someone elses agenda.

    Ah yes Mon Mothma. A true failure in leadership. And Coincidently the most independent besides Talzin.
     
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  21. Darth_Pevra

    Darth_Pevra Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    May 21, 2008
    This whole talk about female Star Wars villain motivates me to turn my avatar back into Kreia. What a great female Sith she was.

    They are making progress yes but I still get the impression that a lot of people involved play lipservice instead of really caring about it. Since this is a personal impression, it's hard to prove. While there are many different ethnicities in Rogue One all the leads are white including the main villain.

    Kennedy doesn't take creative control, that's simply not her job, she has different things to do, which I absolutely respect.

    We had three important villains in TFA and you tell me that we can't make one of them female because of sexist outcries? I think that is part of the problem.

    Unfortunately, I'm a woman and was looking forward to seeing interesting new female characters but there was only Rey and she didn't interest me, so again only men to look forward to. Which is unfortunate because I love seeing strong female characters in other franchises. I do feel left out a bit.

    That's a fair point and I considered dropping that part, however this thread is about all kinds of diversity so I left it it.

    Gwendolyn Christie repeatedly linked Phasma to female empowerment, so much that I had certain expectations that were disappointed in the film. If you play up the female villain angle then deliver on it. To me it seemed like they said one thing and did another.

     
  22. LinAjax

    LinAjax Jedi Knight star 3

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    Sep 18, 2016
    I dont think making for instance Hux a Woman. Means sexism is running amuck. Ghostbusters was sunk no doubt to changing all the ghostbusters to Female but a reboot didnt help matters either.

    But yes much like the Finn Marketing. The Phasma marketing was a lie. But at least Phsama had a cool outfit, Finn didnt even get that. On the flipside she has got a much deeper Sarlacc Pit to climb out of .
     
  23. CEB

    CEB Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Dec 3, 2014
    1: "ergo I want some skills and some wins" - unfortunately that's not a reasonable request on the small scale of one film with one specific character. If there was a trend towards, say, black guys in new Star Wars always getting their ass handed to them, you'd have a fair point, but as it is, with just Finn to go on, you can't impose your requirements for black characters' skills and successes onto that arc (which id strongly argue did have successes for Finn; he found his courage, he stopped running, he found a cause and then was willing to die for it.its a pretty strong arc, and I think there has never been a mo,ent of such bravery in Star Wars as Finn lifting a lightsaber to Kylo Ren; only Luke throwing down his lightsaber to Palpatine comes close, and that's something he'd decided in advance)
    I reject that Finn was presented as inferior to everyone else; Poe was Dashing Hero, but far less interesting than Finn, and there are many, many instances of women in film being treated exactly as you describe, so if Rey had been presented as "incompetent" (which I don't think Finn was) it'd get an eye roll from me for being lazy. I can't think of a character that's had a similar journey to Finn off the top of my head - it's certainly not lazy, as far as I'm concerned

    2: the biggest misstep in the film is Han's ease with shooting the stormtroopers, especially doing one blind. However, surely it makes total sense that Finn doesn't beat them easily; he's one of them,and the thing that sets him apart isn't that he's super talented or the most elite trooper, or has a big destiny; it's his moral compass. I'll grant you that levelling characters when a lead comes from the ranks of cannon fodder for heroes is a tricky thing to do, and they may not have pitched it right, but I think that's more an issue of narrative with Finn's origin than a diversity issue.

    Edit for Darth_Pevra

    "We had three important villains in TFA and you tell me that we can't make one of them female because of sexist outcries? I think that is part of the problem."

    No, I added the part about outcries to show that it's essentially whack a mole whatever they do. My main point is that just because they *didnt* go with Hux, Snoke or Kylo being female doesn't mean they *wouldnt*, and that their casting choices so far most certainly do not show a likely reluctance to create female characters going forward; it's disingenuous to mention "3 villains" as if Phasma doesn't bear mentioning. She had a small role, as many people will in such big ensembles as Star Wars, but Phasma comes to mind for me more quickly than Hux, and she had a genuine clash with Finn (i still think she should have been the one to fight Finn on Takodana though)

    Regarding Gwendoline Christie, I'm not entirely sure where you're going with this; from what I saw, it's just a classic case of she talked excitedly about her character, and made some fair points about it being a good thing that her costume was functional and imposing, not a sexy trooper or something. That he character had a small role isn't, as far as I can see, any sort of issue. Star Wars always has some characters with small roles that people get over excited about in advance, and as far as actual promo stuff goes, they're ways gong to big up the film and their role in it - the marketing machine for a film like this is its own issue, the more important point is how the film stands up, and I think that if we acknowledge that we are our own worst enemies when it comes to creating expectations and getting over excited about promotional guff, and just watch the film, then Phasma's role *is* what she says it is: with little fuss she's a female in the military in a position of power who doesn't have a sexy outfit but looks cool all the same. She has a small role and her gender is irrelevant. I mean, that's fine, no?

    When we say "the film sold X to me", let's not pretend that any of these things are what made us as individuals here go and see the film. They're more likely to, say, make a ten year old girl be like "ah, so I can play at being a stormtrooper too" - they're just little elements in the mix that compare favourably to, say, ESB in which every bounty hunter was male when it would have been easy to add a female.
     
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  24. vncredleader

    vncredleader Force Ghost star 5

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    Mar 28, 2016
    I would argue you can bull ***t the alien comment into being important here because it is nice to give actors more range of roles and on top of that it is a nice way to get great white actors in there without making every major character white.
     
  25. LinAjax

    LinAjax Jedi Knight star 3

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    Sep 18, 2016
    1) Please. Hollywood has a long history of putting the black guy in the funny sidekick role. In fact I can name more big budget Hollywood movies with a strong female then a strong Black One this gets worse if we are talking Black Women. Yeah Yeah he fought Kylo only to lose get a coma and a kiss on the forehead while Rey beat Kylo got the MF, Skywalker Saber, Chewie and the chance to go meet Luke. Combine that with Rey having skills as a mechanic, a pilot, the force and melee combat. Her melee combat being better then Finn's. So no I dont think its too unreasonable to have the first Black Lead be on the same Level as the first Female Lead. And not carrying the comedy load and treated like an afterthought. Rey at least delivered on what was marketed probably moreso whereas Finn under preformed across the board as compared to marketing.

    2) Moral Compass isnt special and it aint worth anything in combat. Heroes are expected to have said compass or develop one. The fact remains the troopers werent shown to be better in general. They were just shown as good relative to Finn. The hero should not be losing 1 on 1 to nameless meme bait. Give me the Rucka Origin where FInn is top 1% not the lame JJ crapola.
     
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