ST Diversity in the Sequel Trilogy (see warning on page 11)

Oh gee, I was totally unaware. I guess now I have to retroactively hate the show I previously enjoyed. Turns out Buffy actually never was a revolutionary female character and a role model for girls and women across the world. That never happened.

 

Of course it is. Finn’s personal motives only count to you when they allow you to judge him negatively. His goal was not to hurt the Resistance in TLJ, it was to help a friend. But you only credit him with hurting the Resistance. When his primary goal was to help Rey and he helped the Resistance, he gets no credit for the thing that he did for the Resistance because he only did it for her.

Putting friends over strangers in a chaotic extreme situation such as Finn’s will never be a character flaw to me. Any movie that tries to sell it as such has a bankrupt moral at its core.

He was embarrassed. It doesn’t make him a traitor. People are flawed and imperfect. Poe would understand. Finn’s been through a lot and he did a lot for Poe. Finn isn’t harming anyone by wanting to bounce.

Finn didn’t have time to act like anything. He’s been free for two days. He has every right to be confused and all over the place. This doesn’t warrant judgment. It’s not a good excuse to condemn him.

I think it’s interesting that you think Finn being demonized as a traitor was accurate, that Rose was right to taze him as a traitor, and you think RJ treated his character with respect. These positions are irreconcilable to me.

 

You can feel however you want. You’re a free person and I have no coercive power over your decisions. I personally saw a lot of “chauvinist pretending to be a feminist” in Whedon from early in his career, and I stand by that perception.

And I’d like to keep him, and his shallow understanding of feminism and diversity, as far away from the SW franchise as possible.

But you do you.

 

I can’t comment for Rey, because I am not now nor have I ever been a white woman, but Finn is a jabroni black best friend type who exists to fall over so that the audience can laugh at him. He breaks no barriers whatsoever.

Nah. Wonder Woman movie was coming the second the Avengers movie was a success. Get Out was made because the director was had enough influence in the Hollywood system that people trusted him enough to invest in his movie and the process through which marvel movie characters are decided is so arcane that it’s basically impossible to examine.

No you are, because you’re ignoring that it comes at the end of two films where Finn is consistently portrayed as nothing more than a buffoon.

Because of author fiat, he’s not a hero of the Resistance because the movies show him doing anything heroic.

Literally anything

 

I’m sorry but, was this really necessary? No one is telling you to not like anything. It is, however, important that people are always made aware of misogyny and something that could be potentially damaging to how people (specifically women and/or minorities) are represented in media as a whole. Buffy is awesome (and so is Angel) but there’s no getting around that parts of it have not aged well. If you can separate the artist from the art, that’s fine. But it’s really rude respond to someone with condescension after they are simply providing information.

Of course he’s embarrassed. He should be embarassed. Poe did a lot for Finn too. And I’m under the impression that he is potentially harming someone by doing what he’s doing. And no, Poe would not understand after he found out that Finn just left him. He would be rightfully hurt.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I would be very upset if my friend abandoned me when I’m getting my ass kicked, especially when I’m literally fighting for people that are like him. Or left me without saying goodbye after I was poor, destitute, and used some of my last remaining resources to save his life. That’s just messed up.

Lol, you know....it kind of sounds like you’re giving me the side-eye for having an opinion that’s different from yours and you really don’t have to. I mean, you already know that I like TLJ and I’m one of the few people on the internet that likes Finn’s arc in it, so this shouldn’t be surprising. We both like Finn, we just disagree on his portrayal in TLJ. It’s honestly fine.

It also doesn’t change the fact that no matter how you look at it, Finn’s character will be remembered for what Episode IX has in store for him more so than anything he did in TLJ. So love it or hate it, Finn’s TLJ arc honestly doesn’t matter that much in the long run. And that goes for the majority of the characters not just Finn. No one’s character arcs are complete yet.

 

I don't believe Whedon is a faux-feminist. I believe he's a jerk who cheated on his wife and had affairs with women. But this isn't the topic of the thread, is it?

 

Wow. Yeah...I'm not even going to try to touch that one lol. It's obvious that I heavily disagree but there's nothing I can really say to that. You just seem to hate Finn, which is fine.

You're right, so we're just gonna move on.

 

People don't hate Finn, they hate how he's been written. There's a difference.

 

No...there are people who hate Finn.

And writing Finn off as a buffoon that contributes nothing to the plot in both films leads me to believe that the person doesn't like his character, which again, is fine. I mean, why would you like someone who's offensive and useless?

 

In theory, Finn is the most interesting aspect of the ST, and one of the few really original concepts in the 2 movies so far. A rebellious stromtrooper defecting from the Empire, wrestling with his conscience and finding his way to the Rebellion is a great idea for a Star Wars plot. TCW touched on the same general themes in a few of its arcs, such as Umbara or the Order 66 arc, and another exploration of that are would have been great.

That's not what we got in practice. After Finn's (solid) introduction on Jakku, and once he frees Poe, that's it as far as his background affects him as a character. Once he's cheerfully blowing up his fellow stormtroopers, who might I remind you are brainwashed child-slaves, all hope in him being a fascinating character study is lost.

After that he's reduced to a very generic 'good guy' role, and I can't think of one example where his background of indoctrination is apparent. He's perfectly fine in all social situations, he cracks jokes, he wilfully goes along with killing more of the FO's slave troopers. The only times he brings up his past is in the context of useful plot info that progresses the Rebel's missions, but doesn't actually touch on any of Finn's character.

There's the decent scene in TFA where he decides for himself to walk away from the 'mission', and wants to forge his own path. Everyone is accepting of this, though Rey is disappointed, she lets him do what he wants.

TLJ essentially does that same scenario, and this time Finn is tased for trying to leave of his own free will. He's also later punished for doing the exact same thing as Holdo, Paige, and Luke.

I think Finn is the biggest wasted opportunity of the ST, where the central idea was intriguingly compelling, and the execution was as about as dis-interested in exploring those ideas as it could be.

That's why I hate Finn. I hate the failure to do anything with him beyond bland 'heroics'.

 

No, he's not written off as a buffoon. He's written as a buffoon.

 

Had to reply to this. First, I think it's very disingenuous to say those movies wouldn't exist without Finn and Rey when half the movies you listed were already in development when TFA released and one is an indie movie made with a 5 million budget.

Second, it's 2018, just having representation in itself doesn't mean anything if the way the characters are portrayed are regressive and stereotypical. We don't just want female and minority leads going forwards. We want female and minority leads that are well developed, complex characters and not poorly written, borderline racist caricatures that only serve to develop the plot of the other white male characters. Four of the films you mentioned are significantly better in representation and Captain Marvel hasn't even come out yet I'm willing to bet Carol will probably be a better written character than Rey. At least I don't think she won't stupidly lust after the villain a week after he tortured her

Just diverse characters appearing in blockbusters won't do anything if they're not written well. Seriously, 20 years ago, Will Smith was the lead hero in a blockbuster that was the 2nd highest grossing movie of all time so it's not like this was the first time a blockbuster was featuring a minority lead. There's literally no excuse for Lucasfilm to have botched Finn's character and arc so badly.

 

I'm not giving you side eye. That implies being passive aggressive. I'm stating outright that portraying Finn as a traitor that deserves to be tazed as a traitor is (imo) treating his character with disrespect. I don't think treating a character that escaped a life of slavery two days ago as deserving that kind of treatment meets the definition of respect. Granted, we disagree. To you it meets the definition of respect, which is a position I just don't understand.

This reminds me of a book I just tried to read by Andy Weir, author of The Martian. It's set on the moon with a female protagonist of non-white descent. Meets the supposed "SJW" criteria, right? Except despite the phenomenal science fiction of life on the moon, which I enjoyed as much as his depiction of the science of being on Mars, I had to stop reading it because this protagonist was so OTT shallow and childish and stupid. It's like (some) people don't understand that female characters have to seem human too. It's not enough to insert women. They need to be written as well as male characters need to be written.

 

Hmm...

I don’t like the ST. I liked TFA when it first came out but then as time went on my opinion of it dropped. I didn’t see TLJ in cinemas and instead just laughed as the spoilers leaked and I realised how insanely dumb it was. I watched it, eventually, through alternative means and my opinion was that it was a nice looking film with a really bad story. That said, despite my problems with the story, despite my problems with the characters, despite my problems with the films, none of it actually pisses me off. Except for Finn.

Finn viscerally bothers me. It annoys me that these movies get so much credit for being “progressive” when they’re essentially long apologisisms for a neo-nazi school shooter, and when the black male “lead” is little more than a cartoon who exists to fall over and get hit so that the audience can laugh at him. It bothers me that the movie spends so much time trying to get us to empathise with the aforementioned neo-nazi and spends so much time getting us to laugh at the black lead. It bothers me that this movie, the only time when we have a black lead, is the movie where all of a sudden people need to know their place; where having friendships and being willing to die to help your friends is portrayed as a bad thing; where suddenly we need to be lectured to about human attachments, when such things are basic emotional responses everyone not a psychopath immediately understands.

There’s a version of Finn out there that doesn’t bother me the way OTL does. If you want to call that hating Finn, more power to you.

 

That's interesting because Finn...brings me joy. I love his enthusiasm. I love his comedic timing. I love how smart he is. I love that people are always looking to him for information. I love that he has own story that is separate from anyone else. I love that other characters consistently mention what a great person he is. I love that he has more relationship dynamics than anyone else in the ST. I love that he's compassionate and always sticking up for people even though he doesn't want to. I love that he always tries harder more than any other character in the series. I love that he's always willing to die for a cause that he believes in. I love that he loves and protects his friends. I love that he's exceptionally brave. I love that he makes mistakes. I love that he's never the same person and is constantly growing. Finn just amazes because I have never seen a character quite like him before. I would say that Finn is the main reason I remained a Star Wars fan. I mean, I love Star Wars but it's not perfect. It's problematic in terms of representation, varying in quality with each new release, and the fanbase just...can't quite seem to get along. But if there is one character that encapsulates everything I love about Star Wars (which is heroism, friendship, and fun), it's definitely Finn. Luke and Rey are a close second, though.

But hey, different strokes for different folks.

 

Yeah, I loved that part where he developed from the last film by being made to retread a bad version of what he did in TFA, that was great.

 

I don't know. I really liked Finn's growth in TLJ and the slow build to him committing to the Resistance. He felt important but I guess I'm the only one thinks that.

 

I don’t really consider whatever Rey did to be an arc. It’s way too incoherent. I don’t really know how she grew. Running off by choice on a suicide mission to save the soul of her abuser just to get abused and gaslit some more doesn’t seem like growth. Then she was doing normal Rey stuff five minutes later “woohooing,” but otherwise disappeared from the film. Kylo had an arc. Luke had an arc. Finn... I guess, although I think it’s 90% redundant and also borderline incoherent, because it comes off to me like he “grew” by joining the Resistance because he was shamed and belittled into it.

 

Rey, Finn and Kylo's TLJ arc was to become annoying and unlikeable and make us not care.

 

If you replace the word "Finn" with "Luke" and "ST" with "OT", this post expresses probably hundreds of millions of people worldwide, who saw the OT some time in the last 42 years, and felt EXACTLY like that for Luke. You don't really have to change any other word for it to be accurate. So then you might realize why there is a vast amount of people that have a serious objection to how Mark Hamill's character was written in TLJ. Imagine seeing Finn bitter, sad, angry and a coward in IX.

Out of pure curiosity, and with 0% condescension on my part, how many movies do you think you have watched in general? I am sincerely curious, because Finn does not really strike me as a character for whom I would ever say that I haven't seen any character like before.

I wholeheartedly agree with you about the positives of Finn though. And I am glad he is adding diversity in the ST. I really hope he is portrayed much much MUCH better in IX. We need that. Star Wars needs that.

PS. I disagree with you about how Star Wars is problematic in representation. If anything, it's one of the healthiest franchises in representation. Not perfect, but not quite problematic.

 

I probably should have not included Finn in that.