ST Finn/John Boyega Discussion Thread

And since 2016 no less. When it wasn't a PR boosting hashtag wagon that everyone was jumping on (unlike past 10-11 days).

 

Apparently, Ben & Jerry really do put their money where their mouth is. They're not just vocal about their stances.

https://www.benjerry.com/values/issues-we-care-about/marriage-equality

In addition to their more serious efforts, they also do silly things: they had their Australian stores refuse to serve two scoops of the same ice-cream until the country legalized gay marriage. I can't help but love that.

EDIT: They even have a page on detention centers.

 

Just wanted to say I stand with John although I disagree with the protest. Any given day outside a pandemic I would be with him. There's apparently 8,0000 infections here a day but bless it is starting to fall for now. The potential for a second spike is high. I walk the dog away from people and occasionally go to the shop and that's it. You won't see me in crowd for a while I give you that. But in today's government slides hospital admissions have just started to go up. This protest may not have been the best thought. Equally am divided because people have died because of skin colour and that is aborhent. Then again the care home disaster here that's downright murder too. Not many celebrities speaking out on mass murder here may I say. (Please don't take that as slight on John am talking in general). So anything that potentially progresses this virus it's going dampen my view slightly am afraid. I mean the UK is a tiny country and has worse death by head capacitor than the whole of the United States. That's how frightening it is over here and I understand about systemic violence and killing by police is shocking and the system needs an overhaul. Hopefully something good I pray comes out of these marches. It's just and I will say it am scared. Am scared of this virus. Am scared of this circus of a government and am scared that this rally is going to further the spread of the disease. Just as those silly idiots just plonking themselves on the beach for the day.

Am trying to stay balanced I am with John and all the people there. Am just cautious that more pain will come from this than it should.

Also those tweets from the Star Wars twitter account I found to be obnoxious and hollow. The way they held the Finn situation was farcical. The whole bait and switch from TFA, them being guided by less than pleasant shipping communities, pulling Finn from the central plot, janitor jokes and Finn shouting Rey every two minutes. I think Lucasfilm should bow there heads in shame.

 

Justification isn't the point. The point is that if these civil servants who are supposedly bound to the idea of serving and protecting the citizenry of the United States can't be held accountable for their own actions as readily as the rest of us mere peons, then what good argument does one have to say that the looting and rioting isn't justified when they seem to be serving their purpose swimmingly?

Why should black people living in the US today seem overly concerned for social distancing during the pandemic when their communities will continue to suffer disproportionately to everyone else's even if they do? This is why people get really annoyed when others start whinging about how property is being stolen when certain demographics in the US continue to be downtrodden.

If justice isn't applied fairly and consistently, then order is meaningless.

 

I didn't say that. Why think that I mean it that way?

That's false. The actions of others doesn't justify ours. No matter what, whats right isn't changed. If you understand what happened is wrong, justifying negative actions by suggesting somehow the actions of others can be argued to justify them, is a double standard.

 

Right. Do we want corporations to change, or not? If we denounce them for being late to the game, what incentive is there for them to actually change? People and institutions evolve. And we need to push them to add substance to that evolution. But if Disney is just “cancel cultured” because they didn’t sufficiently stand up for equity in the past, what’s the point of pushing for change? The goal of societal (and in this case, corporate) change is what’s important. And to Disney I say “You’re late, but better late than never. Now back up your words with actions.”

 

Isn't that what people are saying, though? Disney haven't backed up their words with actions in the past, so their support rings hollow. Until they do, there's no reason to treat them as sincere and not as a fair-weathered corporation.

 

I think it's really sad that John Boyega in real-life is the Finn a lot of people were hoping for in the sequel trilogy. Including people of colour in your projects doesn't amount to much if it is nothing more than tokenism. John and Kelly were done dirty in the ST. While I've pretty much moved on from the ST, I would love to see a spin-off series that featured Finn and Rose and actually allowed them to live up to their potential as characters. Sadly, I doubt that such a thing will ever happen. Disney loves to talk diversity and social reform but it seems to be a lot of hot air. A company that erases one of its core characters from marketing materials to sell in China because of his race doesn't have a lot of credibility when it comes to walking the walk.

 

The looters weren't stealing from those stores out of protest. They were taking advantage of the protests. This is why so many protesters were openly angry at them. But some people feel that the issue behind the protests - police brutality and bigotry - are more important than the looting of upscale stores. And the media seemed to think otherwise. At least they did earlier this week.

 

I don’t think we’re in disagreement. It’s just about advocacy tactics. In my experience, both carrot and stick approaches work best when pushing change. Acknowledge steps taken, but then insist on those steps being backed up by significant and sustained action to address injustices. I have seen poor advocacy tactics drive targets to backslide before, particularly when those tactics involve declaring the corporate or governmental target irredeemable. We need to make their likelihood of change go up, not down.

 

Agreed, suffice to say Disney has a well established history of putting profit before morality.

P.S. Haven’t posted on the boards much recently, but I’ve seen photos of the BLM protests in London, it’s great that John is a hero in real life as well as on-screen.

 

I'm late to the party, but these last couple of weeks have been heavy as ****. I'm glad I took a brief hiatus from this place because I've been deep in depression and frustration, and seeing some of the disgusting filth that came from certain individuals at the time they were posted would not have been good for my mental health.

Things have been looking up in the past couple of days, and all I'm gonna say is that I'm so proud of John for standing up and making his voice heard even if it cost him everything. I'm so glad that all the hate he was getting is now being counteracted by the love he's getting around the world, and I appreciate all the supportive voices that have spoken up across all nations, creeds, and races. I once again want to thank all the people here who made me feel welcome, who didn't shoot down my opinion and actually ****ing listened. JUST LISTENED. Even if you didn't agree with everything I've said.

You have no idea how powerful that is, and I hope that these protests, the exposure of racism across all industries and social platforms, and the massive highlighting of police brutality will produce more people like you, who are willing to have the empathy and humility to see things from other perspectives. I also hope that those that have contributed to the dehumanization of POC, even in the smallest ways, evaluate themselves and do better going forward.

What happened here is emblematic of many experiences I've seen time and time again, where some choose to ignore the issue being discussed and instead find any way to criticize and demean those who are hurting. But as I said, what I've seen over these last few days has taken me from my deepest depression to a feeling of optimism I haven't had in a very long time.

There is more to be done, and while I want protesters to stay safe, I'm glad that they chose this time where the whole ****ing planet had no choice but to watch injustice and the pain it brings. This is probably the biggest opportunity for systemic change we will ever see in our lifetime.

That's all I got. Love and peace, may the Force be with y'all, and all that.

 

What you're concerned about:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/03/us/us-coronavirus-protests/index.html

 

Responding to this now since I never noticed it and I'm tired of all the false equivalencies to a trilogy of films that's actually good.

The problem with what you're saying here is that there are ways in which Sam was treated in the LOTR films that make him objectively better as a supporting character and deuteragonist. For one thing, he's always with Frodo every step of the way and his character develops alongside Frodo's. That does not happen with Finn. Sam's character is treated with just about the same level of care as Frodo's is and he is made a fundamental part of the protagonist's journey, this is not the case with Finn in relation to Rey. Sam also has significance to the themes of the story that Tolkien was trying to tell. Meanwhile, the ST's themes are muddled, vapid and generally half-baked at best and the characters largely suffer as a result.

Like, I don't even know where you dragged this comparison from, since they're hardly comparable in terms of execution and they're not even remotely comparable in terms of their overall premise.

 

Well, we must agree to disagree.
I will say this - I lost all respect for Boyega as a person after he extracted the urine from reylos online and as a Reylo I was hurt, especially as up to then I'd liked him. But I respect him as an actor, and although Kylo is my favourite SW character, I also liked Finn very much. I thought that he, Rey and Kylo were three fascinating characters, and it was refreshing to have a so called'villain' who was so conflicted, a heroine who was a nobody, and a hero who started out on the wrong side.
As a R1 fan, I really wanted to see where they went with these three. It was a breath of fresh air that no one was all saint and all sinner.
Then we got TROS.

 

I've never spouted racist crap in my life.
My parents grew up in WW2, my uncle was among those who liberated Belsen. They knew all too well what prejudice and bigotry are like, as does my gay brother.
And I know many reylos, some are abuse victims, some like me mentally ill, and quite a few are people of colour.
Sadly John's twitter comments didn't discriminate between'us' and 'them'.

 

I couldn't agree more, and I've said many times that Finn deserves his own movie or even trilogy. His story actually had more potential to be interesting than many others in the ST, and the white creators (JJ, KK, Kasdan, Rian) massively failed to give his story the attention that he and it deserved.

 

Good to know, I hope the more sensitive reylos understand that.

 

JB doesn't owe anyone an apology for defending himself against racists, which is what he was doing when he posted his video calling out people attacking him.

Reylo is a fictional ship in a fictional world. JB is a real human being. There is a big difference.

 

Yes, it is.
But reylos are also real people.

 

People who sent racist attacks against JB don't deserve any type of sympathy. I don't care what or who they ship. Shipping is a fun fandom thing. JB is a real person.