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aegon · 4 years

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I was confused about your post about Rian Johnson because, from what I've heard about TROS (haven't seen it), JJ sidelines his characters of color whereas I've seen people argue that TLJ was great because it gave them storylines and importance independent of the white protagonists. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't KMTs character just reduced to a glorified cheerleader with almost 0 lines in TROS? Not saying that TLJ wasn't problematic - it had it's issues - but isn't TROS more so?

Depends on how you define “side-lining.”

To me, it’s relegating primary characters of colour to a second-tier narrative whilst maintaining the focus of the plot on another white character.

Finn in TLJ was a total disrespect. His entire narrative had nothing to do with the story. It’s not “empowering” that he had an independent plot, it was a waste of a character. There was no real character development - Rian first regresses his character in the first half hour and then moves forward and calls it “character building.”

Finn was established in the first sequel film as one of the main trio. Imagine if in the original trilogy, Han and Chewie go off on a random mission to escort some random prince to some random party, while Luke and Leia and the Resistance are battling the Empire. That’s how it was. That isn’t some “empowering independent” narrative, that’s blatantly shoving a character to the side so you can get on with the real story. It’s an afterthought, not a serious consideration.

Also Rian decided to erase Finn’s Force-sensitivity but gave it to some random white kid because “anyone can be a Jedi if they believe it enough,” thereby making Finn decidedly unspecial for having such a rare trait. Also no, you can’t just be a Jedi if you want it bad enough, what the fuck.

Finn in TROS, to avoid giving spoilers, isn’t given as much as I’d like him to have, but he’s front and centre throughout the whole story with the Resistance and the rest of the trio. He’s in the middle of every battle and he stands by Poe and Rey whenever they’ve needed him. And he’s Force-sensitive again!! And it’s considered special!! Thank you!!

As for Poe - he’s established as an ambitious man ready to do what’s necessary for his cause. In TFA, he’s confident and sassy, with a mouth that gets him in trouble - but he’d never risk the lives of others and is a team-player with massive respect for Leia. Rian does away with all that by having him put the lives of his comrades in danger for his own ego, sneering at his new superior because she’s a woman, and being a colossal jackass that has him coming across as some hotheaded man with a problem with women....when he showed none of that in TFA.

Poe was sidelined because ultimately, that’s literally his story in TLJ. The asshole that needed his ass handed to him for some feminism points. No, what the fuck? Really?? That’s how Rian developed his character?? By presenting him as a reformed misogynist?? I mean....Latino men are already stereotyped in media as patriarchal macho hotheads with ego problems that don’t know how to respect authority. And that’s exactly who Poe is in TLJ. A stereotype.

To bring it back to original trilogy comparison, that’s like having Leia become overtly concerned with romance and needing Han or Luke to take over because she keeps getting overemotional and that’s “weak.” Bullshit.

In TROS, Poe is front and centre again and he’s a leader. He apologises to his team when he knows he’s in the wrong, he still faces challenges as he assumes responsibility, gets into conflict with those closest to him, still can be rash in his actions - but it never comes across as a racial stereotype so much as someone wanting to do the best he can with the role that’s been handed to him and is afraid of failing to live up to it.

Again, JJ isn’t great and pulled some bullshit background story for him that had me rolling my eyes and there were some super forced heterosexual moments, but my god, it was so much better than him just being some angry Latino man with women issues and nothing else.

With Rose, I’ll admit, JJ messed up. I can’t say I was a huge fan of her in TLJ because she felt pretty flat and there wasn’t enough to make me care about her, but she does mean a lot to racial representation. I think she was caught in the crossfire of JJ trying to retcon TLJ and essentially try to bring the story back on the trajectory he’d imagined before Rian went off-base, and because she was never meant to be part of the main trio and was introduced in TLJ, she was ultimately reduced to pretty much non-existence because JJ never had a plan for her to be there.

And Rian didn’t really make it difficult to cut her out by giving her a narrative that had nothing to do with the plot and a forced kiss with Finn so he could prop up R*ylo.

Basically, TROS had a lot of fuck-ups with Rose’s character and failing to fulfil a lot of fan expectations for Finn and Poe, but it gets points for not treating them like background commodities that can be ignored. It’s far, far from perfect but Rose not being there isn’t the same as presenting a damaging stereotype of her character like Rian did with the others.

TLJ gets points for introducing Rose, but given the abysmal way it treats her introduction and the horrendous way it treats the other two characters of colour, it gets minus points and my eternal bitterness.

#anonymous #answered #aly rants #anti tlj #anti rian johnson #god this has me thinking of tlj all over again #such a stupid film oh my god #how do you??? ignore??? someone being force sensitive???#you absolute??? prick????#ugh #long post #sw spoilers #just in case

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