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A new study on the TLJ fan backlash finds...


Iceheart
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Minorities were added, not because they could enhance the story, but because Hollywood is obsessed with diversity. Finn and Tico were there to fill up a quota, rather than to become memorable, interesting characters. Evidently, making room for space horses was more important than adding a few extra scenes for the oh-so-important minorities that they made a big deal out of hiring. Editing continued right up to the movie's release date, and I have a feeling that a lot of scenes with Rose and Finn wound up on the cutting room floor (or its digital equivalent). I would have preferred seeing fewer characters in these films, so that we could focus on their interactions and personal growth. Instead, Disney chose to throw as much crap on the screen as they could, trying to appeal to everyone at the same time. That's not a good plan for making a movie.

I think youre on to something. LFL did a good job with the diversity casting for Rogue One. That film has a more condensed story that could focus on the characters. Thus the casting worked. Or maybe Boyega and Tran arent good actors? No one ever thinks of that because we are too busy trying to defend them against the poor job Disney LFL did at making the ST and especially against the social media trolls who went on a hate tirade when the films were released.
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Finn is reduced to a bumbling schlub of a sidekick who runs around screaming Rey's name for no reason. I was expecting him and Rey to have a bit of a romance, but of course THAT could never happen in a Disney movie. Remember, they were trying to market these movies to the Chinese, and the Chinese don't like black people in their movies. They didn't like Rose Tico, either, because she is Vietnamese. Disney was thus faced with a problem: they needed loads of different characters so that they could tick off the boxes in their Diversity Hiring list and appeal to Westerners; but they had to downplay those roles to appeal more to a Chinese audience. It doesn't work.The Chinese have NEVER liked Star Wars, so marketing it to them is baffling and makes no sense. Why is Hollywood so concerned about sucking up to the Chinese all a sudden? Who cares what they think, when they aren't even going to watch it?

 

At any rate, the result is an absolute mess. Minorities were added, not because they could enhance the story, but because Hollywood is obsessed with diversity. Finn and Tico were there to fill up a quota, rather than to become memorable, interesting characters. Evidently, making room for space horses was more important than adding a few extra scenes for the oh-so-important minorities that they made a big deal out of hiring. Editing continued right up to the movie's release date, and I have a feeling that a lot of scenes with Rose and Finn wound up on the cutting room floor (or its digital equivalent). I would have preferred seeing fewer characters in these films, so that we could focus on their interactions and personal growth. Instead, Disney chose to throw as much crap on the screen as they could, trying to appeal to everyone at the same time. That's not a good plan for making a movie.

I'm super glad you're back on nightly... but everything you are saying is wrong. hahaha

 

First-- Disney is not anti-romance. See: every princess movie ever. They are opposed to it in Star Wars because despite pushing a female lead, Star Wars is still often considered a "boy." thing-- hence then doing girl-centric marketing initiatives. Also, Rey did have a romance storyline-- it was with Kylo. It was not-traditional, and not well-done, but it was there.

 

Second-- Disney does not care about the Chinese dollar. Some movies do, Disney does not. Iron Man 3 was done in conjunction with Chinese investors, and it did not go well, so Disney hasn't done it since. Is China a huge market? Yes. Will they cut movies a certain way to make sure it gets to Chinese theaters? Yes. Will they make casting decisions based on Chinese government opinions-- maybe... but only to cast a Chinese lead role, not to suppress others.

 

Third-- Diversity in casting is not as simple as you say. The second a non-white pops up you half the fandom screaming tokenism, and other half spouting racist stuff. To say Finn and Rose were cast to fill a quote is really off-base.

 

There is absolutely a movement to diversify casts, and it is a good thing. There is a long running assumption that only white straight men in their 30s can lead films-- so much that a soon as a black person is cast as a lead, society sees it as a "black movie." Same thing with women. You can't undo this without diversifying.

 

What is happening is that studios are telling casting agents they want to see diverse options. The whole "best actor for the right role" saying only seems to crop up when a POC takes a seemingly cis-white male part. It's total bullshit. Casting directors are being encouraged to put all creeds and colors in front of directors so the "best" choice is just as likely to be black (or asian) as white. If this still leads to an all-white cast, yeah, there will be some blowback.

 

Whitewashing in casting is another problem-- and it's not as simple as somebody saying "I don't like that this character is asian, let's make them white." The problem is, casting is often based on the bankability of the actor more than their talent-- and guess what, there are only a handful of a-list asian actors. Why? Because they were never put in the mix.

 

This is a problem Hollywood is trying to overcome. If you read the statement John Boyega is making, he';s not complaining that he was a diversity hire. Quite the opposite-- he's saying that he was given a realm legit part that had nothing to do with the color of his skin, and that part was lessened over the films-- which is a completely different problem.

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Sure-- there's a lot of bullshit and evil in Hollywood, but it's also an industry of super woke people. I just hate blanket statements about "Hollywood" like it's one person.It's an industry of hundreds of thousands of people.

 

Hollywood only has one problem-- it's about money. Granted all businesses need to make money, but decisions and choices that seem racial or sexist are because it has always been a rich white dude's club. Which of course leads to all the other problems of abuse. Bad movies are always the result of somebody in the loop obsessed with making money off a film.

 

But you're going to see a huge shift in the next two decades as every junior exec right now is a woman, most of them of color, and eventually they will promote up.

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Pocahontas

Princess and The Frog

High School Muscial

 

Just off the top of my head, those all had interracial couples. And if I think to all the awful Disney Channel shows my kid watched when he was little, Cory in the House, The Suite Life, and Wizards of Waverly Place all had either kids dating outside their race, or featured couple parents of different ethnicities.

 

If you want to get really specific to live action stuff on the level of Star Wars-- Starlord and Gamorra (she's green, but played by a black actress) in Guardians.

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Pocahontas

Princess and The Frog

High School Muscial

 

Just off the top of my head, those all had interracial couples. And if I think to all the awful Disney Channel shows my kid watched when he was little, Cory in the House, The Suite Life, and Wizards of Waverly Place all had either kids dating outside their race, or featured couple parents of different ethnicities.

 

If you want to get really specific to live action stuff on the level of Star Wars-- Starlord and Gamorra (she's green, but played by a black actress) in Guardians.

Jabba and Leia?

The Rancor Keeper and the Rancor?

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