I bet you didn’t know that Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a social justice propaganda film. I didn’t either. I thought it was a nostalgia movie with a recycled plot, but one thing it doesn’t do is hammer you with didacticism. But this guy watched it, and all he saw was a woman and a black man in lead roles, and it made him furious.
The Force Awakens is spectacularly replete with the handiwork of the avowed Social Justice Warrior JJ Abrams. So where can I possibly start in my criticisms? From the casting, which puts minorities and women incessantly and ridiculously in your face to make a political point (not tell a story), to the laziest of all space battles, the problems with the Episode 7 are more than numerous.
Whoa. More than numerous? That must be, like, a lot.
I feel dirty agreeing with him on some things: yes, the plot was kind of lazy, full of plot holes that Abrams could trust fans to fill in with rationalizations for him, but the one thing that didn’t bother me at all was the casting. Rey (woman) and Finn (black man) were actually good in their roles — and they were excellent new heroes for a new set of movies. I just wish the story had done more with them.
But this guy goes on and on about how women are unrealistic as members of the military, and how the plot suffers because it stuffs in all these women and blacks and Asians in roles that apparently would be better served by white men. He’s also quite confused about whether they are tokens or Mary Sues (hint: those are opposites of one another). He seems particularly irate that the villain is a white man who gets defeated by non-white non-males in fights. That is against the natural order!
Look: this is a movie set in a huge galaxy-spanning civilization, with weird aliens all over the place (mainly in bars, it seems, but that’s a different complaint). How can you get upset with the most basic nod to human diversity, especially when the two actors chosen to star are better at their jobs than the original, mostly white cast?
I will point out that even here on Earth, in our planet-bound species, 60% of humans are Asian, and 15% are African. Even our traditional bastions of whiteness, Europe and North America, are going to be ‘minority majority’ nations by 2050. Half of all humans are women. If you’re going to be frustrated by the fact that a science-fiction movie that includes Wookies and Bothans and Mon Calamari and robots has a cast that reflects the makeup of our species to a small degree, then you’re going to be horrified by the reality of the next few decades on this one small planet.
Which, perhaps, explains a little bit of the awfulness of the people who migrate to the Men’s Rights Movement. It’s not that there are no legitimate concerns in men’s issues, but that so many of the ‘activists’ who label themselves MRAs and MGTOWs and whatever ridiculous acronym they’ve invented are driven more by resentment and hatred and frustration at their diminishing privileges. How dare women refuse to submit to them! Who are these brown people living in my neighborhood?
This article comes from Roosh’s terrible site, which explains a lot. Of course a contributor to a site that’s all about demeaning women and non-white people would be angry about a movie that featured a diverse cast. (And speaking of Roosh, go watch this BBC documentary about those pissed-off MRAs, starring Roosh. Really, the most poisonous thing about the Men’s Rights Movement is that the most horrible people are all running the show.)
It is inevitable that their rage is only going to grow, because they stand in defiance of reality and are constantly getting smacked in the face with a changing world.
The deniers of feminism’s core argument – that women are given a raw deal – are standing on a flat earth. Men have been able to assert their physical dominance over women, more able to kill and suppress them. That’s led to centuries of inequality and oppression, but slowly, the arc is bending towards justice. Only a cave dweller, intimidated by the concept of equality, would see that as a bad thing.
They’re doomed, in the same way creationists are doomed: truth keeps being true, and keeps driving real progressive change. But don’t get cocky — frustrated patriarchal loons tend to lash out when their long-held dominance begins to crumble.
ugh.
sorry, Rey, as hero (sic, for emphasis) was pretty much the only good thing about that stew rehash stew of remixed A New Hope. Seeing the story through her eyes refreshed the rehash instead of making it a lame remake of that movie about a teenager “chosen one” who is setting off to fulfill his destiny. Rey brought a fresh sense of discovery to finder herself thrust into that unwanted role.
“frustrated patriarchal loons tend to lash out when their long-held dominance begins to crumble.”
Hence today’s NRA.
pft. the movie totally had a token white male neckbeard.
Roosh!? Roosh!? I get seven graphs in before you reveal this drivel is from Roosh!?!?!??!!!!!111!!!??!?!//!1 Why? Why PZ, why? No trigger (or drivel) warning? For shame PZ, for shame!
Honestly, do you really think that Roosh and his ilk will define the cultural narrative of TFA. It is deemed the only Star Wars film that finally young girls can relate to. And I think this latter point gets lost in translation among the many critiques. It’s a kids’ movie! Back in the 70s flicks like Star Wars had an influence on me to pursue sciency things. I couldn’t care less if the plot is formulaic or that the acting isn’t Shakespearian. If Rey’s hyperdrive saviness aboard the Millenium Falcon motivates impressionable young girls to pursue engineering then this film deserves an Oscar for that alone.
Ah yes, the old “there has to be a reason for them to not be white men” trope.
http://www.avclub.com/article/nick-kids-importance-diversity-childrens-televisio-210435
Diversity really, really sticks in their craw.
“Only a cave dweller, intimidated by the concept of equality, would see that as a bad thing.”
I rather suspect most cave dwellers would be horrified by the idea of abusing women and people of different skin colors. It isn’t until you get social stratification that such things become important.
Since the entire cast will be back for at least two more Star War movies, I would advise racists to pace their tears. They will need them in the next couple of years as the Black male and White female stars are not going anywhere.
I watched TFA and liked it as a great sci-fi adventure movie. I have not watched any of the other Star Wars movies so I have no way to judge if TFA was better or worse than the others though.
In the words of William Shatner: “Get a life.” If he can’t handle women and minorities getting lead roles in fiction movies, he needs to lock himself in a room and just watch ’70s movies.
Spoiler alert: Turns out Chewie is actually a female wookie!!
That’ll get their knickers in a twist.
I read this as “Space will not be full of white penises” and imagined a giant fleet of space dongs.
Kurt Vonnegut story about space travel.
Warning: contains dirty words.
When I saw the title, I thought it was going to be about Mormons.
I enjoyed the movie. Despite the artistically conservative plot, despite the hackneyed dialogue (though it was not that bad, despite the obsession with being bigger (no longer a Deathstar the size of a moon, now it is the size of a planet and destroys a star for each shot), it was fun.
I saw it with my son, my daughter and her fiance. As we left the theater, my FSIL said, loudly, “I can’t believe Darth Vader is Luke’s father!” and got a loud laugh from everyone around.
The anti-anyonenotwhiteandmale is predictable. Sad, but predictable.
He better hope no one ever decides to film the Honor Harrington books. He’d probably have a stroke…several times over.
On the other hand, he probably would have been a lot happier if Lucas had gotten the rights to do what he originally wanted to…film E. E. “Doc” Smith’s _Lensmen_ series. That’s pretty much THE classic “space opera” series. Until the last book, nearly every character of significance is male, and very likely white (though that’s never stated, so someone filming it could exercise…artistic license). But Lucas couldn’t get the rights, so he created his own universe.
Mind you, I’d *like* to see the Lensmen books filmed, though it would have to be done very carefully to be any good (e.g. keep Peter Jackson and whoever did Starship Troopers *far* away from the project). One minor problem would be to do the scenes involving vacuum tubes be done seriously, for instance.
To be honest, A New Hope was ripped off of Flash Gordon (which was ripped off of Buck Rogers), and had a plot pretty much as holy as The Force Awakens.
Maybe you were just younger when you saw it?
I’m sure the fact that all the “good guys” are straw Libertarians would assuage any outrage over the fact that some of them are women.
No, no. It’s a parable that supports US imperialism.
e.g.:
Re: microraptor @ # 16…
There is also the problem that not only is Manticore a monarchy (albeit a constitutional monarchy), but the government structure he first wrote into the books can’t work. He later realized that and tried to backpedal. For what it’s worth, my son refers to the HH books as “spaceship porn”. One of the biggest readability problems is that Weber likes to state all the calculations he has done for his space battles, practically dealing with it missile by missile. It would be like describing a WW2 Naval action by detailing the results of each and every shell fired.
whheydt@14 (wilson and/or dorothy) – as I understand it, the Smith estate was so upset with the quality of the Lensmen anime that they refused to allow any other adaptations.
I’m guessing the author of the screed in question hasn’t served in the US military, where the percentage of women has gone up considerably since the early ’70s, and African-American women enlist at a considerably higher percentage than their percentage of the overall American population.
http://www.mintpressnews.com/whos-joining-the-us-military-poor-women-and-minorities-targeted/43418/ Further some militaries outside the US allow women to serve in all combat roles, such as the Canadian Armed Forces, although their numbers to date have been relatively small.
I had been hoping they would cast an orc in that role, for the verisimilitude
@crimson #10:
Wait til the regressives find out find out that wookie society teaches their grade schoolers that sex distinct from gender and both are social constructs. Perhaps they’ll be reassured by the fact that wookie society outlawed government funding for bonbons.
Re: dannysichel @ #19…
That may very well have been the case. Having *seen* the anime Lensman, I can well understand being horrified. It starts out with a dying Lensman giving his lens to a kid–Kimball Kinnison–and his comic relief side-kick is van Buskirk. /shudder. Very, very anime. Lensman…not so much.
Weird aliens are actually all just drunks, though? I mean, that’s just the natural order of the universe.
That said, I would like to see more Ithorians in the military and off the Juma Juice.
I haven’t seen it yet, so I can’t really comment on the quality of the movie either way. But I’ve seen similar spew about this movie before — it was almost as comical as watching Steve Doocy from Faux Snooze complain that Anna and Elsa from Frozen should have been Strong Male Characters. (yes, he did. it was an epic WTF moment)
Now, as for these new actors being better than Sir Alec Guinness ? oh, Please. oh, okay, Sir Alec’s role is basically over before the halfway point. Oh, by the way, why do all the aliens have to be basically bipedal humanoids ? Wouldn’t a quadruped, hexapod or even some sort of giant amorphous blob be a viable life form, from an evolutionary standpoint ?
Yeah, because clearly adherence to accurate portrayals of evolution was a priority in a movie set a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
Okay a couple of corrections. Black people are not 15% of the world. African population is, but not Africans all over the world. They break it down by country and that creates an inaccurate picture of how we are not exactly the real minority, but are told we are because. . .racism/white supremacy.
MRA/MGTOW are not “movements’ and their members are not “activists.” Activists are taking actions to solve the problems they are activists about. There is community work, fund raising, protests, taking political action, volunteering for work regarding the things they list as problems they wish to solve. MRA/MGTOW’s entire platform is to attack anyone who is actually an activist. To criticize. To disrupt. To bully. To threaten. To intimidate. The things MRA/MGTOW never to is actually do something about the so-called “men’s issues” they claim to be interested in solving. Stalking feminists, blogging about the SJW boogieman trying to ruin their lives by. . .um. . .staring in a movie? Yeah, that makes sense. Yet do you know of any real work being done by this legion of so-called “men’s activists” other than complaining about feminists and people of color and people trying to make the world a better place and people concerned for the planet? Do you see them raising funds to end male rape, donate to organizations concerned with suicide, putting together a food drive for all those men who are completely broke since the courts made them pay for the children they help bring into the world? Anything other than one lonely little possibly an organization who does one thing and not even pretending to be good at it?
This is the “Free Thought Project” which implies progressive. And it’s time Progressives stop dancing around stuff like this. We keep wanted to be “nice” and that does not work. Call MRA/MGTOW what they are – a hate-group. Their sole purpose is to maintain racism and sexism and homophobia and all the wonderful things that keep mostly sis-white-males at the privilege status they think is owed to them. Yeah and all the three blacks and five women who are part of these things do is perpetuate the very thing MRA/MGTOWs are about – hate for women, minorities, non-Christians and homosexual. They might pretend to be about one or two tokens from these groups but that does not change the agenda they’ve demonstrated by their horrible actions. Times to stop pussyfooting around with this and stop pretending these crazy people have anything relating to an actual issue. Sis-White-Men are not suffering from any form of racism nor sexism that affects them in any other tangible way but to their benefit. Enough with this nonsense of these poor excuse for bullies being anything related to “activists.”
@26: There are “MRAs” like Ally Fogg right here on this blog network; he does stuff.
umarhsoaries (#26)
So. New here, eh?
Ah! The solution to the Fermi paradox at last! There are plenty of intelligent ETs out there, but they spend all their time getting hammered rather than inventing warp drives.
I LOVED the casting. Loved it. Good-enough actors, and a serviceable plot, made for a Star Wars experience just like I remember. But then, I enjoyed the prequels, do I’m hardly Geek Orthodox anyway.
Me too. I immediately saw the less-than-subtle parallels to the previous movie (bar scene, the giant-er ball of metal planet with a big cannon and its destruction, etc.), but I liked them all more than I did the original. At least what I remember. And I was a kid when I saw the originals. I liked all the characters better. I liked old Han Solo better than Fonz Han Solo. Rey was infinitely more awesome than that wimp Luke. The reluctant storm trooper is a very interesting character with so much potential, I wonder if they’ll tackle the reason why he could overcome his brainwashing so seemingly easily. BB-8 was cooler than Arturito (yeah, first time I saw them was in Spanish). Overall I’m anticipating I will like this trilogy more than the original.
By the way, if you’re a cinema tech geek, go see the IMAX laser screenings. Goddamn. I would like to have seen it in 2D laser though, but 3D is also much much better than regular polarized 3D. If you’ve seen the difference between the picture of a really good plasma vs. a shitty LCD, that’s about it. It’s a new projection tech, so so far in the LA area only 2 theaters have it that I know of, the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood and the AMC IMAX at Universal Citywalk. It’s more expensive even for LA, but if you’re interested about this type of thing, you wanna see this movie in that format.
Thanks Andyo, I thought regular Polarized 3D was amazing when I saw it. This movie was the first one I’ve seen in that format. I may make a trip up to Cincinnatti just to see it. And when I pass the Creation Museum I’ll just laugh and laugh.
It would be like describing a WW2 Naval action by detailing the results of each and every shell fired.
In fairness, “Jutland: An Analysis Of The Fighting” pretty much does that. And it’s more exciting than the Honor Harrington books, too. Like the Honor Harrington books, it utterly lacks characters – it simply deals with the impact of each shell and its damage; you can infer the overall engagement from that, if you’re good at synthesizing from details.
Recommended!
http://www.amazon.com/Jutland-Analysis-Fighting-Maritime-Classics/dp/1558217592
I wonder if he ever saw Alien where the main character is a woman Marine.
Nevermind Ripley…does this fuckwit know that there are actual women in the actual military? The only unrealistic thing in this whole thing is the proposition that this arshole has a grip on reality.
D’oh! The Ithorian race makes so much more sense now!
@A. Noyd, #28:
You win my cold, rocky heart.
Ripley isn’t a marine, she’s a spacer, but Vasquez was a female marine in the sequel.
throwaway #33,
Normally I prefer 2D rather than 3D (polarized), but this “IMAX with laser” (that’s the official name AFAICT) is really really good. The 3D looks like it’s based on the Infitec system, which doesn’t use polarization so there are no double images whatsoever, even when you tilt your head. The “laser” part gives it amazing color and contrast and the blackest blacks I’ve seen on a projected image by far (though probably screen and theater environment also counts — I can vouch for the one at Universal CityWalk). Unfortunately it appears to be available only in 1 theater in SF and 2 in LA for the moment.
I just read that Dolby has a competing system called Dolby Cinema, which is also in a handful of theaters, but you likely don’t get the IMAX giant screen.
Not reading comments, I haven’t seen it yet.
My BFF, who is for sure not a “SJW” really liked it. He liked that it was “toned down” in special effects and he had only good things to say about Finn.
But probably the existence of a white guy who might find a black guy attractive is part of the “SJW agenda”
Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Max von Sydow, and Oscar Isaac. That’s four white males, one black male (Boyega), and two white females (Ridley and Fisher) on the roster of human heroes with large roles in TFA. And even this modest nod to diversity is too much for some people.
DLC @24
There are plenty of non-bipedal and even blob-like forms in the SW Universe. They just hold no prominent places in the Republic. And the Empire/First Order is almost entirely human. There are a lot of issues of classism and species bigotry going on in SW. Why do you think members of certain species are more likely to be bounty hunters or some other sort of criminal? Why do both the Republic and Empire only build ships for roughly human-sized and shaped life-forms? Because humanoid life-forms act very preferentially toward those more like them.
There are a lot of parts where derogatory phrases are thrown out toward Wookies, whose vocal chords cannot proximate the speech of other species and who are significantly taller.
Also, if you look back: There is no justification given in any movie that the Force has a Light and a Dark Side. And neither the Jedi nor the Sith seem to give a bantha turd about the destruction of innocent lives until they number in the billions (or are fellow Jedi/Sith).