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You scoff. If the story was made up, righteously so. But I think it's funny how you claim the moral high ground every time one of us complains about political correctness going too far. Creativity and artistic liberty are being impeded by this very thing. Not always and certainly not everywhere, but quite a few films, some in the SW series even, have suffered tremendously from characters and casts that were chosen for the sake of diversity, even if the characters end up useless or poorly written, and the actors not always very good at what they do.
It's so easy to dismiss frustrations some of us have as exaggerations or the result of blindly falling victim to cheap clickbait. But hey, as long as we're still not burning down football stadia because the team lost and we demand the trainer fired, I think we can have a debate on the subject of woke complainers showing up left and right and studios succumbing to their wishes. I mean, please correct me if I'm wrong but we are still allowed to discuss this phenomenon, right? Interesting if that makes you sick, though.
It's a tricky shell game to play. The belief that wokeism is terrific and overdue is often paired with the contradictory suggestion that wokeism doesn't actually exist at all and it's just in your head.
If ALIEN and ALIENS had come out today you know there would be limp dicks on the internet accusing the filmmakers of “shoving an agenda down our throats”.
If GOLDENEYE had come out today there would be so many outcries on social media by man babies for the way M admonishes Bond by calling him a “sexist misogynist dinosaur”.
Those folks are just ready to make those accusations today because they have a weird persecution complex fueled by the YouTube equivalents of Rush Limbaugh.
I don't think Alien or Aliens would be considered anything but awesome if released today, and I don't know why you would think otherwise. If you buy this idea that the Disney Star Wars films got any meaningful backlash over having a female lead, I suppose it makes sense to you, but you shouldn't be buying that idea.
I certainly wouldn't sign my name to everything any anti-woke person says, for example, the above suggestion that "Rey was a Mary Sue character put in to push KKs feminist agenda" I find pretty absurd. (Not the Mary Sue part, the "KK's feminist agenda" part) But at least on this page those folks are less insistent on ugly, baiting language like "limp dicks" and "man babies".
This is largely performative and tribalistic. I mean, what was the question earlier? "Hey guys, what's with the inexplicable dearth of female-led Star Wars content lately?" How is this a serious question at all?
It always comes down to the writing and people's willingness to actually engage with it if it's actually good. Anything beyond that, and we're into the territory of actively looking for things to be annoyed by.
The reception to PWB on these boards from certain people is another interesting example. She writes really good characters and great dialogue and yet all of that is seemingly swept aside in one swift statement by labelling her "woke".
I think the phrase has lost its meaning by this point.
People fall for these stories way too easily, and yes it makes me as sick as the reverse -even though not true- makes RogueAgent. I guess it's equally interesting that RogueAgent feels that way, or I would hope so. I am allowed to discuss that, right? I hope you'll admit you were wrong to call these people who complained to the BBFC morons when you were, in fact, agreeing with them. And you and others did 'blindly fall victim' to this news story as you put it, I'm guessing because you wanted to believe it and it validated your previously held opinions, rather than looking into it properly or judging it with a cool head. A lot of people are too easily provoked into this culture war -on both sides- and we can't just take stuff like this story at face value. However you frame it, that was more your mistake than it was mine (although I do blame the press more for feeding this fire). It's not "if" it was made up either (rather, it was headlined in an extremely misleading way): I provided proof which is still available to read in my post upthread. If you think the story actually was correct then I'm prepared to debate it.
We can talk about so-called 'woke campaigners' but if they need to be invented in order to fought against and have names thrown at them, as with this BBFC story, then there's clearly a bit of a problem; and it does make me sick that such huge divides in society can be caused by people falling for lies and deception. Doesn't it you? Do you not feel a bit duped by the media in this case?
As you mention football, I saw again today a load of people on twitter saying how awful it was the 'woke mafia' or whatever they want to call it had 'cancelled' a comedian (he was dropped by his agent and had a load of shows cancelled), but it was because he'd made a really nasty and inflaming 'joke' about how white players can take penalties and black men can't. That's not being 'woke', that's a guy being a racist, plain and simple, and it's not acceptable. As Craig says, 'woke' has lost its meaning and is unfortunately quite often to be associated with racists (I'm not saying that everyone who uses it is a racist).
I can't think of any characters in SW which suffered because of diversity of actors. That's also something quite hard to blame just on diversity quotas because bad white actors exist too: if you ask me Hamill wasn't all that great (I know others feel differently and that's fine) and he was chosen for the sake of continuity- I don't think he'd have been cast in that role had it been a new role in the script. I'm not going to campaign to stop continuity though! :)
I don't think the increase in diversity is always executed perfectly: how could it be? Nothing is perfect and people get things wrong- the example I usually think of is when Radio 2 put Jo Whiley and Simon Mayo together because they wanted to increase the female mix on the station at that time and the whole show fell apart despite being very successful up until that point. But that doesn't mean that every decision taken is a bad one, and it doesn't mean that overall the benefits to society aren't greater as we try to move towards inclusion and acceptance and equality.
Ripley is always right in those films: everything she does turns out to be right, she runs rings around the white male Army leader who is shown to be incompetent (plus you have Burke as the ultimate embodiment of the treacherous white male: literally 'the Man'): she's the ultimate Mary Sue. Or she would stand a very high chance of being called that today by all the same people who called Rey that based on the evidence we've seen, had it been a previously established series. Because that's often the main problem with these things: fans of existing series.
Do you mean in this thread? You're misrepresenting that and misquoting it, with similar effects to how the anti-'woke' thing often repositions things in order to provoke: see the Mail article linked to above we're discussing. And why wouldn't it be a valid question to note that female-led series are increasing? Have you not noticed that?
Indeed, and unless I misremembering of course her input into 007 was labelled 'woke', again, by the Daily Mail. There are obvious agents at work trying to inflame this war.
Another guy on Twitter I saw was complaining about the BBFC ratings story saying that 'the biased BBC' changed the ratings because of complaints it and Ofcom received. He'd swallowed so much of this propaganda that he didn't even understand that the BBC and the BBFC aren't in any way related. The BBC have never even shown Flash Gordon! :D
100%.
Male lead characters don't need to be justified by having 'wonderful arcs' though: they're just accepted. I know it's not your intention but the unfortunate thing about what you're saying is that Rey would be complained about less in misogynistic terms like Mary Sue if she were written well, whereas no-one complains about, say Bucky being a man in Falcon & Winter Soldier (first thing that came to mind because it's Disney show and I didn't think was all that good).
The most recent Terminator film got accusations of being woke, even though the (good) films in that series were always the story of a woman. It wasn't a superb film, but it frankly shouldn't have to be -nor have a wonderful arc for Sarah- to avoid those 'woke' comments. Bad films star men all the time and they don't get accused of tokenism.
Very fair points (though the Bucky comment is lost on me as I didn't see The Falcon & Winter Soldier, I'm afraid)!
I guess my own feelings influenced the statement there, as my initial reaction is rarely to go for the tokenism criticism regardless of whether it's male or female.
You're right insofar as part of the issue is that SW is an existing series. Ethan Hunt is very Mary Sue-ish. He's completely omnicompetent, and to the best of my recollection, he has never been wrong about anything. But that's been that series from the beginning.
Star Wars is a series where the heroes whine, make bad decisions, get their limbs cut off, and need to be rescued. Rey, who is nothing like Ripley, is repeatedly shown to not need help of any kind, and to not lack any skill set whatsoever. There's no indication that she has cause to fear the villain either. And unlike Ripley, who is just the crew member that lasts the longest, everyone around Rey just feels that special specialness about her. These are not similar characters. Hell, only one of them is really a character at all.
And that's not to say that these movies are meant to be woke. CraigMooreOHMSS is right. A woke person would not write a movie where a black slave is happy to be renamed by a Caucasian guy he just met, and then have the concept of injustice womansplained to him by a ridiculous character in the following movie, where he is demoted to comic relief janitor.
And I don't think many feminists would have Rey be such a hollow Mary Sue in the first place, nor would they have her spend virtually all of TLJ desperately asking jerky men for help. Though to be fair, the very silly Holdo character was probably an effort on Rian's part to be a bit feminist.
The wokeness is just in the discussions around the films. The disingenuous claims that there was a backlash to the trilogy because of female leads. Again, female-led Rogue One is very popular with the SW fanbase, including those who despise the sequels.
I'm not much into Terminator, but my understanding of this was that John Connor was killed off only to be replaced by a woman who serves the exact same purpose as John Connor. It's not terribly different, if this is true, to the way Star Wars undoes any good Anakin or Luke did so that they can have Rey do the same thing they did (albeit more easily and with her limbs intact!). These are not really terrific storytelling decisions, and if they're made in service of having a particular kind of casting, I don't see why it's unreasonable to dislike it.
Incidentally, with no knowledge of this Terminator film beyond what I've just typed, I'm willing to bet that John Connor's lady replacement is not a particularly strong or well-crafted character, and the zeitgeist appeasement only goes as far as her female identity. These blockbusters, or attempted blockbusters, don't often go "full woke", to paraphrase Tropic Thunder, which of course could not be made today.
This really is all one big racket. To quote a piece of cynicism from DJ in The Last Jedi: ""They blow you up today, you blow them up tomorrow. It's just business." Two groups of people are uncharitable to one another and have media bubbles feeding their anger. One guy pretends the sequel trilogy is poisoned by "KK's feminist agenda", another guy pretends Rey is a modern Ellen Ripley. I suppose movies as bad as these are not good for much more than fighting inane culture wars.
When you pretend that the Terminator movie was called "woke" purely because of a female lead, you're part of the racket. I don't know if you're being disingenuous (like "Ellen Ripley is the ultimate Mary Sue"), or this is just a go-to assumption you like to make, but your representation of these discussions is absolutely at the Daily Mail level.
You're quite right that Rogue One gets a pass, but there doesn't have to be consistent logic to these accusations and they can't be held up to it, hence some of the complaints about Rey indeed are misogynistic.
You're right that Ethan Hunt is routinely perfect (sometimes they pretty much verge on winking at the camera that he's almost ridiculously skilled- surely him sketching a perfect portrait of a suspect on his hand is joke!), I also watched the first Captain America recently and he's another Mary Sue candidate: I can't think of him being less than perfect in that film, and this is in a cinematic universe which more or less started with the Tony Stark character being extremely flawed. But again, this character already existed (and is a man) so gets a free pass.
You would really have to contort yourself to read it like that, and be determined to be anti-women. It's not like John Connor is a loved character: he's not even been played by the same person twice and he doesn't have any consistent characterisation. I would like to hear the reasoning of anyone who is being upset that he's not in it. The whole point of the story of that film is that history has changed and the exact situation of the first films has been averted, only to be replaced with a similar fate for humanity.
Criticising it as a bad storytelling decision when you admit you have no knowledge of the film is pretty stunning stuff: you're just assuming it's bad because she's female.
She's a very weak character and the film isn't really interested in her, but that would be no different if she were a man. It's the situation of a new fate and its affect on Sarah that the film is more interested in.
I would suspect that the main reason she's a woman is just to contrast her from John: the point of the film is that 'it's happening again but to different people this time and fate can only be postponed'. If she were John, or another white man just like him (because we don't even really know what John looks like: he's had five or six different faces) there would be no contrast. Being angry just because she's a woman is mad, and it's certainly not reasonable.
She absolutely is Ripley-like in the aspect she's being criticised ie. she's always right. They're in different films: one is in a horror film where the objective is to escape (although in Aliens she does also affect a heroic rescue) and the other is in a adventure film where the objective is to win, so their ultimate goals and achievements are different, but really the main difference comes down to the fact that people are used to one because she's been around for 40 years and the other one is new, therefore it must be bad and poisoned by our terrible culture.
You're right that the media feeds this anger: it's amazing that the Mail article we're talking about actually mentions near the bottom that two films had their certificates actually lowered, thus undermining the culture war-feeding point it's trying to make, but it's almost as if it doesn't expect its readers to get that far. Put 'woke' in the headline and that's enough, that'll get them started.
It absolutely isn't. And I think you'll find that the 'woke' accusations came at the moment the first photo of the three female leads was unveiled, before anyone had even seen a trailer, and snowballed inevitably from there: if you're saying that you think those were intelligent observations based on the plot of the movie then you're part of the racket too.
You even admit that you have no knowledge of this movie, so I'm not sure how you claim to know that the 'woke' claims weren't based on the leads being female. you just know, somehow, that it's a bad storytelling decision made in order for a certain type of casting. Another one for the racket.
Well, it doesn't "get a pass". This is a circular reasoning pattern I've seen you employ, where the misogyny doesn't have to even make enough sense to be predictable, one just has to ask mtm and co to find out what's up. In reality, the vast majority of SW fans are not misogynist and have no problem at all with female leads, and while critics of the sequels are generally tarred with that brush, most of them have positive views of Rogue One, and even TFA. As discussed above, I'm sure there were creepy comments about The Force Awakens, but there will always be enough of that in the world for woke Daily Mail-equivalents to assist you in generalizing people. Actual wide-scale hate of these films began after the release of The Last Jedi.
You can have this idea that "these people swear they don't dislike TLJ etc because of racism/misogyny, and indeed they tend to quite like the diverse/female-led TFA and RO, but trust me, the real reason is misogyny/racism", but it's rubbish. Maybe you're unable to find fault with these movies (indeed, you do not appear to recognize a difference between Rey and Ripley), and are not charitable enough to believe faults can exist with them.
I have no idea why you think I'm assuming something is bad because there's a female lead. Adding bloat to the Terminator mythology by replacing one character (whether or not he was ever interesting) with a functionally identical character is bad storytelling. Killing Aki and introducing a nameless replacement in YOLT is bad storytelling too. We've discussed before how your estimation of the number of people "determined to be anti-women" is exponentially higher than mine, but I just don't see where the contortion is needed.
Er, no. Perhaps you watch films on a more superficial level or something, but Ellen Ripley is not really any kind of Mary Sue (though it wouldn't matter if she were because it's the start of a franchise). Alien does not repeatedly contrive moments to highlight her omnicompetence and complete sovereignty over every situation she's in. This is a contrast to Rey. And "She's always right" isn't even the core of the criticisms of Rey.
By the way: of course Ripley's always right. It would be rather odd if the sole survivor of that film were prone to making mistakes. Ripley is an organic character that makes sense. Rey is just better than everyone at everything and all around her think she's great. And I'll repeat, that's not woke screenwriting, it's just bad screenwriting.
I am only repeating what I've seen of Dark Fate discussion. As with TFA, I'm sure a few people were moaning from the beginning, and I'm sure that minority was given a loudspeaker and I'm sure that future, more widespread and more justified distaste was lumped in with the worst of it. That's the racket.
Let's turn the attitude down a bit please. There's no need to make this unpleasant and personal.
Misogyny and racism don't make sense. They're not logical and they're not reasonable.
Indeed, no-one said they were: we're not talking about the majority, we're talking about this particular subject.
Who are you quoting? I think TLJ is a poor SW movie, I've said it many times on this board I'm sure.
You said that you don't know the movie, so you seem to not know what it's about or what the purpose of making new characters was. You did however say that changes may have been "made in service of having a particular kind of casting". Were you not saying that the supposed bad storytelling decision was being made for a casting reason i.e. casting a woman? Without seeing the film, that is an assumption, and that's why I called it that.
Really? If we're going to resort to veiled insults about being stupid there's not much point in continuing this.
The problem is, 'Mary Sue' is not even a clearly defined criticism. It's often just deployed now against a female character who shows competence. And often has to be in an established series, as you say, but I almost wonder if that's less because of that phrase's origins and more because of how the margins of fanbases of big series operate.
By that logic you could say of course Rey is always right because she's the 'chosen one' in that particular story format. As I recall as the story opens she's treated like dirt and disregarded by everyone on the planet she lives on, anyway; so a certain amount of poetic licence is being used in her descriptions here.
As I said, Captain America lives pretty much the same story in his film. Or Anakin in Phantom Menace: he's brilliant at flying space fighters pretty much by accident!
You're sure of that based on no direct knowledge? Just pure assumption based on second hand reports and how you feel other situations have gone previously? That is a racket indeed.
I'm not replying to you any more on this one at the moment because you're getting too personal and aggressive in several points here for me: I'm not interested in that kind of discussion. You're not usually like this and usually more pleasant to talk to so maybe we can come back to it another day.
There is a frustrating slipperiness to these discussions. You do occasionally qualify things and say that "not all these people are misogynist/racist", but if any specific critique is mentioned, you'll insist that the actual reason is misogyny/racism. Someone can go on about how they love other recent movies with female/PoC leads, but that means nothing, misogynists and racists aren't consistent.
It just sounds like "I'm not saying they're sexists, but every critique of Rey comes from a place of misogyny." It sounds like you're talking out both sides of your mouth. You seem too clever for me to believe you're doing your best to understand criticisms of the Rey character but still think she's comparable to Ellen Ripley. And if you just google people moaning about Rey, "she's always right" will constitute a very small percentage of the complaints.
I mean: "By that logic you could say of course Rey is always right because she's the 'chosen one' in that particular story format.... Or Anakin in Phantom Menace: he's brilliant at flying space fighters pretty much by accident!" Star Wars actually does have a Chosen One, and his defining characteristic is that he is deeply flawed. To put it mildly. Effort is made to explain his flying skills, and as you say, his success in the climax is presented as accidental, with a touch of "or is it the Force?" Like Ellen Ripley, this is just nothing whatsoever like Rey. And to use your odd point of comparison, "always being right", Anakin is generally presented as rarely being right.
Incidentally, I agree with you partly about the term "Mary Sue". It has become a somewhat different thing. It used to refer more to a perfect character who is an avatar for the author. It now seems to refer more to this omnicompetence. I'd prefer the word kept its original definition and another word was used for Rey-type characters, but one has to keep up. "Misogyny" of course used to mean "hatred of women", but now it is a synonym for sexism or chauvinism. The loss of meaning is regrettable, but one has to use words as they're used now.
"Woke" as well. The word was coined by woke people, and the first person I ever heard say it in a mocking way was Barack Obama. My favorite commentator on these issues, black American linguist John McWhorter, also uses it. That slippery tendency I've referred to (wokeism is wonderful, and also it doesn't exist) extends to not wanting to have a term to refer to woke people. "SJW" is obviously sarcastic, and I never much liked it, but "woke" comes from the woke, and it seems like the best term. It would of course be convenient if one's critics didn't have a word to use, so I understand the impulse to dislike it.
https://images.app.goo.gl/jzfm8T4jYbL6YEhZA
Only one character in this trilogy got any care from the writers, and it was white male Kylo Ren. So try again.
https://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-truth-about-the-force-is-female.50049374/
So no, Kathleen Kennedy isn’t exactly setting out to do a female spin on The Handmaid’s Tale where women take over the world and the men are forced into roles of breeding stock.
This is pretty funny, but of course that version of The Handmaid's Tale would actually be anti-feminist. Having said that, if Disney Lucasfilm attempted to make a feminist work, it'd likely come out about that wildly wrong! :))
:))
Star Wars goes Animatrix!
Not dubbed with sub titles its peaked my interest as a fan of Anime, I will look to watch this version.
The Bad Batch ended up being quite boring. Probably will skip Season 2.