#thanks for putting it into words
this has probably been said elsewhere and better but i miss the days in star wars when the oppressive empire was made up of white men with british accents. that wasn’t an accident and it wasn’t a trivial decision, like they are the face and voice of power and oppression both in the past and today. giving these roles to women and people of color feels like… idk obfuscating or something? like don’t get me wrong i very much want more diversity in star wars, but the empire being a monolithic sea of white men with imperial accents, and the good guys being a diverse crowd of allies from all demographics, it implicitly communicated something important.
wait op are you talking about the poc inquisitor
yeah i made this post after watching the kenobi trailer and seeing reva, but i was also thinking about moff gideon in the mandalorian, trilla in the jfo game, and the character design choices of the bad batch tv show. i was thinking about how there’s a pattern in making the empire and the villains more diverse, but the heroes are somehow still white, and how the implications of that are bad.
i’ve gotten plenty of anons about this post and i just want to clarify a little bit. 1977 star wars combined the dress and ranks of nazi germany, the weapons and aesthetics of the american military industrial complex, and the accent of what americans consider to be the most privileged, powerful, and patronizing people they know, the ruling class of britain. that’s the formula for an evil space empire: a white supremacist, exploitative, genocidal oppressor that had to be destroyed by a diverse coalition of allies. i personally think that the selfish, dangerous bad actors in our society today happen to be the same rich and powerful white men as were the problem when star wars was first created, and so i think maybe we shouldn’t be in such a hurry to replace the face of that fictional fascist empire in our cultural mythology with token diversity and make it so that, for example in the kenobi trailer, a black woman gets to oppress the white posh male lead. i don’t really care at this point if there’s an interesting narrative reason that she was coerced into becoming the oppressor, that’s a story that really deserves for her to be the main character, with her actress in the leading role. unfortunately that seems like it might be unlikely to happen, as we saw what happened to john boyega, how finn didn’t end up the main hero in the sequels and instead, they asked us to identify with rey, a white woman with an upper class british accent, and encouraged us to sympathize with and forgive the fascist kylo ren. this is all very frustrating and concerning to me. i think we need to keep in mind that it’s very possible to personally enjoy these awesome nonwhite, female, and/or queer coded villains, as i am sure that reva will be badass, but also use critical thinking about the reasons why they are there.
TW: references to suicide, death
So I watched the RWBY V8 finale yesterday, and…besides being not okay, I’m fucking tired.
I’m taking a moment to rant, because this episode really bothered me. As someone who started watching this show in ~2015, I feel like I’ve invested a good chunk of time in the series. For fans who enjoyed V8 and are looking forward to V9–I’m happy for you, I am. And I completely respect your opinion.
But personally, I couldn’t stand this last episode.
