Star Wars

Yes, I'm very Left Wing and happily have written why it's a good thing not to make real life racism/sexism in Star Wars. You give a voice to RL authoritarian ideals in fiction when you depict it in children's entertainment. If you make the Empire racist and sexist you are giving a voice to racism and sexism.

It doesn't matter if its depicted negatively, it is benefiting it. No Such Thing as Bad Publicity.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 3rd 2020 at 9:40:05 AM

You aren’t giving a voice to racists and sexists by making them unquestionably evil in their portrayal. It’s exactly because of nonsense like “the Empire just wants order and is accepting all colors and lifestyles” that you have the franchise come off as being unintentionally anti democratic and pro-authoritarian.

Evil Is Cool wasn’t born out of just the Empire’s imagery, but out of twenty years of ancillary material softening and sanitizing its portrayal.

Um...no.

People support the Empire in real life because its sexist and racist. The Alt-Right fans of the Empire are people who like the organization as an all-white bunch of British guys, not because of Rae Sloane.

They wouldn't like it because...well, it shows a black woman leading it.

For me, the racism and sexism is intristically part of the appeal of the Empire to RL fascists.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 3rd 2020 at 9:58:40 AM

It’s a different group of people talking up the Empire when the Imperials are POC, but the result is the same. I’m not really interested in enabling black people and brown people see themselves in space fascists.

Well in the case of Ciena Ree, it's a tragic story about someone destroyed by an evil government.

But I point out that if you remove Doctor Aphra being an Asian lesbian, you have one less Asian lesbian in the universe.

And she's FUN as a bad guy.

The solution would be to have an Asian lesbian pro-Alliance archaeologist and an Aryan-looking straight pro-Imperial archaeologist, like a play in Indiana Jones and Rene Belloq. Aphra eventually abandons Imperial service so she’s cool, and she has enough depth and character development that it’s ultimately fine, but like, the First Order has more POC onscreen than the Resistance does, and the Empire’s last major standard bearer before it becomes the FO is a black woman. That disturbs me — people should feel some sense of out of universe lockout in supporting the Empire. They shouldn’t be able to picture themselves living comfortably in this society.

Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Aug 3rd 2020 at 1:18:04 PM

Well that's not Doctor Aphra because she's a Villain Protagonist and a hilarious one at that.

By the time she has her own comic, she isn't really that terrible. Certainly not "Collaborator" tier terrible.

But she started out as a literal Vader fangirl, to the point she was pretty much fine with him eventually killing her. She got character development yes but she was very much a villain.

In the old Legends canon you had characters like Pellaeon or Soontir Fel who were Imperial but much more honourable and reasonable than the likes of Tarkin. I think there's room for shades of grey.

Of course, given how the Empire tends to be, the gray it's kind of forced to decide to either go white or black at some point.

Indeed. There were those who were Just Following Orders because they believed the Empire was the best thing for the Galaxy (or couldn't rebel against the Empire for fear of retribution), but there were just as many, if not more, psychos.

After all, when news about Alderaan broke out there were a huge number of defections to the Rebellion, especially since the Imperial cover story was bullshit.

I dunno, i thought the Rebels really did blow up Alderaan.

No wait, clearly Alderaan was making bio weapons so the Empire did nothing wrong(TM) blowing it up without any form of investigation to prove it. Just kill em all.

I always wondered when the propaganda arm of the Empire lost power to people like Tarkin.

The guy who says, "Yes. I blew up this planet because they're pacifists!"

Because he's all about Obviously Evil and letting you know you can't do anything versus Palpatine's old, "No, THEY are the baddies."

Man, i imagine the PR department of the Empire must really be taken for granted.

Like imagine your job is to justify the general cartoon villainy of the Empire and when you've come up with a good excuse, someone like Darth Vader killed a nurse and now you have to write a report to her family.

The finished construction of the Death Star was pretty much when the Empire seemed to have stopped giving a shit about keeping up appearances - Alderaan was destroyed shortly after Palpatine dissolved the Senate, which up to that point had still served as a fig leaf.

Erasing the last symbol of democracy while simultaneously blowing up a pacifist core world was pretty much the stupidest thing they could have done.

And if I recall correctly, the Empire actually tried out different lies post-Alderaan. None of them worked, if only because people didn't trust a government that kept rolling out a different story every other week.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Aug 5th 2020 at 4:10:38 PM

Of course, the idea was that after completing the Death Star, they wouldn't need to keep up appearances because people would be cowed after the immediate rage cooled. But then, Luke blew it up. So the people would still be pissed off and see the Empire isn't invincible.

Yeah, that's why in my joke, i kept switching stories for why Alderaan was blown up.

So... remind me again why certain Star Wars fans are hating The High Republic? Like, just list off all the reasons why they hate it, and give me the reasons why I shouldn't give a shit about those kinds of fans.

Edited by AngrokVa on Jan 5th 2021 at 8:39:00 AM

Are any of the books even out yet? Pretty sure it's still just Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch at best.

Edited by Discar on Jan 5th 2021 at 5:40:48 AM

At least five are out now, I think, including two comic books. I've been reading a lot of the usual "Kathleen Kennedy/Disney sucks", "They're pushing a woke SJW agenda" and "I don't like how the story sounds" comments on YouTube videos relating to The High Republic.

Edited by AngrokVa on Jan 5th 2021 at 8:48:38 AM

So far its: There are women, There are POC, A lot of the plot is more about diplomacy and understanding than laser sword fights.

Edited by Krory on Jan 5th 2021 at 5:48:45 AM

Right... because that's all that Star Wars has... laser sword fights, during which you could easily shut your brain off.

Yeah, those kinds of people shouldn't even be called fans if they know jack shit about anything beyond the duels and Stuff Blowing Up.

Edited by AngrokVa on Jan 5th 2021 at 8:52:51 AM

So, anyone with two working brain cells gave them a look? How are first impressions?

Haven't read any of them yet. But I am interested in Light of the Jedi, and will probably be getting the audiobook version tomorrow.

Edited by AngrokVa on Jan 5th 2021 at 9:09:22 AM

I'm getting Light of the Jedi and Into the Dark on audiobook right now. The Rising Storm doesn't come out until June, which is what was throwing me off.