Você abriu as portas do universo de Star Wars para essa gente, Disney... Agora aguente!
Star Wars, We Need to Discuss Your White Brunette Obsession
Oh, Star Wars. Just when I think I’ve spoken enough about
the fandom state of the union, you go and pull another move like this.
The
casting of Keri Russell in a yet-unknown part is great news, because she’s a talented actress, but also bad news, because yet again another white brunette has been cast in a major role in the franchise.
Episode IXwill be the eleventh film in a franchise that, to this day, has only featured three women of color in prominent roles.
For a studio that has prided itself on diversity as of late, in their latest films that looks more than a little embarrassing. Unless Russell is playing Rey’s mother or another established character who simply has to be a white brunette, there is no reason that a woman of color shouldn’t have been cast.
This is the latest in a long line of casting disappointments from Lucasfilm. Rumors swirled that only white actresses were considered for the role of Jyn Erso, which ultimately went to Felicity Jones, and the shortlist for
Solo‘s leading lady Qi’ra was made up of Tessa Thompson, Zoe Kravitz, and Naomi Scott before Emilia Clarke swooped in and grabbed the role.
Even droid L3 is played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, a white brunette. The only exceptions to this rule are Kelly Marie Tran as Rose in
The Last Jedi, and Thandie Newton as Val and Erin Kellyman as marauder Enfys Nest in
Solo (Val is killed off for a white man’s pain after about five scenes and Kellyman was restricted from doing press for the film as to not spoil the surprise reveal of her character).
It’s rather disconcerting to think that all of Star Wars’s leading ladies look related. You can hardly blame fans for trying to make some sense of the casting by saying that Jyn would be Rey’s mother, or that Rey would be Leia’s (Carrie Fisher) daughter. After all, what reason would Lucasfilm have to cast all these similar-looking actresses if they’re not playing one extended family?
The only character we can understand calling for a white brunette was Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman), as she is Luke and Leia’s mother. Everyone else? There’s only Hollywood racism and short-sightedness making sure that they’re all played by white actresses.
Of course, articles like this will draw naysayers out of the woodwork who’ll say the best actress was cast for the role—though in that case, Tessa Thompson should have been cast over Emilia Clarke. There’s no denying that these brunettes are sometimes strong actresses, but also they are afforded a privilege based on being white that actresses of color are not. If Lucasfilm is not considering the full spectrum of actresses, how can they choose the best one? That argument is weak, and needs to be retired.
Star Wars is a cultural myth and needs to reflect more than just one type of person. This means women of color, LGBT+ women, and disabled women need to be reflected in the story as well. Fans have been speaking passionately about representation for years now, and each time it is like their requests fall on uncaring ears. The same goes for women behind the camera as well. While steps forward are being made with the hiring of Vic Mahoney as the second unit director for
Episode IX and with women such as Kiri Hart leading the story group, we need some women—especially women of color—writing and directing the Star Wars films as well. With the directorial line-up looking even less diverse than the leading lady line-up, it’s time for a serious shakeup.
It’s worth noting that the Star Wars books, video games, and television series all feature more diversity in terms of female characters. The
Aftermath series features Grand Admiral Rae Sloane, a black bisexual woman who founds the First Order and is a mentor to General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson).
Phasma features Vi, a black woman who’s a spy for the Resistance.
Inferno Squad and
Battlefront 2 are lead by Iden Versio, a biracial South Asian woman, and
Star Wars Rebels stars Sabine Wren, a Mandalorian weapons expert played by a South Asian woman whose character is not whitewashed. Why do we never see this diversity of representation onscreen?
Star Wars, you cannot claim to be political and diverse and not tell diverse stories. It doesn’t work. Prioritizing (brown-haired) white women and men over both characters and storytellers of color is a way to create an echo chamber.
It’s time to tell different stories from different voices, and actually live up to the promise of a future that’s inclusive. Otherwise, you’ll fall behind and be relegated back to the seventies as a reminder of a more dated time. Step up, Star Wars. The world is watching.
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Maybe Star Wars Should Go Easy on the British Brunettes
Daisy Ridley, Emilia Clarke, Felicity Jones.
That
new Solo trailer offers a whole lot to take in, from Donald Glover’s fur-clad Lando Calrissian to Alden Ehrenreich’s attempt to capture Harrison Ford’s cocksure swagger. As far as
Star Wars films go, this may be the most double-underlined attempt thus far to make everything old feel new again — peep those clean-as-a-whistle interiors in the Millennium Falcon! Still, there’s one current habit the franchise can’t seem to shake.
Namely, enough with the British brunettes.
Look, I’m as excited as anyone to see Emilia Clarke shake off the stone-faced hauteur and platinum lace-front she’s shackled to on
Game of Thrones, but when she popped up in that
Solo trailer with her brown hair tied back in a ponytail and her plummy British accent set free, I couldn’t help but say, “Again?”
Solo will be the fourth new
Star Wars film since Lucasfilm changed hands and we finally put the prequel era behind us, but each one of those new movies has had a British brunette as its female lead, from Daisy Ridley in
The Force Awakens and
The Last Jedi to Felicity Jones in
Rogue One. Is this
the distaff version of Dunkirk? Your grandma can’t be expected to keep all these similar-looking lasses straight!
It’s a good thing that after decades of
Star Wars films that could only offer Leia and Padme as representatives of the female gender, the new installments have much better representation of half our population, even filling out their casts with offbeat female characters like Lupita Nyong’o’s Maz Kanata and
Space Dern. So why are the female leads consistently taken from such a shallow pool of British women? They each have brown hair and a smooth face, they each have a rebellious streak that belies their by-the-book accents, and they each look like they should be wearing a gingham cardigan while pushing Tom Hiddleston’s wheelchair in an
inspirational biopic. Enough! I’m not going to knock Lucasfilm for submitting to an Anglophile crush now and then, but they’re starting to return to this British thing more times than Taylor Swift browsing OK Cupid.
I was heartened to see Thandie Newton pop up briefly in that
Solo trailer — she may be British, but at least no one would mistake her for Felicity Jones — and I think
the outpouring of affection for Kelly Marie Tran in The Last Jedi has a lot to do with who we’re not used to seeing in these big space-battle movies. So give us more of that, Lucasfilm! I don’t mean to deprive Claire Foy, Keira Knightley, Hayley Atwell, and Emily Blunt of the chance to wield a lightsaber, but hey, at least it will help us tell their action figures apart.
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Aprenda a lição que nós já sabemos tão bem, Disney: você
NUNCA vai conseguir satisfazer essa nova audiência, que você persegue de maneira quase obsessiva. Agora a presença de várias mulheres em Star Wars já não é mais o bastante: o cabelo delas é um problema!
Mas vá lá, ouça essas críticas e coloque mais mulheres com diferentes tipos e cores de cabelo... Logo surgirão outras reclamações. Vão exigir mulheres com diferentes etnias, com diferentes biotipos corporais, com diferentes feições... e quando se cansarem de reclamar das mulheres, simplesmente vão passar para outro tópico: vão reclamar de apropriação cultural, da falta de um personagem homossexual, da masculinidade tóxica e o c***lho a quatro.
Você
PEDIU por isso, Disney. Quero ver como você vai sair da sinuca de bico na qual você enfiou Star Wars. Enquanto isso, fico aqui no meu canto, só acompanhando essa palhaçada e rindo.
Acho que essa nova temporada está morna, mas também acredito que seja para preparar o terreno... Está vindo coisa boa aí, provavelmente ainda esse ano. Creio que teremos uma resolução do
storyline envolvendo Kathleen Kennedy e Rian Johnson... Estou desconfiado de que eles vão seguir o exemplo de Andrew Lincoln, o ator que fazia o protagonista de The Walking Dead, e cair fora da série. Se isso for verdade, cara... vai ser uma perda inestimável para Damage Control, sem dúvida alguma.
Mas nem tudo está perdido! Ano que vem, a nova temporada estará toda voltada para Black Diamond (vulgo: Episódio IX). Acho que não perdemos por esperar, velho... Não vão faltar episódios para explicar detalhadamente tudo o que envolve esse novo marco, tenho certeza!