It’s important to understand that, when it comes to liking or disliking a fictional space movie, morality has no bearing on a person’s opinion. Whether or not you like a space adventure movie says nothing about you as a human being, because it’s just a movie.
I remember after TLJ came out, and for the next couple years, there was a massive wave of articles by journalists that tried to either trivialize or vilify criticizers of the film. “It’s just Russian bots.” “It’s just a small group of racist trolls online.” “They’re not real fans, anyway. They’re just manbabies who don’t understand the true meaning of Star Wars.” I heard all of these repeatedly from journalists, with similar sentiments even being repeated by Lucasfilm employees. Of course, antagonizing your own customers is never a good idea, no matter how little you care about them. But the whole thing was so bizarre, I still can’t fully wrap my head around it.
That was because it was true (the part about Russian bots, trolls spammers - the racists, sexists and homophobes - we even had numbers of them on here). There is a massive disconnect between criticising and outing these fuckwits - and ‘antagonizing your own customers’, as you claim.
Valid, reasoned and constructive criticism was never really the main issue - though fans would do well to find such reviews and critiques in amongst the sheer volume of clickbait, toxic, alt-right tickbox wording, algorithm-led videos and sensationalist articles out there. Some of it is indeed disingenuous - as certain youtubers did a 180 on their initial stance on the films and then decided to board the toxicity train for the clicks, publicity and money… along with a seemingly guaranteed number of subscribers championing it all.
^ That was main issue… the sheer volume of Russian bots, trolls spammers - the racists, sexists and homophobes - along with toxic, tickboxed, algorithm-led videos and content - it actually dwarfed any actual the valid, reasoned and constructive criticism.
Even some fans on message boards who had genuine criticism of the films (even on here), agreed with, or stayed quiet, and even overlooked… some of the trolls, sexists and homophobes negative comments. Instead of calling the toxic trolls out… they silently ignored them - often making posts in amongst racist, sexist and homophobic posts - and then were somehow ‘surprised’ when they were lumbered in with the toxic elements themselves, or felt ‘maligned’ when their views were ignored or dismissed because of it.
People have often used the bullying and harassment of ST actors as proof that ST detractors are vile, hateful people. And the people who do those things are vile and hateful. Yet people seem quick to forget when Reylos harassed John Boyega and said a bunch of vitriolic, borderline racist things to him because he made a joke about their ship. Or when Reylos stalked Daisy Ridley, as well as Adam Driver and his family. Or when ST fans attacked Mark Hamill for posting a photoshopped image of all the OT heroes in the cockpit of the Falcon together. Or when Star Wars writer Chuck Wendig went on an extended Twitter rant calling detractors various words for “scum” and “human garbage”.
People aren’t so ‘quick to forget’ the issues with Boyega and Reylos, Daisy Ridley or Adam Driver - as they likely don’t know about such issues, or weren’t in their consciousness for long. I’ve never heard of Driver and his family being harassed (I quickly asked around some pro-Sequel fans… they don’t recall that either… not saying it didn’t happen - just that people may not have known, or have since forgot). I vaguely remember something Daisy and John having issues with ‘Reylos’ - though this was after the film had premiered and possibly after the furore over the films had past, along with mentions of it in the news.
Re Chuck Wendig… you mean Wendig’s “Civility is for normalcy. When things are normal and working as intended, civility is part of maintaining balance. But when that balance is gone … your civility gives them cover for evil.” vs those in and around Comicsgate (Van Sciver and followers?), an alt-right campaign to fight the spread of diversity in comics that has a history of harassing leftist and progressive comics creators, who sought to persistently attack Wendig himself.
The point is, in a debate over a fictional story, there’s no “good side” or “bad side”, and it’s not helpful to view a debate like that in such terms. It’s important to take a step back sometimes and remember these are just movies. Anyone who views arguing over fictional, pop culture media as some sort of moral crusade is not in a healthy frame of mind.
Agreed. Yet it is also important to remember and question just who is disseminating that information / views, reviews and criticism - and why - to say nothing of examining the validity of such content.
Much of your post covers matters already discussed to death in the TLJ and TROS threads. Let’s leave it there and get back to discussing the Sequel Trilogy itself as a whole - thank you.