In the early days of John Boyega’s post-Star Wars career, he almost immediately pivoted to using his platform and the extraordinary amount of focus on him to draw attention to the difficult, and often frustrating realities of being an actor of colour associated with the massively popular franchise. Beyond troll-y fans, Boyega leveled much of his criticism at Lucasfilm and Disney themselves.
Between the haphazard handling of the series’ non-white characters and pushback from the fandom for insisting that he should stay quiet and simply be thankful for even being linked to Star Wars, Boyega could be forgiven for being more than a bit frosty about his entire experience. But in a recent interview with the BBC, Boyega detailed how speaking out against his problems led to having a “transparent, honest” conversation with Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy about the whole of it.
“I think these kinds of conversations, you can go into the realm of sounding like you’re just trying to save your own career, but what is great now is that it is a conversation that anyone has access to. Now people can express themselves about this knowing that any character we love, especially in these big franchises like the Marvels and Star Wars, we love them because of the moments that they are given, we love them because of those moments, and they’re heroic moments that these producers all decide for these characters so we need to see that in our characters that are maybe Black and from other cultures.”
At the heart of Boyega’s recent comments about the issues plaguing the Star Wars is the very real idea that, as companies in control of these popular legacy franchises become more inclusive — particularly when it comes to on-screen representation — the companies have a responsibility to actually support their traditionally marginalised employees in meaningful ways. Compared to characters like Rey, Kylo Ren, and even General Hux, both Finn and Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose Tico ended up being relatively sidelined by the latest trilogy’s conclusion despite initially being presented as key players within the larger story.
During the interview, Boyega also took care to mention that the reasoning behind his insistence on discussing these problems has less to do with trying to defend his own career, and more about how important it is to understand that what he’s getting at is far larger than just Finn, Rose, or even Star Wars. When franchises (especially one predominantly centered on white-reading characters) finally include characters of colour, and then the fandom reacts with hostility, the company’s response can and often does set the tone for the discourse going forward.
By spending so much time overlooking the ways in which Finn’s role was downplayed (see: Boyega’s positioning in certain Star Wars promotional material), and subsequently giving him a rather messy character arc, Lucasfilm and Disney send the implicit message that the fandom’s hostility toward these sorts of characters — and the living, breathing people portraying them — is OK. Much noise as Boyega’s personally made about this ugly facet of the industry, it’s impossible that the studio heads who’ve been paying attention somehow don’t understand what the actor’s saying.
What, if anything, those in positions of power, like Kennedy, are actually going to do to address these problems is the main question now.
[referenced id=”1220977″ url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2020/06/lucasfilm-expresses-solidarity-with-john-boyega-in-wake-of-black-lives-matter-protest-speech/” thumb=”https://gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/05/dlzawiy5vlqfr5dekj21-300×169.png” title=”Lucasfilm Expresses Solidarity With John Boyega in Wake of Black Lives Matter Protest Speech” excerpt=”The killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin last week has sparked anti-racism and anti-police brutality protests across both the United States and internationally. In London yesterday, Star Wars actor John Boyega took part in demonstrations throughout the capital, delivering a stirring speech that Lucasfilm has now…”]For more, make sure you’re following us on our Instagram @io9dotcom.