During the January 4 showcase of the upcoming list of new Disney and Lucasfilm projects set in the time of the High Republic, Skywalker: Family at War author Kristin Baver took a moment to introduce Krystina Arielle, the new presenter of Star Wars: The High Republic Show. Is it like that a bimonthly YouTube series delving into the details of the last fragment of Star Wars mythos fans have been waiting for their teeth to sink.
For … fault The High RepublicThe general novelty for the public, the logic behind the launch of a series dedicated to unpacking it made sense, as well as the move by Disney and Lucasfilm to establish Arielle as one of the important faces and voices of the largest company. But first The spectacle of the High RepublicThe first episode fell, it wasn’t long before people went to Arielle’s Twitter page looking for reasons to complain about her presence in the Star Wars trading company.
Specifically, a handful of trolls resurfaced and faced several tweets from Arielle in June 2020, in which she states very clearly some basic feelings and easy to understand on the relationships of white people with racism, especially against black racism. At the time, Black Lives Matter was protesting across the world they drew increasing attention to the presence and damage of systemic racism perpetuated by organizations such as police departments, and everyone watched as different segments of society tried, in different ways, to address the issue with one hand.
Arielle’s tweets, which some have taken away how be racist towards white people, explained his view that white people have no real place in indicating whether or not enough has been done to address cases of racism, whether institutional or the actions of a specific person.
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While Arielle’s tweets made a causal generalization about white people as a whole, nothing she said was incorrect or especially incendiary given what she was talking about. As increasingly bad actors stacked in Arielle’s racist harassment with deliberately misinterpretations of what he said, the usual problem Star Wars the fandom as a toxic mess became clear again.
Although this wave of abuse directed at Arielle lasted more than a few days, it wasn’t long before other people began to concentrate around the #IStandWithKrystinaArielle hashtag and figures associated with Star Wars, I like Bava, Cavan Scott (Marvel’s writer Star Wars: The High Republic comic), i Justina Ireland (author of the document Star Wars: The High Republic: A Test of Courage YA novel) came out to express his support for Arielle.
When the main Star Wars The Twitter account came out the same way in defense of Arielle, little hope she had trolls trying to damage Arielle’s career was probably extinguished. But the biggest problem of massive fandoms acting hostilely towards Black women above all, but also women as a whole, people of color, strange people, and anyone else who is not traditionally considered to belong to gender fandoms, still persists. What happened to Arielle is different, but very much tied to the same kind of bounce as John Boyega, Kelly Marie Tran, i Daisy Ridley all faced with what was essentially reduced to not being white men.
In the case of Arielle, the situation is further complicated by the fact that her way to work for the Star Wars franchise: covered in an interview a StarWars.com this was released today to tie at the launch of the Star Wars: The High Republic Show—In many ways it maps the aspirations of inner people the larger Star Wars fan base, which probably played a role in people feeling emboldened in baseless accusations of racism against her. Petty and jealous ugliness is also part of it fandom toxicity as is the lack of on-screen representation. Both things are important pieces of a broader picture of how the fans who help define our shared pop culture evolve in shape and start, for everyone to see.
By making clear his stance to support Arielle, the Star Wars brand took a solid first step towards addressing this specific case of the toxic segment of the fandom that poisons the well. We arrived and LucasfI ask for clarification and comments what steps they would take to support creatives against attacks like this in the future, however has not received a response for publication time.
However, it is worth repeating: it is very likely that this kind of thing will to happen again. When it does, however, the brands involved need to be prepared to do the right thing, firing the wrong actors and doing the right things for the creators who work to make those brands more inclusive.
He Star Wars: The High Republic Show is now streaming on YouTube.
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