During the presentation on January 4 of the upcoming Disney and Lucasfilm projects was installed it was the High Republic, Skywalker: Family at War author Kristin Baver took a moment to introduce Krystina Arielle, the new host of Star Wars: The High Republic Show. It is a bi-monthly series on YouTube delving into the details of the latest piece of Star Wars mythos fans were waiting to sink their teeth.
Because High RepublicThe general novelty for the public, the logic behind the launch of a series dedicated to its unpacking made sense – as did the Disney and Lucasfilm movement to establish Arielle as one of the important faces and voices of a larger company. But before The spectacle of the High RepublicThe first episode went down, it wasn’t long before people came to Arielle’s Twitter page looking for reasons to complain about her presence in Star Wars business enterprise.
Specifically, a handful of trolls reappeared and discussed a series of tweets by Arielle from June 2020, in which she states very clearly some basic feelings and easy to understand about the relationship of white people with racism – especially anti-black racism. At the time, Black Lives Matter was protesting in the whole world they were drawing more and more attention to the presence and damage of systemic racism perpetuated by organizations such as police departments, and everyone was watching different segments of society try to approach the subject in different ways.
Arielle’s tweets, which some took as being racist towards white people, explained his view that white people do not have a real place, stating whether or not enough has been done to address cases of racism, whether they are institutional or the actions of a particular person.
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Although Arielle’s tweets made a causal generalization about white people as a whole, nothing about what she said was either incorrect or particularly incendiary, given what she was talking about. Like more and more bad actors piled on the racist harassment of Arielle with intentionally incorrect interpretations of what she said, the long-standing issue of Star Wars The fandom being a toxic mess became clear again.
While this wave of abuse against Arielle continued for more than a few days, it wasn’t long before other people began to gather around #IStandWithKrystinaArielle hashtag and numbers associated with Star Wars, that Bale, Cavan Scott (Marvel’s writer Star Wars: High Republic comic), and Justina Ireland (author of the document Star Wars: High Republic: A Test of Courage The novel YA) came out to express his support for Arielle.
When the main Star Wars The Twitter account similarly appeared in Arielle’s defense, which she hoped for trolls the search to damage Arielle’s career was probably extinguished. Except the bigger problem of massive fandoms acting hostile to Black women in particular – but also women as a whole, people of color, strange people, and anyone else who is not traditionally considered a fan of the genre – persists. What happened to Arielle is distinct from, but very closely related to, the same types of breathing. John Boyega, Kelly Marie Tran, and Daisy Ridley they all faced what was essentially not being white men.
In Arielle’s case, the situation is further complicated by the fact that her way to work for Star Wars franchise – covered in an interview on StarWars.com that was released today to link in the launch Star Wars: The High Republic Show“In many ways, it maps the aspirations of the people inside.” bigger Star Wars fan base, something that probably played a role in people who feel encouraged by unfounded accusations of racism against her. The petty and jealous ugliness is just as important fandom toxicity such as the lack of on-screen representation. Both are important pieces in a broader picture of how the fandoms that help define our common pop culture evolve into form and begin to be seen by everyone.
By clarifying its position in support of Arielle, Star Wars the brand has taken a solid first step to addressing this specific case of the toxic segment of the fandom that poisons the well. We he held out his hand to LucasfI ask for clarification and comment what steps would it take to support creatives against such attacks in the future, but did not receive a response by the date of publication.
However, it is worth repeating: it is very likely that this kind of thing you it happened again. However, when it does, the brands involved must be ready to do the right thing, rejecting the bad actors and doing good, the creators working to make these brands more inclusive.
Star Wars: The High Republic Show is now in flux on Youtube.
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