‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Trailer Sparks Race-Based Twitter Battle

Seen the new “Star Wars” trailer? For those who seek out pop-political stories like this one but still count among the dwindling contingent unexposed to the official snippet from “Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens,” it’s posted below.

But first, let’s take a look at an unfortunate flurry of activity that occurred in a not-distant-enough corner of the Twitterverse once the “Star Wars VII” footage made the rounds online.

Last time we checked, it was the year 2015, but apparently the Internet-enabled white supremacists who formulated the Twitter hashtag #BoycottStarWarsVII, along with the associated cyber-campaign, have yet to catch up with the fact that entertainment products don’t exist solely for their enjoyment.

On Monday, The Hollywood Reporter described the group’s issues with director J.J. Abrams’ newest addition to George Lucas’ space saga:

The hashtag, which started appearing on Twitter Sunday night, expresses objection to the fact that The Force Awakens features lead characters who aren’t white males, with its users accusing the movie of pushing a sinister multicultural agenda.

“#BoycottStarWarsVII because it is anti-white propaganda promoting #whitegenocide,” read one tweet from an account calling itself “End Cultural Marxism.” (A subsequent tweet from the same account read “A friend in LA said #StarWarsVII is basically ‘Deray in Space,’ ” — a reference to civil rights activist DeRay Mckesson. “Jewish activist JJ Abrams is an anti-white nut.”)

Curious take on Karl Marx there — and that wasn’t even the extent of the somewhat confusing yet clearly racist material flitting around Twitter feeds (see here and here to read other dispiriting examples).

Spotting the opportunity to perform some public service, a helpful Twitter user with the handle “Captain Privilege” sent a detailed tweet, written in the “Star Wars” series’ iconic font, schooling #BoycottStarWarsVII supporters and launching a positive counterpart to the haters’ hashtag: #CelebrateStarWarsVII. After calling J.J. Abrams on the carpet for a different kind of race-based problem having to do with his casting strategy, the anonymous writer declared:

There are only two types of people obsessing over the color of [lead actor] John Boyega’s skin: racists and SJWs [Social Justice Warriors]. The rest of us don’t care and we would very much appreciate it if you would all kindly fuck off so that we can enjoy the movie. Yours sincerely, Normal People.

As for the question of whether it’s best to just leave trolls in the dark or to draw attention to their tactics in an effort to dismantle them, Salon’s Amanda Marcotte on Tuesday made her case for taking the latter tack:

Indeed, a lot of what places like Fox News exist to do is clean up fringe ideas, repackage them in more palatable forms, and feed them to an audience that is most definitely not on the fringe. The only way liberals can interrupt that process is by aggressively tying these kinds of ideas to the fringe racist circles where they began, or otherwise they run a very strong risk of being subjected to this mainstreaming process.

This is far from the first time a film from the “Star Wars” franchise has rattled fans’ racial sensibilities, but in many (certainly not all) previous episodes, the problem had to do with how various characters were represented on the big screen, regardless of otherworldly physical qualities or CGI enhancements.

However, so far these conflicted blips in the zeitgeist haven’t managed to dim fans’ fervor, so it’s safe to say Abrams, Lucas and the other forces behind this latest “Star Wars” installment will once again prevail in the end.

Watch the “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” trailer below (via YouTube):

–Posted by Kasia Anderson