Racism And Fandom : The John Boyega edition

A few weeks ago John Boyega elected to ring in the new year by trolling Reylo fans. Said fans had taken to sending him mocking messages for days on end which he eventually started responding to. Things took a dramatic turn when he made a joke about “laying pipe.” Many of the women had to look up the phrase in Urban Dictionary so they could properly prepare for their performance. What happened after was a hoard of women demanding apologies while the rest of Twitter applauded John for refusing to roll over. They then decided to bombard him with even more insults which resulted in this brief video. Now we’ve arrived at an impasse where Reylos are now accusing him of deliberately targeting minors and being sexist as he didn’t have the same energy when he was being racially attacked. There’s a lot to unpack but let’s start with this…

1. The hypocrisy of mocking an actor over a ship for days and then demanding he respond to it a certain way. I imagine they expected him to cry and leave social media.

2. Pretending racism has absolutely nothing to do with the way he’s being harrassed.

For starters the marketing team for TFA pulled a bait and switch with Finn. Additionally the writers had Finn fall for Rey and it’s unclear if she was ever meant to return those feelings. She certainly doesn’t have to, but why on earth would they do that in the first place? It wasn’t just shady, it directly fueled the racist attacks because to them… Finn was a joke. This trope isn’t just distasteful it actually has a terrible film history behind it. The aggressive over eager black man chasing after the beautiful white woman is nothing short of  King Kong optics. 

When TROS was released Reylos first took to twitter to send the writers, directors, and producers death threats. And then, maybe for nostalgia sake, turned their attention to John. It makes no logical sense for me to know what lead up to his response and then pretend both sides of this spat are equally wrong. 

It’s also difficult for me to believe these women are actually upset over such a mild sexual joke. These same women sit online sexualizing male actors all day. This outrage is a show, a drawn out theatre production to ruin the career of the scary black man for victimizing women. The very same women who have been writing and reading rape fanfiction about their favorite pair for years now. The very same women who have said wildly explicit things about Rey themselves. If we don’t acknowledge who exactly it is that’s clutching their pearls then we aren’t having an honest discussion.  

Personally I don’t think men or women should be sending celebrities sexual comments. I am also hyper aware that the statistics of rape, sexual assault, and general power imbalance makes the weight of these jokes different. What I’m not buying is that the same women who are comfortable sitting in John’s mentions and sending him threats are intimidated by him . What I’m not buying is that these women who find “thirst tweets” hilarious are shaking and crying in a corner. They attempted to bring #metoo into this which is not only absurd, it’s also disingenuous and undermines the harassment women are actually facing in the entertainment industry. This was a failed witch hunt and they deserved to be called out for it.

The people who originally attacked John did so as soon as he was casted. The Reylos took that torch and ran with it once the movie hit theatres. They immediately latched on to the man who tried to kill Rey because hey, at least he’s not black. Disney backtracked from Finnrey due to the popularity of Reylo which they’ve also bragged about. Disney at it’s core is only concerned about profit so they’ll bend to what the audience demands. And for the record, that audience is historically racist.

John as of now has no contract with Disney. He can respond in a way he couldn’t in the past. So bringing up his “lack of response” doesn’t prove anything nor is an effective way to deflect from the real issue. For those who claimed there was a lack of proof (like the “writer” of that ridiculous Medium article) see the above images.  Frankly what’s the difference between Reylos and racist fanboys anyway? I genuinely can’t tell. For additional receipts on Reylos being racist please check out this very detailed tumblr post. 

And at the foundation of all this…Kylo Ren is a space Nazi.  I don’t know why anyone would be willing to overlook that because they find Adam attractive but here we are. I will never be able to relate to people who are attracted to fictional nazis nor will I ever trust they have good intentions. Any defense of this because Kylo is fictional died when it manifested itself in my own inbox in the form of racial slurs. John got fed up and so did the rest of us. Whatever crocodile tears they have shed over being mocked by the world is well deserved. 

It’s been satisfying to finally see the gaslighting fall completely flat. Here’s a few examples of actors who have dealt with this kind of blatant racially charged harassment in the last 5 years.

                                

Kelly Marie Tran– Rose- Star Wars The Last Jedi

Kelly was bullied offline as soon as she was casted. Disney rewarded said fans by limiting her screen time in the final movie and failing to ever defend her.

Anna Diop– Starfire- Titans 

Anna was bullied offline as soon as she was casted. What was especially off-putting in this instance was that I’ve never seen so many black men, “blerds”, happy to align themselves with racists. “Whore” “Street Walker”and “Prostitute” was a favorite insult of theirs. Long after the racist white people got bored and moved on… they remained here whining about how they’d “prefer a light skinned black woman or Latina.“ Basically Anna received hate from both ends because she has dark skin.

Kat Graham -Bonnie Bennett -The Vampire Diaries 

Kat was harassed by fans and the showrunners of TVD. Caroline Dries famously mocked Kat for wanting her canon pairing on the show in the middle of a cast interview. Luckily Kat had the support of the actor playing her would be love interest. They both decided to leave the same season which resulted in the series ending. 

Candice Patton -Iris West- The Flash

Candice was warned not to even go on social media when she was casted.  She was not only harassed by fandom but had to deal with a costar not so subtly trying to replace her as the leading lady.

Tessa Thompson, Jurnee Smollet-Bell, and Zoe Kravitz have gotten backlash for being casted in their respective comic book movies. Their backlash was much more subtle due to colorism. You’ll especially notice colorism within fandom if there are both light and dark skinned women on the same series.To better understand how clorism is harmful, and for a breakdown of proximity to whiteness, I encourage you to watch the video linked below.

Watch: Chika Okoro’s must-see TED Talk exposes the damaging effects of colorism.

So what is the solution? It’s simple. Writers should avoid using racist tropes and creators should be defending their actors publicly against racist attacks. Neither of these things are even remotely difficult.

To end on a happy note… despite the protests, fake outrage, death threats, and violent racism… black actors and actresses are still crossing over into new genres. John Boyega’s career is also far from over and he wont be apologizing. I suggest everyone get used to it.