Things change.
In a lot of cases, this is a good thing. We change as we get older, becoming wiser in many cases. We learn and grow as people.
Around us, technology advances, creating new changes that open opportunities we never could have imagined. For example, when I graduated high school, my career didn’t really exist as it does now. There were similar occupations, but they were rare and hard to get.
And here I am, doing the work that didn’t exist back then.
But not all change is good. Sometimes, things go sideways and what’s new isn’t actually something we should celebrate.
For example, once upon a time, if a media franchise angered the fans, the creators stepped back and tried to figure out how they could fix it. Others held the course only because they hoped fans would love where things were going or, at least, tolerate it.
If not, they accepted it as the price of doing business. They hoped to either get those fans back or pick up new ones. If not, such was life. They gambled and lost.
Yet today, there’s a different approach. Now, they just blame you for the problem.
This was sparked by this:
There are many sins being mentioned, and yes, the people who hounded the actors were arguably pretty toxic.
But that’s not the fanbase as a whole by any stretch. Those are a handful of people, many of whom might not even be fans, just trolls who decided to take the dislike of a product and be jerks about it.
Yet with Star Wars, the folks like Kathleen Kennedy really want you to think the hate they got for some of the new products is bigotry and toxicity, not that they just created a bad product.
For example, from the above-linked (the photo) article:
With the sequel trilogy starring Rey as the first female protagonist of the franchise, some could not help but notice the modern complaints seemed more gendered. In a recent article discussing Star Wars and the damage its toxic fans can do, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy said, “I think a lot of the women who step into ‘Star Wars’ struggle with this a bit more. Because of the fan base being so male dominated, they sometimes get attacked in ways that can be quite personal.”
Daisy Ridley played Rey and was open about the backlash she faced. Kelly Marie Tran played Rose and the online negativity she faced was so great that many could not help but notice that her role was significantly smaller going from The Last Jedi to The Rise of Skywalker. Many in the Star Wars fandom speculated that perhaps the toxic fans had been successful in convincing the director to cut Rose’s role down since so many did not enjoy her character.
But let’s be real here, if Rey wasn’t a Mary Sue who could do no wrong, she wasn’t far from it. Rose was just a terrible, horrible character that few could like. They were poorly written and poorly realized.
No, that’s not the actor’s fault, but just like Malcolm McDowell got hate for playing a character that killed Captain Kirk and Bruce Dern still gets hate mail for playing a character who shot John Wayne, actors tend to get the hate that should really be directed at their characters.
And Dern played John Wayne’s killer in The Cowboys, which came out in 1972.
See, by pretending the problem is the fans, Kennedy and others—it’s not just with Star Wars, after all—can pretend they didn’t make an inferior product. No, the problem is you. You’re just a terrible fan.
Of course, this will lead to sympathetic coverage and potentially people watching the franchise who don’t really have an interest in it, they just want to own the toxic fanboys by trying to make a thing popular.
If it works, so be it, but the problem with that strategy is that those “fans” won’t be around as long as those who were there in the theaters in 1977.
And let’s be real here, it’s not just Star Wars. It’s literally anything these days. It starts off great, garners lots of fans, then the minds running the show figure they can start making changes to the core thing because the fans are so dedicated.
What they don’t get is that they were dedicated to what they loved, not what it gets turned into. Everyone has a line in the sand, a point where they’re done and don’t care about the franchise anymore.
An intelligent creator tries to keep that line as far away as humanly possible. That’s not happening here.
“There’s nothing wrong with challenging expectations.”
In and of itself, maybe not. The thing is, if you do it too much and fail to exceed what those expectations are, you’re going to lose fans. Especially if your idea of challenging their expectations is to pretend that straight people suck, white people suck, the entire galaxy is gay, and you’re a horrible person because you wanted the only politics in your entertainment to be the fictional kind.
You’re a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad person for not enjoying being berated.
Look, some people like that and I’m not one to kinkshame. Whatever floats your boat and all that.
But not everyone is into that, and they’re not going to sign on.
If you don’t like the fans’ reaction to what you created, then do yourself a favor. Make a better product.
Blaming the fans for not liking what you did is the height of creative arrogance. Get over yourself and make better stuff if you want it to end because, at this point, I’m going to guess there’s not enough toxicity in the fanbase.
After all, these jackwagons keep churning out this crap.
"first female protagonist of the franchise".
And Princess Leia wasn't a protagonist in the first films?????? LOL
Regarding Tran, I don't have the link handy (and web searching isn't helping, all I'm finding is the results of a leftist media campaign to support the "official" narrative of "a-hole fans that don't understand what SW is about") but I recall seeing a discussion about how the hate directed at her was by someone with close ties to Kennedy and Rian Johnson, and known for stirring up [excrement] in the SW fandom for personal aggrandizement and revenge.