#but I think Donnie deserved a free pass in this instance

[kathaynesart]

Transmission ended.

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Finally! So ready to be free of all the filters and digital jargon I've needed to include in every panel for Dee's screen. I'm sorry this downer of a chapter has been so long and drawn out, but up next is a fun little field trip as well as a brief look of the Resistance's Headquarters... and perhaps a glimpse of a certain brother we haven't seen yet.

Also, I wonder where Donnie had gotten the idea for his final password, hm? Bonus points to whoever remembers the time it was suggested.

[riancraigjohnson-blog]

would you be willing to share some of the issues that you had with tlj as a woman of color? I was telling some friends about issues people were having with the film's treatment of PoC and I figured it would be better to share an actual PoC's perspective.

thank you so much for asking!!!! now, full disclosure i’m a super white-passing latina. or hispanic. ( i’ve referred to myself as both, so ) i’m puerto rican on my mom’s side. so i haven’t personally experienced the racism that my mom has, or my grandfather ( popi ) has, or my aunts or my mom’s cousins or, well, that entire side of my family.

as such, i can’t speak from a woman of color’s perspective because i’m white-passing, just because that hasn’t happened to me. i can be outraged about it, certainly, because i see my family in someone like oscar, or benecio who is actually puerto rican, and yeah, their treatment pisses me off.

now, that being said, let’s continue: ( note: i’m going to focus more on poe in regards to personal experience, as he’s the one i most closely relate to in terms of racial-themed questions )

what is the narrative that is being fed to us today, politically? one of harsh anti-immigration, one of an us vs them mentality-- you don’t have to be a poc to realize that, but it’s the reality that’s facing us. ( we’re particularly seeing a strong anti-latinx/hispanic, anti-black, and anti-muslim sentiment, but that’ll come in later. )

in tfa, we have our main trio-- a white girl, a young black man, and a latino man-- our heroes. in contrast, we have our villain trio-- a white woman and two white men. to me, that sets the tone-- we’re offered a movie that allows two main non-white characters the chance to shine and break free from racial stereotypes, and they do so spectacularly. i look at poe, and that’s my family, that’s a positive representation for other latinxs/hispanics, something we sorely do not get enough of in big-budget films. ( usually we’re portrayed as either hot-tempered, hyper-sexualized exotics, or stupid comic relief. ) imagine how awesome it was to see poe be none of these things?

he’s sharp-witted, funny, intelligent, quick on his feet, resourceful, and above all, kind. he’s sweet and clearly loves both what he does and the people he works with, and even without the background the books and other media provide, poe is obviously shown as someone who both respects leia and she respects in turn, someone who is well-deserving of his high-rank in the resistance, especially when you consider just how quickly this man came back after being both physically and mentally tortured by the first order/kyle. poe is, at the core of it, a gentle soul compared to the many brash and/or stupid ‘latinx/hispanic’ representations we’ve been fed in the past, so this was such a nice change of pace. he doesn’t yell or get violent, even at his most frustrated-- he’s level-headed and demonstrates all the needed qualities for a leader.

now.

the poe we get in tlj is painted as if he’s none of those things-- in the beginning, he’s shown as being in it just for the glory, the thrill of taking down a dreadnought instead of the guilt that might have plagued him over the excessive deaths in that scene-- that seems more in line with his character in tfa. he’s disobedient, petulant, impulsive-- and then he gets slapped by leia. ( here’s a hint, rian: white people slapping poc is never cool, even if you think it’s ‘empowering’ just because it’s a woman slapping. )  he then gets demoted from commander to captain, placed under the charge of holdo with the rest of the crew, and then denied even the slightest of answers when he, quite reasonably, asked for what the hell the plan was. however, the whole movie stands to paint poe’s mutiny as childish. his mission that he sent rose and finn on as a failure. that he’s going to learn the lesson of ‘sacrificing oneself for the greater good’ from a white woman, when poe has CLEARLY demonstrated in the past that he’s more likely to put himself in danger than let others do it for him.

we supposedly get this great character arc showing poe grow as a character from an impatient, hot-headed man-child who throws a literal tantrum ( hmmmmmmmmmmm sound like a certain white 30-year old we know? ) into this seasoned, war-tested officer who now knows the value of hope because he should have just blindly trusted this woman who gave him no reason to.

that’s regression, and that’s harmful, and that’s why we’re getting people talking about not liking poe, or downright hating him, or in buzzfeed’s instance, calling him worse than jar jar binks.

when i came out of tfa, when other people i know came out of tfa, poe was a role model for non-whites and whites alike. he was likeable across the board, and now, there’s not even that.

the same goes for finn, but like i said before, i can’t speak as personally about the regression in finn’s character other than we were given this selfless, brave character with so much heart and emotion in the first film, someone who saw the evil of the first order and before he could even fire a shot at a helpless villager, he said no. in tfa, there’s this whole theme of him ‘running away’-- running away from the order, from jakku, from takodana-- but we see his progression through the movie, and by the end, no one would dare call finn a coward. he risked his life for rey, helped the resistance destroy starkiller; he’s a hero, which is what ties into rose’s hero-worship of him at the very beginning.

however, in tlj, we see the exact same story-- finn is branded as selfish and cowardly by rose, who never even bothered to listen to his story-- we’re given the notion that he was leaving the ship to go get as far away from the order as possible so that when she does return from ahch-to, she’s not walking into a first order trap. before finn can even explain to rose why he’s doing this, she tasers him without a second thought, and that’s the groundwork for their relationship. ( note: rey also hit finn when they first met, doing so because bb-8 said finn stole poe’s jacket-- this doesn’t make it okay, but the fact that rey trusts finn after that, never calling him a coward or traitor or selfish, even after he told her the truth of his past and still tried to leave takodana-- she never once called him any of those things. ) the rest of the movie has its tone set from that first interaction-- finn is played as the butt of all the jokes in their scenes, continuously called selfish or cowardly by rose, or treated as if he’s somehow stupid-- we, again like with poe, see no actual character development within him. we already saw all this in the first movie, only guess what? it worked that time because one: it was the first time seeing this character and two: rey never belittled finn or tore him down.

finally, let’s touch on rose. ( and by extension, paige. ) listen...... we got fucking robbed. before i read spoilers for the movie, ( and i did so because i didn’t trust rian johnson further than i could punt him, and i still don’t, ) i was so excited to see ntv as paige, i was so excited to see the tico sisters onscreen together and interact and like? we had great interaction with hong kong donnie yen and chinese jiang wen-- and that was men. to have two vietnamese women on screen? in a star wars film? color me fucking stoked! but.... we didn’t. paige doesn’t even get to say her own sister’s name, she gets one line saying the guy who was supposed to drop the payload’s name, and she dies. instead of manpain, we get to see the aftermath of ‘sisterpain’-- as if paige’s death is supposed to positively affect rose, who we can see is OBVIOUSLY affected by the loss of her from when we first see rose on screen? that first moment seeing rose, devastated by the loss of her sister, i was honestly willing to forgive the killing of paige-- here we had another chance to break boundaries, by showing a soft, warm, loving person in rose from the get-go....... and instead they have her tase finn and treat him like shit the whole movie. have her talk down to him as if he’s an idiot and all he’s ever done is run away his whole life, when that is clearly not what finn is about at all. as a result, i feel like her own story for personal growth is grossly surrounding insulting finn, up until the very end in one of those ‘twists’ johnson seems to be fond of-- overall, what should be a positive experience by having a lead non-white female added to the mix feels more like it was written by a white feminist where it’s the idea of ‘female > any male’ as opposed to, y’know, intersectional feminism, where things like race are taken into consideration.

overall, the treatment of the three leading non-white characters is overall poor, cruel, generally racist ( particularly in terms of the ‘white women putting the latino hothead man in his place’ ) narrative that johnson seems so desperate for us to chug down, and also misleading-- it seemed pointless to include paige in the movie when her whole purpose was to die. ( because killing off poc, particularly woc, is considered ‘good writing’ in johnson’s book. )