Lucasfilm Boss Kathleen Kennedy Says ‘A Lot of Women’ in ‘Star Wars’ Struggle With Fan Attacks ‘Because of the Fan Base Being So Male Dominated’
https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/kathleen-kennedy-star-wars-toxic-fans-women-attacked-1236019098/
Lucasfilm Boss Kathleen Kennedy Says ‘A Lot of Women’ in ‘Star Wars’ Struggle With Fan Attacks ‘Because of the Fan Base Being So Male Dominated’
https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/kathleen-kennedy-star-wars-toxic-fans-women-attacked-1236019098/
44 comments
In before someone comes in and says that isn’t true because they like Leia.
They struggle with poorly written Mary Sue characters, which last I checked have proliferated under her watchful eye.
Star Wars fans don’t have an issue with women imo, not more so than any other fan base.
Theres an insane amount of strong women written all around the Star Wars mythos, Kreia, Darth Talon, Mara Jade, Bastila Shan, and so many more.
Kathleen is just mad that the movies she made are piss poor imitations of a legitimate story and she can’t take any criticism without blaming the fanbase.
Every time I see a headline like this, I think “why are we stating the obvious?”
And then I look at the comments and find tons of people vehemently denying the obvious
I love all things Sci-Fi including Star Wars.
My wife can’t stand Star Wars, and only likes Star Trek.
My guess is it’s due to the origins.
Star Trek was an adventure show about discovering the strange and new. Examining the human spirit in the far future and some occasionally deep plots that reflected things happening in our own society at the time.
Star Wars was a Samurai Tale turned into a Sci-Fi movie. It’s more about the nobility of being a warrior, lightsaber duels, space fighter battles, and other war like things that seem to appeal more to men than women.
Ahsoka actress and VA don’t.
Carrie Fisher didn’t
Katie Sackoff doesnt
Ming Na wen doesnt
Gina Carano did get backlash but from the crowd who is making the above claim not “men”
I know there are crazy misogenists on any project who will say horrible stuff on Twitter and social media. Most people just didn’t like the sequel trilogy because it was not planned out and horribly written.
It’s obviously true, only an idiot would deny that.
But it’s kinda funny to lazily make a movie and then direct any and all criticisms toward the race and genders of characters instead of the dogshit writing.
Like, last time I checked Mace Windu, Leia, Lando and Ashoka are fan favourites. Meanwhile characters like Rose existed only for a single shoehorned scene
So many fandoms are just completely toxic, especially with such a drastic increase in parasocial relationships in said sphere due to social media.
I actually wrote my dissertation at uni about this. But I split it 50/50 with the ghostbusters fandom. I found some really interesting academic articles. Basically the main argument I found was that franchises become “totemic texts” to certain people. Aka they basically become akin to religious scriptures etc. because that person will constantly go back to the text throughout their life and when they experience hardship etc. And that changes to the text (like adding new characters and movies etc)can be seen by certain fans subconsciously as a personal attack on them.
So many Star Wars can’t confront the idea that the fandom is massively toxic and male dominated while at the same time the sequel trilogy was also bad.
The reception is a combination of these things. KK needs to acknowledge this as well and I think maybe Star Wars could move on or just stay out of the cinema for another 10 years
Don’t remember ANYONE attacking Leia or Mon Mothma. Maybe people just don’t like poorly written characters.
It’s not like males have never gotten hate (Jake Lloyd definitely didn’t deserve all the shit he took).
If only you had Rey be either a clone of a dark sider (like Force Unleashed) or had Rey be Han and Leia’s daughter to justify her power the fanbase wouldn’t have hated it so much. Also not making Luke Skywalker the new Gandalf was a horrible decision. Same with Han and Leia being miserable.
And most of all: your horrible, racist treatment of John “should have been the Jedi” Boyega
That may be true but you know what else it true? Kathleen Kennedy is terrible at her job and most fans want her gone.
You can make bad movies for a franchise that has shitty fans, they are not mutually exclusive.
Mad Max is not famous for its feminine fan base. Yet I haven’t seen any backlash to Charlize Theron’s Furiosa character. Fans loved her character.
Some fans’ treatment towards actresses are disgusting and should be called out. But I’m tired of Hollywood execs blaming the “toxic fandom” when they make shitty movies.
Mary Sue characters are rarely well received by an audience (Marty Stues as well). You don’t see this phenomenon with Ahsoka Tano and Princess Leia and Amidala etc. because they have actual character development and flaws and growth and and character arches and that makes them relatable so they don’t feel like author inserts from bad fan fiction.
While I do think the online fanbase can be pretty toxic, I think there is a disconnect with her, her statement, and the reality of Star Wars. The base is dominated by men. That’s the majority of the audience. And yet, they act like that is somehow wrong.
They try to create a female fan base out of thin air that just doesn’t exist on the same level as men, because more men are fans of things like Star Wars. Same with Marvel. More men buy comics and watch super hero movies. I don’t understand why this shocks them so much.
While the online fandom can be toxic, it’s like twitter, it’s not a real place, it’s not the majority of fans that are causing the problems. It’s probably not even half of the fans. It’s just as it always is, a loud vocal minority of fans that are making all the noise.
But that still doesn’t change who their audience is, and it kind of feels like they resent the idea that the audience is mostly men.
The fan attacks on the Star Wars cast were definitely toxic and horrendous. Just look at Jake Lloyd, Ahmed Best, and some of the female cast. That being said, the sequel trilogy is trash, and that will not change for me.
There’s always gonna be assholes but most people appreciate a well written character, regardless of gender
Why do people attack actors? Such a strange thing to waste your time on
As a gay man I completely agree, the amount of homophobia, and sexism in most fandoms is unbearable and has practically killed my love for comic books.
Is it male dominated? I have no idea but my input would be the negative minority speaks out more than the normal people who just watch a movie,enjoy it and then continue with their lives.
Remember when everyone hated Leia? Or how about when they spewed so much crap about Ahsoka, Padme, Asajj, Hera, Sabine, and Fennec?
Turns out there are plenty of female characters that people love, just not ones with bad writing. Po and Finn received just as much hate as Rey. Anakin was maligned for years. Jar Jar was just about crucified for existing. There are just a lot of really mean people who watch Star Wars and are never happy.
The Catholic Church isn’t going to hold a fundraiser in Bagdad.
Know your audience.
No, she created shit, got called out for it and basically is doing the corporate equivalent of “its not my fault yall are too stupid to get this”
Honestly just be the silent studio runner and let more creative minds do things with star wars, you had your chance, shot it straight into the sun and burned
Maybe the scripts just sucks
she inherited an entire world of existing novels, comic books, fan fiction, video games, etc with pre-established characters, storylines, lore, etc. All Kathleen Kennedy had to do was cherry pick the best elements and craft a half decent story…or if she was lazy…just choose an existing story and adapt it into a movie. She could have made a new generation of Star Wars films that would rival the MCU. The Star Wars fandom would have hailed her as the second coming of Christ and Disney would have made billions in the process! Instead they spent three films murdering Luke, Han, and leia…almost Chewbacca….I assume the 4th film will finish him off.
Let’s look at the shows that have come out of Disney
Andor was great. But there were a lot of rumors about Kennedy finding it hard to influence Gilroy because he was a heavyweight. The Mandalorian was great in the first season and a half. Then it transitioned away from the male lead to female leads and the third season stunk.
Obi-wan was an unmitigated disaster of stupidity and atrocious writing. Its only rival for ‘terrible’ was Boba Fet. Both shows basically emasculated the male leads and let the female play the tough guys – er, girls. Then there was Ahsoka, starring five female and 1 male leads. The three main female leads all sucked. No character development whatsoever.
The new one coming up is the Acolyte, starring basically an all-female cast and directed and written by Leslye headland, who’s never had anything to do with science fiction. The next movie is to be directed by Sharmeen_Obaid-Chinoy, a documentary filmmaker who says she likes to make men uncomfortable.
75% of the fan base is male.
They love to use the toxcicity as a shield from any real criticism. They hide behind it. Sequel trilogy is garbage no matter how much whataboutism they try
Um, no. I’m sorry but this is BS. The writing was terrible for each of those movies. You cannot blame it on chromosomes when you don’t have a couple in your head to connect with the fanbase… Kathleen…
Gonna offend liberals here but the “badass” female archetype that we see so often in movies now who is able to beat men physically twice their size because they are somehow just as strong or have more agility somehow will never be received well by anyone with a brain and will always be seen as being outlandish and ridiculous.
I think it’s more because of how Hollywood writes women these days, or they make things feel forced.
Just write the characters well and don’t grandstand or make it feel forced and I really don’t think people would care much.
The new star wars movies sucked. A female lead was bot the issue lol
Every female character in starwars is cool besides Rey and it’s not daisy Ridley’s fault.
So strange… I’m watching Spaceballs as we speak.
They’re coming the desert.
Let’s be real, we all know the Star Wars fandom sucks, and there’s definitely a group of men in the fandom who legitimately do just hate women, but to hide behind the vocal minorities toxicity to avoid criticism for all the stupid god awful shit they’ve been churning out for years is embarrassing and unprofessional, get someone else in her position my god, I don’t care if it’s a man or a woman or whatever, just someone else
It’s amazing that there are adults out there who care enough about Star Wars to harass actors. Fandom culture needs to die and so do franchises.
And the writing so terrible.
Maybe if they wrote better female characters?
No accountability its always the toxic fanbase
And what about female fans who are frustrated with lower quality writing for female characters? Mostly written by men, I might add. Not that some women haven’t mailed in some poorer scripts as well (although the only scripts I liked for Obi Wan were by a woman with a pet monkey, she did a great job).
Women are easy targets. Star Wars fans are upset that the thing they love so much can’t be recaptured in sequels or prequels. Late 70s up until Ep1 was fantastic.. nothing compared, but now there are so many better stories, better characters and technology has surpassed anything they could of dreamt about.
Yeah let’s do Sex in the City with Tim Allen and Robert DeNiro…
Why does everyone hate the new Sex and the City?!?!?!?
I grew up watching Star Wars.
Love Rey. I don’t care if she is “OP” or a “Mary Sue”
Loved all the female characters in Ashoka, even though the pacing of the show was kind of bad.
Didn’t care for Rose. It felt like she was put there to distract from what should have been a Rey/Finn love interest. (Wich would have been awesome!)
Didn’t care for Poe Dameron either, though. Love the actor, just not the character.
Strong female characters are awesome.
Bad writing isn’t.
Probably a little truth, but a lot of it is just excuses for bad movies. Alien, Terminator has great female characters for example.
Enter a male-dominated fanbase.
Shocked by male attitudes.
Genuine question: is there something that is female-dominated that men are just dying to get into?
My wife, who recently watched and enjoyed 1-6 (especially 3) found the character of Ray in 7 and 8 patronizing. I didn’t bother showing her 9. It’s not about men. Women see this issue as well.