Jodie Turner-Smith: Disney lashed over Star Wars’ racist fan problem

Jodie Turner-Smith is the latest in an unfortunately long line of actors from the Star Wars universe who has had to openly call out racist abuse from parts of the fandom.

Turner-Smith had a small but significant role in The Acolyte, Disney’s most recent Star Wars streaming series, which featured an ensemble of actors from mostly non-white backgrounds, led by Amandla Stenberg, who is of mixed-race heritage.

Stenberg was the target of racist bullying while the series was “review-bombed” on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, including before any episodes were released.

Turner-Smith criticised Star Wars’ response, or lack of, to how Stenberg was treated.

She told Glamour UK, “She put so much care and thought and love into that, and it’s disappointing to feel like your studio is not having your back in a very public-facing way.

“They’ve got to stop doing this thing where they don’t say anything when people are getting f**king dog-piled on the internet with racism and bulls**t. It’s just not fair to not say anything. It’s really unfair.”

Many franchises, especially in the genre spaces of sci-fi, fantasy and superheroes, have their share of toxic fans who “gatekeep” ownership over the movies, TV shows and comic books they believe is theirs and theirs alone.

Before the first season of The Lord of the Rings prequel series The Rings of Power, diverse cast members were viciously trolled by some fans who objected to non-white actors occupying space in Middle-earth.

But Star Wars seems to have a heightened problem. As Turner-Smith pointed out, the corporate behemoth that is Disney, which owns Star Wars, is reluctant to criticise fans who engage in such behaviour, afraid of alienating any of them.

“It would just be nice if the people that have all the money were showing their support and putting their feet down. Say this is unacceptable, ‘you’re not a fan if you do this’. Make a really big statement and just see if any money leaves,” Turner-Smith added.

“I bet it won’t, because people of colour, especially black people, make up a very large percentage of buying power. They might find that it’s actually more lucrative for them, but everyone is using ‘woke’ like it’s a dirty word.”

There was only one instance in which Disney intervened, when Obi-Wan actor Moses Ingram was under sustained attack, which included hundreds of messages, some of which contained the N-word and accusations she was a “diversity hire” from segments of the fandom.

The official Star Wars Twitter account posted in 2022, “If anyone intends to make her feel in any way unwelcome, we have only one thing to say: we resist”.

Ingram’s co-star, Ewan McGregor, who reprised his role of Obi-Wan Kenobi from the prequel trilogy, also came to her defence, posting a video message in which he said, “It seems that some of the fan base has decided to attack Moses Ingram online and send her the most horrendous, racist (messages). I heard some of them this morning, and it just broke my heart.

“(…) we stand with Moses. We love Moses. And if you’re sending her bullying messages, you’re no Star Wars fan in my mind. There’s no place for racism in this world.”

It was a rare public admonition from the Star Wars big wigs despite the ongoing trend.

John Boyega, who played stormtrooper Finn in The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker has previously been upfront about his experiences with Star Wars fans and working with Disney.

From the moment he was cast in the 2015 film The Force Awakens, Boyega said he had people saying to him they were going to boycott the movie because he was in it. He said he also received death threats.

In 2020, he told GQ, “You get yourself involved in projects and you’re not necessarily going to like everything. What I would say to Disney is do not bring out a black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.”

“You knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver. You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know fuck all.”

Tran was Boyega’s co-star in the latter two films of the trilogy and she was attacked online to such an extent she deleted her social media profiles and withdrew from public appearances.

She later wrote in a New York Times opinion piece, “Their words seemed to confirm what growing up as a woman and a person of colour already taught me: that I belonged in margins and spaces, valid only as a minor character in their lives and stories.”

Boyega added, “So, what do you want me to say? What they want you to say is, ‘I enjoyed being a part of it, it was a great experience’. Nah, nah, nah. I’ll take that deal when it’s a great experience.”

The Acolyte was cancelled shortly after its first season wrapped up. The production was costly and the ratings were middling, especially after it was dinged by the review bombing at the start.

Stenberg, who revealed she experienced “intolerable racism” from the fandom, said she wasn’t shocked by the decision. She posted to Instagram, “There has been a rampage of vitriol that we have faced since the show was even announced when it was still just a concept and no one had even seen it.

“That’s when we started experiencing a rampage of, I would say, hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol, prejudice, hatred and hateful language towards us.”

Turner-Smith is hopeful that things will eventually evolve.

“Opinions change. What’s in vogue changes,” she said. “We’re going to get there at some point, to that place where people stop having a stick up their arse about people of colour being a part of (intellectual property projects) that were created by white people.

“You know why? Because we’re never going to f**king stop participating.”