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I'm asking this purely out of curiosity, but are you black? Or if not have you heard from black fans what they think of Finn?
I have heard from a large number of black
and white fans (in person and social media) about the deliberate racial mishandling of Finn. Some have referred to Finn in ways I will not repeat here, but essentially, they believe he's not only what Liberal Hollywood wants to see in a black male (more often than not), but his minstrel behavior makes him a throwback to film actors such as Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry, known to the world as
Stepin Fetchit.
I'll admit, the whole thing with him being a janitor might not have been the best idea in the world, but I would definitely not go so far as to call him a jive clown. He is a bit naive, but I haven't seen him as the kind of comical buffoon that something like that implies.
I touched on this the other day: of all occupations the producers/writers of TFA could have given Finn, they purposely make him a janitor, instead of someone with a skill closely tied to being a stormtrooper. In fact, the specific function of being a trooper has no connection to sanitation, anymore than one would not expect to see a police officer in charge of or working sanitation in the precinct. There's no excuse, other than to do what Hollywood has for generations: reduce the black male to so-called "low", unskilled labor that removes any notion of higher thought function and interest. That's another way of making sure he--in the eyes of those disgusted by black male/white female relations--will seem unsuitable for Rey (despite her being the equivalent of a peasant girl). because the lens of racism has always views such occupations as being best suited for black people.
I've never really seen Rey as a Mary Sue, for me a Mary Sue is some who is just miraculously better than everybody at everything, and I don't really think Rey was. Yes she was very capable, but that came from having to learn to live on her own, and defend herself. Pretty much everything we see her do can be tracked back to her skills she picked up on Jakku.
She's a Mary Sue because she comes from nowhere with zero training and defeats someone who is on par with (if not surpasses) the Force power/skill possessed by Anakin in Attack of the Clones. There's not even a suggestion that she has much to learn, while this fact is contrasted with Force-using males like the powerful Luke and Anakin, who needed training to even begin to successfully manipulate the Force. In other words, she's a female superior to any male and needs no logical or accountable experience to justify her position--like any other character. That is the work of misandrist propaganda, not a desire for equality.
Well, I spend 4-6 hours, up to 5 days a week at my store, and I walk through the toys department at least 3 or 4 times every day, and I watched that Star Wars stuff disappear pretty quickly. On the first day we had a packed 4 piece display, and within a week it was almost completely empty. Every time I walked by it stuff had noticeably disappeared, which is a lot more than I can say for most of these kinds of displays, which can often sit there for days with only a handful of items disappearing from it. Yes, there is stuff still sitting on the pegs, but that's because A) they send out a ton of the stuff, and B) because everybody that wants it, rushes out and buys it that first weekend.
I still see TLJ figures on pegs in my region, and it appears there's as little interest in these characters as in TFA's case. On that point, TFA's figures have been collecting dust on red-tagged or discounted sections.
JD,
I am black. And I do agree with Trek_God_1 about the problematic portrayal of Finn. It really bothered me in TFA and took me right out of the film. (Similar to how Jar Jar Binks took me out of TPM; but at least Mace Windu was there to counter Jar Jar).
Mace was okay, but the implications of Jar Jar (being a sort of Jamaican clown stereotype) tripped up any step forward Mace may have represented.
Just like there are other black fans who do agree with me, on some levels at least that Finn was a problem character and that Disney-inexplicably-drenched him in stereotypes. I would not use the phrase ‘jive clown’ to describe Finn, but 'minstrel', probably yeah.
...and again, this is happening during the (allegedly) most liberal, open-minded period in history...except where the depiction of one group of people is concerned. Incredibly glaring in the biggest entertainment franchise the world has ever known.
I don’t necessarily look at it as an issue solely belonging to the left or far left though. I think there is a societal problem here, across the political spectrum which infects our entertainment when it comes to the depictions of black characters far too often. I was aware of this as a kid and I as I’ve grown up and learned more about the history of blacks and cinema and more about stereotypes I still think it’s an issue even though in some ways there is more representation than it was when I was growing up.
Racism is a societal problem, but the treatment which controls the message and informs perception comes from the all-powerful entertainment media, which is relentless in shaping, turning inside-out and projecting their own, often warped sociopolitical views. This is the same entertainment industry that screams about Girl Power, but has no issue with making male characters fools in an effort to make female characters appear stronger/smarter, etc. and ignoring the hypocrisy of that. More to the point, they are the same industry that attacks the Right (particularly politicians) about issues of diversity, yet they--
as the maker of unavoidable images saturating every corner of public and private life--sell the worst impressions of black people, males more than female.
You Tube reviewer Grace Randolph brought up an interesting number that 9% of the audience for TLJ was black. She speculated herself that that might have been the result of Finn’s TFA depiction and I don’t disagree.
That's a good point reflected in the statements I've heard.
I mean, if the goal here is representation and inclusion, having the prime black character (because Star Wars only provides one prime black character per saga; though there was the kooky Saw Gerrera who spent all his life fighting but just gave up when they needed him the most in Rogue One, for I don’t know, reasons?)
Reasons like this so-called important character had to die, so he would not present a strong black male image in a film designed to be all about Jyn Erso and no one else.
Finn doesn’t generate much excitement. He turned out not to be a bad ass, capable Stormtrooper, he turned out not to be a Jedi, he was comic relief, and at the end of TFA he was in a coma. How inspirational is that? What message was Disney sending here, intentional or not? That’s how I look at it.
Their message was that in the zenith of Hollywood as a liberal image shaping machine, a black male character--in the biggest film franchise / most visible film of the year--is not going to be some dashing hero, or even a growing one with heroic potential. He's going to bug his eyes, scream, stretch his mouth, trip, stumble and let everyone know that he was unskilled labor as a janitor. That's supposed to stand alongside the ultimate, untouchable (by black Finn) Super Mary-Sue.
