Abuse shows dark side of fandom
NEW YORK — The dark side of Star Wars fandom recently reared its head when Kelly Marie Tran, the actress who plays Rose Tico in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, was run off Instagram by misogynistic and racist messages from fans who didn’t like her character in the movie.
The episode was not an uncommon one. Daisy Ridley, who stars as the heroine Rey, quit social media last year for similar reasons. They are far from the first women to be hounded by bitter, mostly male fans who didn’t approve of their entry into a fictional pop-culture world that some fans feel a misguided sense of ownership of.
Such toxic abuse has long been a staple of darker social media realms, fan-group message boards and internet comments pages. Obsession — loving or poisonous — has helped fuel the most dedicated fan bases, whose fervor is craved and cultivated by billiondollar brands. But the scorn heaped on Tran — a 29-yearold newcomer who has been overjoyed at her induction into Star Wars — sparked a backlash of its own.
“What’s not to love?” asked Mark Hamill, aka Luke Skywalker, with a photo of himself and Tran and the hashtag “GetALifeNerds.”
Affectionate fan art of Tran’s character began circulating widely on Twitter. The Last Jedi writer-director Rian Johnson forcefully came to his actress’ defense.
“On social media a few unhealthy people can cast a big shadow on the wall, but over the past four years I’ve met lots of real fellow SW fans,” said Johnson. “We like & dislike stuff but we do it with humor, love & respect. We’re the VAST majority, we’re having fun & doing just fine.”
Few have gotten a better look at the remaining “manbabies” of Star Wars, as Johnson called them, than Robert Smigel, the comedian behind Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. When Attack of the Clones was released, he memorably took Triumph to visit fans camped outside New York’s Ziegfeld Theatre. “Return of the Dorks,” Triumph dubbed it.
A kind of hand-puppet Don Rickles, Triumph eviscerated them as “thousands of 35-yearold men … lonely men who have never had sex, not even with a Catholic priest.” It was the comedy version of shooting fish in a barrel, and — charmingly — most of the fans loved every minute of it.
It’s helpful to remember that earlier, more innocent, pre-social media chapter in Star Wars fandom. It showed the value of a healthy dose of self-deprecation for any fanboy.
“I am a fan. I’m a fan of Star Trek, too. I have a deep affection for people who obsess on these things because I identify with it,” said Smigel.
Even the man behind the harshest Star Wars critic found the attacks on Tran “shameful.”
“I was upset about it,” said Smigel. “It’s just sad because that’s what the internet has become. It’s become this loud minority. It doesn’t seem to me that they represent the majority of the people that saw that movie.”
Other efforts to boost multiculturalism and gender equality in Hollywood blockbusters have also provoked politically tinged responses. Before he was president, Donald Trump was among those to criticize the female-led Ghostbusters, which became a lightning rod in 2016.
At the premiere Wednesday of Ocean’s 8, also a franchise remade with actresses in the leads, Sandra Bullock was still aghast about backlash to Ghostbusters.
“That was unfair on a level that I can’t even not be mad about talking about,” Bullock told Variety. “[The cast] literally walked into a firing squad. You had five of the most gifted comedian actresses on the planet — I’m just gonna leave it at that.”