John Boyega

[Neurochick]

Mar 12, 2018 14:52:37 GMT -4 pachengala said:

Giant effing spoiler for The Last Jedi in that article, be forewarned.

ETA: My husband just laughed at this post for like ten hours and said, "It comes out on video TOMORROW. Everyone has seen it but you."

I'm with your husband. I was thinking, "hasn't that movie been out since December?" Can you say something is a spoiler if it's been out for three months? (yes, I've seen it twice).

[Deleted]

Incredible, passionate speech by John at the Black Lives Matter protest in London.

[kostgard]

I appreciate the way he hit back at all the racists fanboys he had to deal with the second his Star Wars contract was up, and I appreciate him speaking up now.

Fortunately, there are plenty of big players in Hollywood voicing support for him, so his career should be just fine (as it should be).

[magazinewhore]

Wow. Just wow.

[Wol]

Jun 3, 2020 19:41:06 GMT -4 kostgard said:

Fortunately, there are plenty of big players in Hollywood voicing support for him, so his career should be just fine (as it should be).

Agreed. Contrary to his concerns this will actually help him. On the decent end, people will want to reward his courage and work with him. On the cynical end, people will want to work with him so they can feel better about themselves and point to their work with him as an example of how non-racist they are.

[hellsbells]

I officially and unequivocally love him.

[OnyxRose]

I was absolutely ticked off with how John and Kelly Marie Tran were treated and I wish then nothing but the best. If you haven’t seen ‘Attack
The Block’, you should. He’s wonderful in it.

[Chenoeh]

Also, future Doctor!

[kostgard]

Now that he's not contractually obligated to play nice, John Boyega is letting it rip and he's not incorrect about anything.

“I’m the only cast member who had their own unique experience of that franchise based on their race,” he says, holding my gaze. “Let’s just leave it like that. It makes you angry with a process like that. It makes you much more militant; it changes you. Because you realise, ‘I got given this opportunity but I’m in an industry that wasn’t even ready for me.’ Nobody else in the cast had people saying they were going to boycott the movie because [they were in it]. Nobody else had the uproar and death threats sent to their Instagram DMs and social media, saying, ‘Black this and black that and you shouldn’t be a Stormtrooper.’ Nobody else had that experience. But yet people are surprised that I’m this way. That’s my frustration.”

“Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver,” he says. “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. 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. They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy Ridley. Let’s be honest. Daisy knows this. Adam knows this. Everybody knows. I’m not exposing anything.”

I mean...yeah. A huge part of this is that the Star Wars fandom is apparently extremely toxic (not surprising, if it is largely made up of young white dudes). Daisy Ridley got crap for being female when she was first cast, but yeah - he got all sorts of crap for being a black stormtrooper, which is apparently impossible.

But while Disney can't really control the fans, the third movie really felt like they were trying to cater to them (basically pretending that "The Last Jedi" didn't happen) and he and Kelly Marie Tran were absolutely sidelined. KMT basically got to stand around in the background in a few scenes. JB got to run around and scream "Rey!" and not much else beyond that.

[technicolor]

He's really coming for Disney and how they are ultimately responsible for that whole trainwreck. The truth is: The toxic fandom brings in the money. So nothing was done to protect the actors from it. All the actors had to deal with most of the ire directed towards the sequel trilogy. I don't think it's a coincidence that they basically all quickly backed away from Star Wars once the TROS premiere was over.

And there's the systemic issue that Finn turned into a sidekick and Rose was practically erased by the last movie, just as examples. None of that had to happen. Like, Finn was a Stormtrooper, I for one thought him leading a Stormtrooper rebellion would be a no-brainer. But...nothing.

ETA: Him going so hard on Disney is quite brave, no matter how big his profile now is. They control a vast deal of the industry, openly criticizing them like that for systemic racism is not without risks.