Kathleen Kennedy Attacks Male Star Wars Fans

Television

Frustration must be seeping in because Hollywood is now flat-out telling fans how much they hate them. In a The New York Times article about the upcoming Star Wars TV show The Acolyte (via Variety due to the paywall), Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy discussed the hostility towards The Acolyte and its creator, Leslye Headland, and she, of course, blamed the fans:

“Operating within these giant franchises now, with social media and the level of expectation — it’s terrifying… I think Leslye has struggled a little bit with it. I think a lot of the women who step into ‘Star Wars’ struggle with this a bit more. Because of the fan base being so male dominated, they sometimes get attacked in ways that can be quite personal.”

Attacking people on a personal level is a guy thing, you know; that whole “mean girls” phenomenon is just a myth. Headland also threw her two cents in:

“As a fan myself, I know how frustrating some ‘Star Wars’ storytelling in the past has been. I’ve felt it myself… I stand by my empathy for ‘Star Wars’ fans. But I want to be clear. Anyone who engages in bigotry, racism or hate speech … I don’t consider a fan.”

This is eerily similar to what Ewan McGregor said in that car video when people didn’t like Obi-Wan Kenobi, framing it as a racist attack on his co-star, Moses Ingram. That’s the point behind Leslye Headland’s statement; she specifies “bigotry, racism, and hate speech,” but they’ll just accuse anyone critical of that. She’s painting herself as the good guy and the fans as evil. In other words, it’s business as usual at Lucasfilm and Disney.

Kennedy’s comments are more interesting because of how illuminating they are. She admits that the Star Wars fandom is mostly made up of men, and she doesn’t like that. If it weren’t for those evil men who enjoy the brand she now controls, she could do whatever she wants and get no pushback. And she has been trying to square that circle for years by transforming the fanbase into one more desirable to her, as have Marvel and other studios. But it’s not working because they’re chasing ghosts, trying to win over people who will never be interested in their stories, like a vegetarian trying to convert people at a steakhouse. And they clearly hate their male audience, with Kennedy blaming their sex for the anger, which she construes as personal. It’s a patriarchal vendetta against all women, you see, and she and her hack writers are the warriors of virtue, fighting those evil men one overpowered gilrboss at a time.

And it’s not just the girlbosses. Think about the various other decisions Lucasfilm has made, like denigrating and killing off the old heroes of their series, humiliating them at every turn, diminishing their accomplishments in the older films so that her new band of unlikable shrews can do it right this time. That this is being rejected is likely the cause for Kathleen Kennedy’s sudden bluntness; it’s foolish to trash your audience like this with no spin you can use as cover, but Kennedy is coming right out and saying the maleness of the audience is the problem. I don’t think it will make much of a difference, especially for The Acolyte, which looks like a dud already. But that’s the point: this is futile because Lucasfilm is at a point where everything is futile. The Star Wars audience can’t be alienated much more, so why not go for the gold when you attack them?