Is Star Wars:Rouge One Diverse?

     Many have said the "Star Wars" franchise has finally joined the diversity universe. "Rogue One," the latest film set in a galaxy far, far away, boasts a wildly varied cast of human actors -- Asian, Hispanic, African-American, Pakistani. George Lucas' creation has for years been populated by humans who are almost overwhelmingly Caucasian, with the occasional minority thrown in for spice: often only one or two per movie.  But these earlier, pallid attempts at multi-culturalism don't hold a candle to the range of colors and ethnicities in "Rogue One." The heroes of the film, nearly all members of the Rebel Alliance attempting to steal the plans of the Empire's ominous Death Star, include a Mexican (Diego Luna), Puerto Rican (Smits), Englishwoman (Felicity Jones), African-American (Forest Whitaker), Dane (Mads Mikkelsen), two Chinese men (Wen Jiang and Donnie Yen) and a British/Pakistani/Muslim (Riz Ahmed). As if to heighten the contrast, the leaders of the Empire -- who include a brilliant CGI rendering of actor Peter Cushing, who died in 1994 and appeared in the original "Star Wars" -- are all preening Caucasian imperialists; you can imagine them goose-stepping around their space ships.

     We are told that  in Rogue One, a woman can lead a dangerous mission to turn the tide against an enemy that seems insurmountable. Anyone can be a hero, no matter what they look like.  I guess you can get this message, as the character of Jyn Erso is there in the movie.  Except she is not much of a hero or even a leader.  Though granted she is much more anti-hero, or well anti hero light anyway.  She shoots a couple bad guys, runs around, but does not get to do anything heroic or even anti heroic.  She only gets recruited by the rebels as she knew someone.  Not for her skills or abilities or anything she as done or could do...she just knows a guy.  This starts the big missed opportunity for the character.  In the movie she is just a criminal that knows a guy.  The character could have been a thief/scoundrel/expert hired for her skills.  And what is the most heroic thing she does?  She hits the send button?  And she does nothing to lead.  The character, by itself, just is not a good hero leader.  And it's only worse that the character is a woman, as you get the feeling the character was made female.  You'd be hard pressed to put a man in that character.  In the aftermath of the OscarsSoWhite (and Male?) controversy, numerous studies supported the contention that women and minorities were being woefully under-represented on screen.  So if you want to count ''Rouge One'' as a movie meeting some sort of woman quota then it does so, but she sure does not give an Oscar worthy performance.  But at least she can be nominated for ''lead in a movie'' or such, right?

     The rest of the diverse cast is not much better, they are simply a diverse cast of boring characters.  And you might also notice the female diversity drops to just about zero.  And the only reason it is not zero is that we see a woman fighter pilot for about three seconds.  So why not have one or two women in the Rouge One band?  Wonder why they just dropped that diversity?  They say, somehow, diversity leads to more creative stories.  Yet, the ''Rouge One'' story is not very creative.     Things heated up on Twitter when Rogue One writer Chris Weitz tweeted, “Please note that the Empire is a white supremacist (human) organization.” To which Gary Whitta, another writer, responded, “Opposed by a multi-cultural group led by brave women.” In response to a big ol’ backlash (and concurrent uptick in #DumpStarWars tweets), both deleted their tweets the same day, and Weitz apologized.  So where does the ''white supremacist Empire'' come from other then the Nazis?  Why does not the Empire have humans of all colors?  Why does the Empire have no women?  And why no aliens?  This is not explained in any Star Wars movie.  The narrative set up of  ''all white men are evil, racists'' and ''the diverse mix is beautiful'' is a bit much.  Still, the movie is obviously trolling to make a lame political point, dragging in a fashionable left-wing trope where it once again does not belong. Not only is it tiresome to imply that being white and male is something vaguely shameful, the white-supremacist angle makes no sense in the context of the other chapters in the Star Wars story.




      If the rebels are some sort of coalition of minorities, women, and sarcastic robots, specifically opposed to white supremacy, why did they subsequently turn to Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker, and Han Solo to lead them? Weitz and Whitta (both white males) are injecting dumb liberal talking points into the franchise.   Moreover, the decision to leave white males out of the rebel crew is indefensible from a marketing perspective. Like any Star Wars movie, Rogue One hopes to sell a lot of action figures. Little kids presumably like to buy action figures they can identify with, and though I don’t have any marketing data to back it up, it seems likely that white males are the single biggest market for Star Wars swag. Why would you turn your back on your best customers? It’s yet another example of how Hollywood’s incessant need to prove it is on the progressive side of the political Force sabotages Hollywood’s own best interests.  Multiculturalism has a strong justification in marketing: if you want to sell to girls, boys, and every ethnicity and race, you’ll give everybody a hero that looks like them. So why leave out white males? The only white guy in Rogue One who has much value to the rebel force is an Imperial scientist played by Mads Mikkelsen who has misgivings about his work for the bad guys.


     
     This "diversity for the sake of diversity" thing has long since gotten old.  Demanding that our entertainment stringently conform to demographics is undermining the very concept of entertainment.  I don't necessarily care if a film has X number of black actors and Y number of Asian actors.  I care if it has GOOD actors, and is telling a story that sounds interesting to me.  Beyond that, the melanin content and ethnic background is of less interest than the precise number of kernels in my bucket of popcorn.   I have a really crazy, radical idea.  How about instead of obsessing over having X number of this race and Y number of that race, whether we're discussing the cast of a film or the staff of an office or the student body of a university, we go with who is best suited for the position in question?  You know, you actually succeed or fail based on your merits rather than your melanin, and you're invited to sit at the table based on what you bring to said table, rather than "This table lacks a trans half-Maori half-Japanese person who identifies as a toaster oven."

     The whole idea of "Star Wars" is something murky. Almost always a bunch of terrorists try to undermine the authority of the "superior culture" . Who exactly do the white viewer empathize with ? The series should be inspiring for ISIS , Al-Qaeda and the rest of terrorists because at least they have an equivalent  for "Superior being"; Americans who support Israel , create wars based on lies (Iraq) , create terrorist groups like ISIS and unduly violate the law. despite their overwhelming technological and cultural differences.  Rogue One leans into the broad political strokes that George Lucas set out when initially creating Star Wars in 1977. It’s a tale of rebellion against a totalitarian government, of guerrilla fighters striking a blow against uniform regiments of stormtroopers and the brutal dictator they serve. The idea that such sentiments would be remotely controversial is indicative of just how much the 2016 election has seeped into every aspect of pop culture. Rogue One is a tale of good guys and bad guys, just as Star Wars always has been.