The rebels in the original trilogy were nearly all white, in this movie there were suddenly non-white rebels everywhere, is this explained anywhere in-universe? Did the rebels set diversity quotas?
shareIt's the opposite. The Evil Empire was all humanoid white male because they represented Nazis.
The rebels were always diverse with aliens, females and POC included because democracy is inclusive.
It's the new Evil Empire aka: First Order, which is suddenly more inclusive. But, the leadership is still humanoid white male so I assume that's the only thing that counts in Fascism.
If you're talking about movie-making, racial and sexual discrimination were much more pronounced in the 70s and 80s then now.
The rebels were not always "diverse", look at the gathering of rebels for the briefing about attacking the death star in episode IV, it's 100% white people.
shareI’d say that was more of a budget thing. The rebels being diverse makes sense, a diverse empire does not. 3 movies later and the empire was still consistently mostly white men despite the rebels being shown taking in more women and non-humans.
There are exceptions that can supersede species and gender, such as if you’re force sensitive or a genius tactician, and those skills are too good to not use. But pretending that it was common for there to have non-white, non-male, non-human you imperial soldiers? That’s a stretch.
George Lucas was heavily criticized for that which is the reason Billy Dee Williams was hired.
Don't forget that racial discrimination in movies and TV was normal.
Do you have proof of this? I've heard it before but haven't found any articles or anything confirming this. It makes no sense for a sentiment like this from the late 1970s-1980. Billy Dee was a popular actor back then so hiring him only helped the move expand the base past the known fans. He was charismatic and was a good companion to Han Solo without being a twin. I mean, I could be wrong, and if there are magazine/news articles saying this, I'd love to read them. But I have never heard of this.
share1977-1978. No PCs. You'd probably would have to sit in a library and read old archived newspapers.
Black people's complaint was about financially supporting Star Wars by buying tickets, but only seeing whites in it. Also, how there are more space aliens than black people represented in the film.
I remember Lucas' announcement about Billy Dee Williams for the sequel. I thought that was a huge home-run since he was both popular and a sex symbol. Black complaints stopped immediately.
Most of the papers and magazines I read at that time are defunct.
But, I did find two articles about two white men complaining even though I didn't know about them at the time.
John Landis:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/star-wars-and-the-fear-of-a-black-planet
Carl Sagan:
https://www.grunge.com/609137/the-real-reason-carl-sagan-called-star-wars-racist/
"Don't forget that racial discrimination in movies and TV was normal."
^Oh, really? What about "The Jeffersons," "Good Times,""What's Happening,""Soul Train" and "Fat Albert"?
That's called tokenism and those shows mainly pertains to African-Americans starting after the Civil Rights Era.
Movies and TV series with Blacks, especially nonstereotyped, were the the exception. And discrimination extended to Asians, Hispanics, Native-Americans, Pacific Islanders, LGBTQ, and disabled. Your omission proves my point about discrimination since you just did it in your previous post by omitting multiple ethnic and oppressed groups.
No. The sudden racial diversity is because Disney hired Democrat political activists as their writers
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