Some people think that it’s really awesome how diverse the new Star Wars film is and how much more the diverse characters have to do. For instance, Jezebel celebrated the new film thusly:

This was a very good point; after all, who can forget Princess Leia doing literally nothing but giving birth and dying in the original trilogy? Remember the controversial “preggers Leia makes cookies barefoot whilst hanging out on Endor waiting for the menfolk to come home” scene? Shockingly retrograde, even for 1983.

But this time! This time we have a strong woman character!

And a strong black character!

And a strong Hispanic character!

So maybe Star Wars: The Force Awakens isn’t problematic! Maybe this, the most diverse Star Wars film ever made featuring numerous non-white-male characters in numerous roles is good enough!

lol jk

Don’t you know?

Did you forget while we were gone?

Everything’s a problem.

Caution: spoilers for The Force Awakens below. (Not that you should be seeing this horror show anyway.)

smdh

But alas, a curious thing happened on the way to a galaxy far, far away… The character of Finn as the penultimate symbol of racial inclusiveness for this franchise reboot is knocked unconscious during a climactic battle scene in the final act of the film, and he remains unconscious for the rest of the film.

Interesting use of “penultimate” here; if Finn is the second-to-last “symbol of racial inclusiveness,” one wonders who the last will be.

While this is not the first, nor will it be the last time that a character has been held in abeyance at the end or the beginning of a series installment, whether knocked unconscious, frozen in “carbonite”, abandoned or running away to a hidden land, world or fortress, robotic parts separated and/or power disconnected - the unconsciousness of Finn throughout the final act of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” as I shall discuss it here in this piece, reveals to us that, White Hollywood, as we near the beginning of the last year of Obama’s presidency, is ushering in a new and more powerful form of racial tokenism.

Well, obvs.

Hyper-tokenism in a White film can be defined as the marked increase in screen time, dramatic involvement and promotional images of a Black character in a White film, while simultaneously reserving full dramatic agency as the providence of White characters by the end of the film.

In other words, a hyper-token is a fully formed character who happens to be minority.

JFC, is there no depth to which White Hollywood will stoop? FFS.

Moreover, hyper-tokenism takes a toll on the creative consciousness of Black filmmakers and writers in the sense that it makes it even more difficult to breech the loyalty of the Black audience from White films that have Hyper-Tokens and get that Black audience to support Black films where Black characters can exercise full dramatic agency without the approval of White characters or the guidance of the “White Savior Trope.”

wow really makes u think

Others have noticed deeply problematic themes in the world of The Force Awakens:

Much has been made of the ethnically diverse cast. The stars are John Boyega, a black British actor who plays Finn, a former Stormtrooper, and the white British actress Daisy Ridley as Rey, a scavenger with a mysterious backstory. The two are affable and telegenic, and there are fun moments between them as they battle a gathering galactic tyranny.

So far so good, but…

There just aren’t any sparks.

Ugh.

Boyega — who, by the way, worked sanitation duty as a Stormtrooper —

can you even with this because i cannot even with this and i tried so hard to even with this but i wasn’t able to even wi

spends most of the movie running scared while his co-star makes his status in the friend zone as clear as starlight. He is not powerful in the way Rey is. And it’s not that we don’t appreciate the skill of the young heroine; it’s just that she seems empowered at his expense.

Of course she would be; can’t have a strong black man be too strong now can we?

By contrast, the Finn character is remarkably anodyne. In important ways, a black character has moved from the periphery to the center of a blockbuster story. In other ways, Hollywood is still dancing around issues of intimacy and black heroism for a black male lead in a mixed-race cast.

As one smart aleck noted on Twitter,

the whole time i was watching THE FORCE AWAKENS i was like “why haven’t i seen a dick yet”



We won’t have true equality onscreen until we do.

I give the transgression of making a super-diverse film that will almost certainly become the highest-grossing film in North America of all time four problematics.