Last night was a big night for fans of Star Wars, J.J. Abram’s work, and movies with explosions. The newest trailer for the seventh installment in the Star War’s franchise aired during the Monday Night Football game, and garnered a lot of buzz on social media. The biggest story of the night, however, was the appearance of the hashtag #BoycottStarWarsVII that began trending on Twitter. This hashtag was used by users who were upset at the film’s use of minority actors, especially in the leading roles.

Twitter users used this hashtag to attack the movie for inspiring “white genocide,” and accusing it of forcing a multicultural agenda on its “core audience of young white males.” Asking its fans to accept aliens of all shapes and sizes, robots imbued with artificial intelligence, and even a lame comedic character who sparked racist claims is one thing, but minority actors in leading roles is a whole other. Apparently there’s nothing like an intergalactic science fiction film to inspire racist Twitter rants:

#BoycottStarWarsVII because it will be ghetto garbage. pic.twitter.com/SkNiqg8bKX

— Lord Humungus (@DarklyEnlighten) October 19, 2015

#BoycottStarWarsVII Because everyone knows dindus don't have the brainpower to use The Force. pic.twitter.com/Uh91gnCsEe

— Spooky Azzmador (@The_Azzmador2) October 19, 2015

On the other hand, some also used the hashtag to attack these trolls:

George Lucas and his wife laughing at these #boycottstarwarsvii tweets like pic.twitter.com/0fksLcki2N

— DeMarko Gage (@DeMarko_Gage) October 19, 2015

When I went on Twitter and saw that #BoycottStarWarsVII is trending pic.twitter.com/GOEzI8PZes

— Giants 9001-0 (@zoated) October 19, 2015

This hashtag, along with the #CelebrateStarWarsVII response hashtag brings to light just how political Hollywood can become. “Mad Max: Fury Road” received similar criticism from so-called “men’s rights activists” who claimed that the movie was “feminist propaganda” and urged men to boycott the film. It is truly sad that movies with story lines that don’t relegate women and minorities to stereotypical roles can cause so much backlash. Despite the fact that Hollywood is still heavily dominated by white males as leading actors, directors, and producers, apparently some are still opposed to any increased diversity. Fortunately, the anti-diversity outrage over the new Star Wars movie is minuscule when compared to the number of people excited for the film and either happy to see minority actors utilized, or much too concerned with the movie’s content to worry about political and social complications:

Gloriousness of the new #starwarstrailer has left me completely unable to cope. BRB, in coma of sheer glee.

— Claudia Gray (@claudiagray) October 20, 2015

Maurin Mwombela

Maurin Mwombela is a member of the University of Pennsylvania class of 2017 and was a Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer 2015. He now blogs for Law Street, focusing on politics. Contact Maurin at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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