Welp, I half expect Disney pulls another "FFFF you" to the fanbase by killing off another well loved and competent character as they did with the (seeming) entire OT/EU Alliance and New Republic senior military staff.
I'll still go see the movie, and hopefully it'll be better than the last two pieces of hot garbage. If not, my expectations are set awfully low at this point so worst case my resignation to the fact the NU Star Wars sucking is validated yet again. I hope not though, I really want it to be good.
I don't buy much "STAR WARS" (or Disney) products these days as a result of their bad plots and SJW marketing nonsense. So far all they have is a bunch of FFG X-Wing ships, one copy of each DVD, Rebels series DVDs, handful of legos, some costume parts, and the Thrawn books (NEW THRAWN SERIES COMING BY THE WAY!!!!!) and the new Battlefront games (not full price either). Money talks, and mine is saying "Don't spend me on this garbage". But I want to.
As much as I hate to say it, I wish the SW fanbase would #Gillette Disney right about now. And here are the facts related to seeing how this could be effective beyond "money talks".
Here's the facts as to why I think this "could" be effective to affect change in Disney's direction and treatment of Star Wars and it's primary fanbase. Because, really what other options do we have at this point to protest without "speaking with our wallets", writing letters and communicating via social media and content reviews seems to go entirely ignored at this point.
Gillette primarily sells razors and hygiene products marketed towards men. > Gillette hired Kim Gehrig (a feminist) from the UK advertising agency "Somesuch" which is largely run by feminist corporate executives, and a company that leans towards feminine primary advertising*. > Ensuing consecutive Gillette ads mock men, also paints men in negative light, men not portrayed as "toxic" portrayed as weak feminine soy boy douche-bags; TL;DR masculine men perceived as "bad". > Self respecting men spanning several generations of loyal Gillette customers stop spending their money on Gillette products due to the overt slander**. > Results in area of 8 billion dollars in losses due to said customers switching to Schick, Harry's, Dollar Shave, ect.
Including myself, and I'm a shave twice a day kind of guy, so I go through blades fast and need 'quality blades', and I only used Gillette for the last 17 years or so;
Gillette historically has had "booth babes" and done the traditional "market hot girls advertising our product and men will buy them" ads, in today's SJW society they decided to jump on the train to avoid bad publicity. It backfired horribly.
When your company's and brand's net worth is approximately around 16 billion USD, and you lose 8 billion USD due to one or two commercials due to "going woke" does that seem like a good business move? That's HALF your net worth gone! Does that invoke change or reversal in your future business and marketing decisions? Absolutely it should. But in Gillette's case I think it's too little too late with their reversal. Men are collectively, beginning to wake up to the fact that men are the collective joke of "modern society" socially, legally, inter-personally, and some are starting to fight back against the mistreatment and exploitation. The Gillette "phenomenon" as I like to call it, is evidence of that, and one of the more effective and overt "FFFF you" stances I've seen to date since it's had global recognition and clear significant financial impact.
Businesses are out to make money, and having talked to and heard stories from people in businesses and marketing departments within said corporations, the (successful) business doesn't give a flying fart about political correctness***, and you'd be surprised how they come to decisions on how they market to their target demographics.
*Global financial reports indicate that women currently make 80% of daily spending and economic decisions. Marketing thus tends to target females since economically this is generally good business sense to appeal to those individuals most likely to spend money or purchase your products (looking at gendered spending trends women historically spend more than men, period. Men and women spend money differently if you look what is purchased beyond necessities).
In this case it backfired entirely given they marketed from a feminine primary perspective (SJW and slanderous to boot) and their target consumer in this case happened to be predominantly male (big oops).
**Incidentally, this "toxic masculinity" campaign in the context regarding Gillette's faux pa also rendered a significant portion of women who appreciate masculine men, and saw the commercial for what it was, blatant slander and anti-male/masculine propaganda, incensed and outraged. Ironically many women (typically wives) encouraged their men to ditch Gillette. Triggered women = bad for business. This "toxic masculinity" nonsense is becoming a greater widespread issue and it's not being taken well by the greater masses than our politicians and college administrations seem to think it is. Unsurprisingly.
***Unless it makes them more money by being politically correct, or non-politically correct in that given moment. That's why it's called "marketing". Effective marketing = higher sales = more income generation. Entirely amoral when broken down to numbers on a spreadsheet; big business DGAF.
How is this overt socio-political economic observation relevant to Star Wars? TL;DR version for those either triggered or otherwise uninterested in my outspoken observations of our current state of society and how it's directly affecting star wars; costing Disney a hypothetical 8 billion dollars in losses due to lack of consumer spending, it'd speak volumes and the reality is proportionally if the masses did a Gillette style boycott it'd probably cost Disney much more than 8 billion dollars since it's estimated that Star Wars is worth 27-42 billion dollars compared to Gillette. (Disney doesn't release exact figures for the franchise's net worth apparently that I can find.) Lets presume the franchise is worth 27 billion, but it's probably closer to 35 billion. 13.5 billion dollars in losses would require they re-evaluate their approach.
In theory. Or at least go "Oh, FFFF we may have a problem."
On the other hand, they could just keep doing what they're doing by making excuses for their failures to tell good stories; "People suffering from Star Wars Fatigue" "The manbabies living in their moms basements are triggered because wammin", ect. and ignore our actual, real, and valid complaints and observations of the franchise plots, products, and issues (subjective or factual), because Disney overall makes so much money it's insane and 13.5 billion hypothetical dollars probably matters little to them comparatively to gains in other areas. Though from my perspective a net loss regardless how big, is significant; but I'm poor so I feel any net loss more than Disney does.
More likely to happen however, is we the fans due to our emotional investment in the franchise since childhood are going to go to the movies and buy their products (even if at a slightly enthusiastic and lower rate and/or volume) and voice our dissent, largely ignored, per-usual.
Now the long version titled "Feminine primary politics and marketing approach - an editorial on Kathleen Kennedy's mingling of personal politics and business":
As stated several times in some of my prior posts in what I consider a soft manner, Feminism and SJW agendas are being overtly as well as subtly (though I'd say the latter much less so these days) into Star Wars, both in regards to actors hired to perform the roles, the plot itself, and its marketing practices. Other than "Disney" who is responsible for this and the issues that are stemming from it?
Simple. Kathleen Kennedy is one of the primary issues. She owes her career path initially to a feminist lobbying agency due to them "filing to require the TV station she was working for to hire women for technical positions". If you look at her career path, it's been heavily dependent on hanging onto the coat tails of Spielberg and Lucas and their "properties"; she's not dumb, she goes where the talent is and knows how to profit from it; but now that she's calling the shots in Lucas' properties we can see in the Indiana Jones and Star Wars properties, the effects of her influences. And it's not a good thing as the back and forth in this thread (based on lore, consistency or politics) indicates.
Kathleen Kennedy has also publicly stated that
"I have a responsibility to the company that I work with. I don't feel that I have a responsibility to cater in some way [to those particular fans]," Kennedy told the New York Times in an interview focused around Jones. "I would never just seize on saying, 'Well, this is a franchise that's appealed primarily to men for many, many years, and therefore I owe men something.'"
(Later in the interview Jones also stated that she hopes men and women can relate to Jyn as a person - paraphrased, person sure, but men generally don't relate to women and vice versa. Empathetic and "relatable" aren't the same thing; as a character I thought she was "fine", but I'll keep my psychoanalytic observations of what "kind of person" she was to myself since it's not relevant to this post, all I'll say is she's not relatable to me.)
Well Kathleen that's a big part of our FFFFing problem with you and your attitude and the "astute observation of the primary audience being men" being the problem yet again, is the vast majority of Star Wars fans are men. Yes, more women are interested in Star Wars than there were; GOOD FINE YAY WOOO, some for what we would think "Star Wars is cool and it resonated with me so I like it", which is ideal, and many others simply due to it being a more niche "sexual marketplace" where there is less competition for male attention, and the "cute cosplay opportunities" to fuel their Instagram modeling "careers". There's nothing wrong with the latter either, but those individuals are not "real star wars fans" (generally, though not all cases aren't), they're capitalizing on the attention they get from the larger percentage of the males within the fanbase.
So the fact is you do owe men something Kathleen, personal respect by not pushing the "men are hot headed fools who need a woman to make the right decisions" bullshit as plot points and on screen interactions, and the fact that they, your male fans as a larger percentage of your fanbase are contributing their money to your business and their opinions should be considered given both their financial investments, and their emotional/time investments; the latter which is the reality is your fanbase knows more about your "product" than you do and have a sense of "adoptive ownership".
As for Kathleen's "responsibility to her company" extends to making them more money than they lose from their investment in the franchise. That's it. Point blank. Not pushing her personal politics. Then again, Disney makes its money so perhaps she "has fulfilled her responsibilities to the company" by pushing the gender politics in a round about way.
To quote a blog I read online about this subject by Teela Sammons (a woman for those who think gender matters in regards to opinion validity)
Kathleen Kennedy is phasing out the male heroes of the Star Wars saga. She’s turning it all female. “The Force Is Female”? Really? Give me a break! She’s turning it into an all-girls’ world. She is making it “Female Friendly” at the expense of losing millions of male fans. In my opinion, women are welcome in the Star Wars saga but not to take over.
Sums up my view perfectly, and she so plainly points out a concept that is known as "In Group Preference", or "Cognitive Ingroup Bias" regarding men and women in this particular instance "Kathleen is replacing men with Women".
These are psychological terms for situations like we wind up with Star Wars fans vs Star Trek fans (For sake of argument you can't like both) and their rivalry.
It's also a perverse form of tribalism. (nothing wrong with tribalism mind, but this is different).
Basically in this instance Kathleen and the feminist ad Director for Gillette's failed commercial for example are operating from explicit female in-group preference. Because it's good for "them", and it's relatable to "them"; so obviously everybody should be subjected to their viewpoint and opinions (when it evidently isn't wanted or appropriate) and its maifesting in a conflict on a smaller level IE, Disney/LFL vs SW fans in relation to society spanning levels like feminists vs non-feminists; men vs women, in a manner that is not productive and damaging to society as a whole.
Also factor in her co-opting of Nike's "Air Force One" shoes campaign T-Shirt. Yes that's right, the "THE FORCE IS FEMALE" T-shirts have nothing to do with Star Wars. It's surprisingly a marketing campaign to try and sell more athletics shoes to women. Go figure, right? So more evidence that Kathleen is catering to female "fans", which there is nothing wrong with trying to find ways to encourage half of the world's population to buy your product, it's business after all, it's even smart; but not at the cost of alienating a significant portion of your existing fanbase who you are dependent on since they buy your products for themselves and their children who you hope to continue to have purchase your products in the future. However, it also goes to show that Kathleen isn't capable of coming up with her own original idea, she has to "borrow from" Nike's marketing campaign to use it to push her personal feminist politics.
Side note, I'm somewhat surprised Nike hasn't sued for the brand appropriation (unofficially) but then again it's free advertising in a sense, so perhaps it's inconsequential enough for them to keep quiet on the subject.
The fact is though, that this issue expands farther beyond Kathleen Kennedy, the issue relative to the corporation is the Disney propaganda machine. There's a lot of socio-political documentation regarding their views and influence they've had in society's history and the political stances they've taken over the decades and it's somewhat shocking since consciously we don't pick up on most of it or take it for granted, but the subliminal or marginally concealed messages they input into their stories, movies, ect. are there and have been there forever. It's just getting more obvious to those who pay attention.
Beyond that it's simply put, an overall society issue. Deny it all "you" want, but it's true. And the fact that "we are noticing and feeling the effects of it" in seemingly "trivial" things like our entertainment media. (Really media has a huge impact without us consciously realizing what we are exposed to daily.)
This is just my unpopular opinion on how Star Wars is being afflicted by various outside factors based on my observations of society, business, politics, and the state of conflict between men and women int today's modern society. All of what I have stated in brief is quantifiable and qualifiable, but you have to approach the subjects from an objective perspective, and be aware of the historical and economical contexts that led us to the point we are at with the realization that the truth is awfully inconvenient and very uncomfortable.