Source: Noam Galai / Getty
John Boyega is not with the shits.
His costar Kelly Marie Tran recently deleted all of the pictures from her Instagram account after she came under attack from racist and sexist trolls for taking on the role of Rose Tico.
The actor took to Twitter on Tuesday to come at fans who were criticizing characters from the most recent film, Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
“If you don’t like Star Wars or the characters understand that there are decisions makers and harassing the actors/actresses will do nothing. You’re not entitled to politeness when your approach is rude. Even if you paid for a ticket!” he wrote.
The following tweet was a shout out to fans who were supportive: “To the majority of Star Wars fans thank you for supporting and putting yourselves in our shoes. You understand that there is a process so much appreciated!”
The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson took to Twitter to speak up as well.
“When we talk about when we talk about man babies,” he wrote, and in another tweet adding: “On social media a few unhealthy people can cast a big shadow on the wall, but over the past 4 years I’ve met lots of real fellow SW fans. We like and dislike stuff but we do it with humor, love, and respect. We’re the VAST majority, we’re having fun and doing just fine.”
The Vietnamese-American actress is the first woman of color to play a leading role in a Star Wars movie. In December, someone changed her character’s page name to be “Ching Chong Wing Tong” and referred to her as “stupid, autistic and retarded” among multiple other offenses.
The inclusion of Asian-American people in media is still something that is on the come up. In a multi-university study done in the 2015-2016 season, mono-racial AAPIs only make up 4.3% of television and Multiracial AAPI make up 2.6%. Tran’s role in the film is not only important to the franchise, but it matters that AAPI folks are represented in nerd culture and beyond.
