From Rachel Zegler to Kelly Marie Tran, Disney Needs To Stop Hanging Marginalized Women Out To Dry
Disney has long been famous for giving in to toxic fandoms and using the women of their projects as scapegoats for failed films.
Over the last decade-plus, the Star Wars fandom has proved itself as one of the most critical in modern pop culture, with an aggressive rejection of every recent entry in the franchise and even worse, many pointed and direct attacks toward the actors involved with the franchise. The problem certainly predates The Last Jedi, but Rian Johnson's divisive, visually striking, and thematically rich eighth entry served as a breaking point for the fandom. Despite having a smaller role in the film, the person who received the largest share of the backlash from The Last Jedi was Kelly Marie Tran, who spoke with Variety about receiving online hate related to her Star Wars role in an interview promoting her upcoming film, The Wedding Banquet (with Lily Gladstone). Tran was the subject of a great deal of racist and harmful comments in the wake of the film's release, leading to her leaving social media in 2018.
