![]() Inexplicably, Chewbacca the Wookiee – who we presume needs no introduction on this site – has also been eliminated from the Chinese poster, along with some other subtle changes such as turning villain Kylo Ren more towards the viewer.ĭiscrimination is rampant in many parts of East Asia, including Japan 1, and there are many accounts 2 of people of African descent 3 experiencing harsher discrimination than white and Asian foreigners in these countries 4. This logic, though, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, considering that, this being the first Star Wars film to see wide release in China, Chinese audiences would presumably have no affinity with the returning characters from the earlier films – who seem to be emphasized and enlarged here. Missing entirely are Oscar Isaac, a Guatemalan-American actor portraying resistance fighter Poe Dameron, and Lupita Nyong’o, a black actress who plays a character named Maz Kanata.Īt least one Chinese news outlet says Chinese analysts are brushing off the changes, denying that they’re discriminatory and arguing that the edits aimed for maximum appeal to the Chinese audience and just happened to coincidentally eliminate or downplay all non-white characters. At a glance, the character appears to have been erased entirely in favor of a more sprawling shot of dogfighting spacecraft. HT /ATpvcd51L6- Ray Kwong December 1, 2015Īctor John Boyega’s character Finn – a major protagonist in the film who is also black – is shrunk wayyyyy down in size and pushed down near the bottom of the poster. Star Wars' Finn (who happens to be black) and Chewbacca (happens to be Wookiee) get shafted in China. ▼ Hong Kong-based columnist Ray Kwong compares the English-language and Chinese promo posters movie-going public in terms of butts in chairs by 2020.īut it appears that, in Disney’s zealous pursuit of Chinese box office money, the company has allowed a potentially serious PR gaffe in the form of Chinese promotional posters for the new Star Wars film that are similar in nearly every way to the promo posters of other regions except for the glaring omission of several non-white characters. Chinese audiences’ growing clout in Hollywood almost certainly has something to do with that, with the Chinese movie market recorded as the fastest growing in the world in 2014 and expected by some to overtake the U.S. Star Wars: The Force Awakens will apparently be the first entry in the venerated franchise to see wide release in China. Studio Lionsgate subsequently labelled the offending material rogue and said it was doing its best to have it withdrawn.The promotional poster for the new entry in the Star Wars franchise appears to omit or downplay non-white actors. Local distributors chose to focus instead on Brad Pitt, who plays only a minor role in the film as an enlightened Canadian labourer. The furore over China’s poster for The Force Awakens recalls the controversy over an Italian promotional campaign for Oscar-winner Twelve Years a Slave in 2013, which relegated Chiwetel Ejiofor to a supporting character despite the British actor playing the title role in Steve McQueen’s acclaimed race drama. Previous Star Wars movies were released when the nation had limited numbers of cinemas, so local knowledge of the famous space opera saga is more limited than elsewhere in the world. Studio Disney has pulled out all the stops to boost The Force Awakens in China, the world’s second-largest box office, even flying in 500 stormtroopers for a promotional event on the Great Wall in October. The British actor has faced down a bizarre campaign from racist groups unhappy at the prominence of a black actor in the new Star Wars film, despite the prominence of African Americans such as James Earl Jones and Billy Dee Williams in the original trilogy. Some Twitter users have implied Boyega’s demotion is for racist reasons.
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