The Last Jedi Backlash and the End of the Fan Bro

In the three weeks since Star Wars: The Last Jedi opened, an incontrovertible truth has been revealed to me: loving Star Wars is easy, loving Star Wars fans is hard.

As has by now been well documented, established film critics lavished the eighth episodic Star Wars film with superlative praise, most frequently comparing it to the darker character-driven Empire Strikes Back, thought by true believers to be the gold standard of the franchise. Yet, once the film debuted, there was immediate outcry from some parts of the internet, and a concentrated effort by same to sink measurements, such as Rotten Tomatoes, to increasingly lower ratings. The motivations behind this effort to hurt the film’s reputation are not entirely clear. Some say it’s the fandom of Star Wars Legends, others mens right activists, still others question the role of DC fanboys seeking revenge on fellow Disney property Marvel, and some just go all in and blame a larger alt-right effort.

Whatever the reasoning behind such efforts, I want to set them aside intentionally and work from the assumption that they are a vocal minority who have a larger agenda that would have been pursued regardless of the contents of the film. Instead, I want to pursue a different segment of the backlash population: the fan bro.

The Secret Origins of the Fan Bro[1]

Sometime between the end of the prequel era (2005) and the start of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (2008), comic book culture took over mainstream culture, and created the rise of mainstream nerd culture. During these years, love of science fiction, videogames, board games, and fantasy went from being a cause of ridicule and middle-school locker stuffing into the means of proving your cultural bona fides. During this same period, the rise of online gamer culture and outlets such as the now-defunct G4 television network, the gamer crowd was indoctrinated into nerd culture until the two became roughly one (but as always, only a Sith deals in absolutes).

The result of these varied trends was a large segment of nerd culture that was drawn from the traditional “jock” category: a community that valued aggressiveness, competitiveness, and strong individualism. In practical terms, this meant that the same dude who had danced his Call of Duty avatar over yours while calling you derogatory names over Xbox Live was now also in line behind you for opening night for the next Marvel movie. So, instead of the lion laying down with the lamb, they just got angry at the same online queue of Comic Con tickets.

So, from roughly 2008-2013, nerd culture became pop culture, the maligned became the mainstream, and the niche became the notable. This drew alpha archetypes into the cultural realm of the betas. I think many cultural signifiers demonstrate this, the Hollywood-ization of Comic Con (not to mention the proliferation of regional cons), the rise in popularity of Big Bang Theory (a show about nerds seemingly written by jocks), and the segmenting of the gamer community into “casual” and “real” gamers.

In no way do I want to imply that a fan bro is “not a real fan,” or that in coming late to nerd culture they somehow don’t have a rightful stake in it. Neither of these are true. While the internet can get sanctimonious about what constitutes “a real fan,” there’s no reason to split hairs on this. If a person enjoys a film, game, comic, TV show, website, etc, they have every right to proclaim themselves a fan. But, I do think that this segment of fandom is drawn to nerd culture for different reasons than the traditional beta types the genres have drawn over time.

The fan bro looks to nerd culture and sees a universe that makes sense to the CrossFit goal-oriented mind: a man of exceptional ability can, through training and regimented discipline, become something truly exceptional. The purest expression of this is the Bruce Wayne story, where a man of privilege commits himself to his individual quest and is rewarded by his society with genuine (though not always universal) admiration. While Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy (205, 2008, 2012) has a lot of more complicated things to say about politics, government, and batarangs, at its heart it is the wish fulfillment of a privileged man turning himself into something greater and saving society through his individual actions, regardless of whatever limitations the law would place on him. Bruce Wayne, in becoming Batman, becomes a savior who can say and do as he pleases, as he is guided by his own moral code and not that of society.

Nerd culture offers further escapism to the fan bro in that the hero figures exist within the confines of a simplistic, usually binary, universe. Whereas society presents us daily with the confusion and chaos of gray morality, the universes of comics books adhere more purely to good guys vs. bad guys, or, of course, light side vs. dark side. Heroes can have flaws, and villains can find redemption, but it is all filtered through the lens of purity and moral absolutism. As long as a hero is on the light side, we can overlook how poorly he treats his friends or >gasp!< the women in his life. See long suffering Pepper Potts who gets no sympathy unless she fully supports the whims of the eccentric Tony Stark. This idea allows the fan bro to look at themselves, operate under the assumption that they are a “good guy” and then excuse their own negative flaws.

Taken to its extreme, I think the values motivating the fan bros are best seen in Game of Thrones, a show deeply entrenched in both the male gaze and the savior complex. While the ending remains unclear, it would seem like the show’s ultimate protagonists (Daenarys and Jon Snow) have both spent the opening seasons going through a robust training to become leaders, and now work within a universe that, for all the rich political intrigue of earlier seasons, will ultimately boil down to the beautiful privileged (white) saviors over the monstrous and lowly others. The universe exists to assert the significance of hierarchy and inheritance expressed by heroes who have trained over time to earn their power, no matter who they have used and cast aside along the way (See: Ygritte and Jorah Mormont). This abiding mythology is then soaked in violence and nudity to ensure its palatability to the fan bro community.

The Force Awakens: The Rise of “Not My Star Wars”

Between the peak period of the fan bro era and the release of the first Star Wars movie of the new era, a shift started to occur wherein the voices of the fan bro culture started to realize that their particular needs were being de-emphasized by the larger nerd culture as it moved in a slightly more progressive direction. The primary precipitating event was the events that collectively became known as Gamergate and the ways in which it surfaced the toxicity that female nerds had been experiencing online since the advent of forums and chat rooms. By mainstreaming the dangerous and destructive behavior that fan bros had normalized within their online community for years (and thereby bred into the rising gamers and nerds), Gamergate demonstrated to the larger world that these actions and words contained real violence that, if unchecked, would spill over into the real world. As has been clearly documented, Steve Bannon saw the raw potential in the World of Warcraft fan communities and weaponized the followers of Milo Yiannopoulis in order to achieve political gains. Yet, the majority of people who saw the reality of Gamergate recoiled at the alarming trends and pushed back on it, causing the fan bro community to feel threatened and continue lashing outward in order to assert the dominance of their worldview.

Into the aftermath of this controversy came 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens which, from its announcement forward, argued for an expansion of heroism in the galaxy far far away that would help the films look more like the diverse fan base that had come to value them so dearly.  By all accounts, the film was wildly successful in this regards. The fan community writ large immediately accepted Daisy Ridley’s Rey and John Boyega’s Finn into the pantheon of heroes alongside the Skywalkers and Obi Wan Kenobi. Even Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron, and his Guatemalan-inspired heritage was welcomed lovingly despite somewhat minimal screen time. The Force Awakens went on to become the highest grossing film in the history of the domestic US market, and its impact can be seen easily by surveying the number of Rey and Kylo Ren costumes that still permeate every elementary school on Halloween.

Yet, despite the largely positive fan response and the slightly cooler, though still positive, critical response, there were two significant controversies surrounding the film’s release that help shake loose the first pebbles of The Last Jedi backlash’s avalanche.  The initial teaser trailer for the film caused a stir within fandom by showing Finn, a dark-skinned man, in the armor of what came to be known as a First Order Stormtrooper. Immediately some fans recoiled and argued that this was impossible, or that it was clearly Disney favoring diversity over established mythology. Even amongst fans who had no problem with there being a trooper of color in the film, a popular theory on why Finn’s last name couldn’t be revealed prior to the film was that he was in fact Finn Calrissian[2], son of Empire Strikes Back character Lando Calrissian. After all, how could there be multiple black families in space?

The second controversy that took hold after the film’s release (and coincided with a more critical turn in fan reception that occurred around the time of its streaming/blu ray release), was the flaws of Daisy Ridley’s Rey, and the specific charge that she was a “Mary Sue.” Though not always a gendered attack, the label implies that a character has not earned their status and that they couldn’t possibly hold the skills that they demonstrate within a film. With Rey specifically, fans charged that her fighting, piloting, and force abilities all came too easily and too naturally to her, and that the only explanation could be lazy writing. Curiously, no similar charges were aimed at either Poe Dameron (we are told he’s an ace pilot, no need to question that) or the Luke Skywalker of A New Hope, who had force abilities, piloting skills, and blaster proficiency despite having never been off of the moisture farm[3]

While certainly a minority, the segment of fandom that used these reasons to reject the entire movie came to the conclusion that this simply is “not my Star Wars.” When pressed, the majority tend to argue that this is due to the corporate interests of Disney, or the lack of connection to the singular genius of George Lucas, the father of Jar Jar Binks.

One explanation for this, I argue, is that these individuals possess internalized biases that prevent them from understanding just why it is they are uncomfortable with this new definition of the franchise and its heroes specifically. This is akin to the racist who says “It’s not that he’s Black, there’s just something about that Barack Obama that I don’t trust.” This idea is not based in pure hatred or bigotry, but rather in the acculturation that years of insidious biased representation has caused. Many white male fans have always had a Star Wars character that they can identify with, and dislike the feeling that that is getting more challenging.

Waving these views away with a simple “Not my Star Wars” prevents many fan bros from really examining their misgivings and understanding how these changes are correcting the exclusion that decades of Star Wars fandom had perpetuated.

The Last Jedi: Get your Head out of your Cockpit

Finally, in the immediate and vehement backlash to The Last Jedi, we see the full mutiny of the fan bro. Leaving the theatre after my first (and second…and third….) viewing, I was astonished that this is an unapologetically feminist film. Beyond that, its infusion of democratic and egalitarian politics works to honor, but reshape the archetypal roots of the franchise and use that same symbolic power to redefine heroism. All fans agree that this is bold in every way that The Force Awakens was safe. Rian Johnson ambitiously subverted fan expectations, and the shock that fans experienced in response has led many to question not just the film, but the leadership of Lucasfilm under Kathleen Kennedy.

As noted above, fan bros have built their love of nerd culture generally and Star Wars specifically around the central idea of a figure of exceptional abilities becoming heroic through training and discipline. This specific archetype has long been a part of Star Wars and is best represented by Luke Skywalker in the Original Trilogy. Though seemingly an unimportant farmer from an unimportant world, the mythology of the first trilogy asserts from the onset, even in his naming, that this character is destined for greatness. Perhaps the great joy of the original trilogy is watching Luke grow in ability across the three movies. In the terms of Joseph Campbell, witnessing Luke’s hero journey guides us as viewers across the threshold of maturation. Luke enters as a whiney child and leaves as a cool and confident demi-God capable of overcoming evil and saving the galaxy. The great white male savior will intervene on behalf of the good and righteous and save us all, let’s just wait.

The prequel trilogy, as maligned as they may be, multiplied this effect exponentially by not only replicating the great male savior, but setting him within the mysticism and magical world of divine prophecy. Anakin Skywalker is not just a cool and able hero, but he is a savior foretold that will “bring balance to the force,” correcting not just the political problems of the galaxy, but realigning it cosmically in his image. In the shadow of the prequels, the Star Wars saga was fundamentally reshaped and redesignated as not just the full story of Anakin (his rise, fall, and redemption) but ultimately as all episodic films being the story of the Skywalker family and the heroic deeds they achieve.

The Last Jedi extends the gains of the Force Awakens by celebrating a strong independent female hero, and deliberately removing her from privilege. While fans spent the two years between the sequel era films speculating ways in which Rey could secretly be a Skywalker, or perhaps a Kenobi, Rian Johnson took the radical step of upending the value of heredity bloodline by rechristening the heroine as “Rey from Nowhere.” In the climax of the film, the revelation shatters her (and the audience) as she is told by fan bro incarnate Kylo Ren “You are not a part of this story.”

The beauty of the line, and of the fierce resolve in Rey’s response, is that we know this is wrong. In fact, this is her story. The franchise has reformed itself around her and her heroism is the hope for the galaxy writ large.

To add insult to injury, Rey not only achieves heroism without a privileged birthright, but she does so having not received the formal training of a Jedi knight, continuing the charge of her character being a “Mary Sue.” Within The Last Jedi, Rey displays advanced fighting skills, gunnery skills, and continued growth in the manipulation and levitation of objects, all abilities that she displayed in the Force Awakens. But, there’s no real sense of her having to work for these skills; either she has these skills naturally, or gained them during her off-screen upbringing on Jakku.

Here again, Rey is being held to a higher standard than the other heroes of the saga. To argue that she needs to experience more struggle in pursuit of her force abilities is to question her holding them at all. Just as female fans are often grilled with trivia in order to determine if they are “real fans,” so too is Rey continually undermined. While I think you can argue that we see slightly more training from Luke Skywalker in Empire Strikes Back, Rey certainly receives no less than Anakin in the prequel trilogy. Yet the magic hand wave of privileged origin (“Chosen One” status) protects Anakin from the wrath of the fan bro.

Rey displays no skills which can’t be easily explained by her solitary upbringing in a seedy environment merged with innate ability in the force. Yet whether due to her gender or her humble origin, the fan bro community denies her heroic status and continually bemoans her as unworthy. “It’s not because she’s a woman; I just don’t connect with her.”

“Dead Heroes; No Leaders.”

Two other sources of much internet outcry in the wake of The Last Jedi are the subplots of the other major chracters, Poe Dameron and Finn teamed up with newcomer Rose. The bulk of these two plotlines advance in the somewhat shaggy, though still engaging, middle portion of the film, during a long section with nary a starfighter or lightsaber battle to divert the audience. Middle sections of Star Wars films, even the very best ones, have a tendency to drag on as time is spent with the characters and exploring relationships and motivations.

Yet, despite the similarity of this middle act to that of Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and Attack of the Clones, these two plot lines have been dismissed out of hand primarily due to the idea that they don’t end up contributing in significant ways to the larger trajectory of the film. Indeed, both plotlines, by focusing on hubris, demonstrate the downfall of a set of ideals and values, when executed poorly. The larger message of the two is that a different definition of heroism is needed in order for success to be attained.

The Poe Dameron that we meet in The Force Awakens is pure fan bro fantasy: capable, cocky, admired, and good looking. The opening crawl of that film identifies him as Leia’s “Most daring pilot,” and Kylo Ren echoes that sentiment within the first half hour. While the character doesn’t get as much screen time in the film, every action he takes has swagger and style. While cut from the Han Solo cloth, Poe exceeds the archetype by demonstrating passion for his cause and compassion for his peers.

While we again meet this Poe in the opening of The Last Jedi, Johnson’s script breaks us from our delusions of grandeur quickly, demonstrating that Poe’s brand of heroism is great for Poe, but tragic for those around him and the larger movement. Poe’s success is financed by the deaths of others and while he can maintain his savior status, the film makes it clear through the tearful mourning of Rose for her sister that Poe’s brand of leadership has no place.

General Organa, in perhaps her most Carrie Fisher moment, literally slaps this attitude out of Poe and sets him on a path to learn real leadership over the course of the film. When she is removed from the situation, Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern), substitutes and repeatedly cockpit-blocks Poe from asserting his centrality and importance to the effort to save the resistance. In subsequent scenes, we see Holdo mock Poe’s mansplaining, reject Poe’s questioning of her fitness for command, and ultimately craft a secret plan to save the resistance. All while Poe continually disrupts, distracts, and derails her leadership.

This plotline has proven galling to the fan bro community, leading to charges than Holdo is “a ridiculously idiotic leader” and that the character herself is “hot garbage.” How could it not? Not only is this a direct challenge to the male savior figure, but the source of the authentic wisdom on leadership is delivered by two matriarchal figures. It is, quite simply, a lesson of the faults of hubris and the ways in which Star Wars and earthly leadership has been infected by toxic masculinity.

In the end, the film’s sympathies are clearly with Holdo, as the end of the film sees not only her own heroic sacrifice (in the one true jaw-dropping visual of the film) but also a reformed Poe finally capable of leadership applying the lessons directly and saving the resistance by choosing not to fight. It is beautiful and feminist and democratic, and it may just be enough to get fans’ heads out of their cockpits.

“Not by Fighting what we Hate, By Saving what we Love”

The most derided plotline by far is the trip that Finn and Rose take to the casino planet of Canto Bight in order to find a Master Codebreaker in order to help them disable the First Order’s hyperspace tracking so that the Rebel fleet can escape. To be sure, it’s convoluted, and the mix of creatures and environments encountered feels far more like Doctor Who than A New Hope. Yet, the primary complaint galvanizing the fan bro community is that it is “pointless” and, the perennial chestnut “Not my Star Wars.”

Setting aside the fact that fan bro disinterest may be rooted in the fact that this plot line is led by two actors of color, the real crime committed by this plot is that it is an active practical demonstration of the very same lesson Poe is being taught in the cross cuts: we need new heroism. The driving force of the plot is Finn’s masculine need to act as savior, no matter the cost or price those surrounding him have to pay. We see this in his attempt to abandon the Resistance in Rose’s first scene, as he wants to be a savior to Rey, and doesn’t care about the fate of the larger movement. Then, though he becomes central to the effort to save the Resistance fleet, he is fueled by the taste of hero worship that Rose has expressed, and the idea that he is now not Finn, but “the Finn.”

Here again, male hubris is doomed to failure as it can’t look beyond the centrality of deeds to the larger truth and power of the movement. In this way, Rose becomes mentor to Finn, showing him that his worldview is myopic, and in being so risks doing real harm to the cause. This is revealed through Rose’s lesson on a balcony (always important in Star Wars) wherein she shows Finn the suffering of creatures and children on the underside of the glamour of Canto Bight, a lesson replicated as Finn looks beneath the superficial conflict of First Order vs. Resistance and discovers the values and ideals that really drive the fight.

After the pair escape the city by liberating fathier beasts and rampaging through the casino district, Rose models the new heroism for Finn. While Finn expresses excitement that all the risk was worth it to “Tear up that town, make it hurt.” Rose’s silence dismisses this idea, as the character removes the saddle from the fathier the pair had ridden and lets him free to join his herd out in the open plain. Here too, Finn is receiving a lesson in heroism from a wiser female figure (though less matronly, no less wise).

The lesson of that moment finds full expression in Rose’s final line of dialogue of the film, as she lay battered on the fields of Crait she helps Finn see that the resistance can only win if they stop fighting against the First Order and start fighting for what they love. It’s cheesy and melodramatic (see also: All of Star Wars), but the point is clear: Finn needs to abandon violent vengeance and embrace empathetic heroism.

This message requires the failure of the larger scheme to infiltrate the First Order, and thus to dismiss the plotline because of that failure is to misunderstand the nature of the heroic journey that Finn is on. As Joseph Campbell notes, the role of the hero is to experience their journey and return to society reborn, carrying with them the boon that will right society. Rose’s message of love and creation is that boon, and it makes the plot central to the film.

“You Must Unlearn what you have Learned.”

When asked about the purpose behind the creation of Star Wars, George Lucas cited the need for our modern culture to create its own myths to transmit our values to children: “I’m telling an old myth in a new way, that’s how you pass down the meat and potatoes of your society to the next generation.” In the 1970’s, our society needed to believe in heroes again, and it needed to believe that problems could be simplified down to light side/dark side dichotomies.

But, many Star Wars fans, and not just fan bros, never took the other message of the film to heart, and have remained saturated in that fantasy world, reshaping culture to try to fit those two narratives, and rejecting challenges to the hegemony of privilege. In the intervening decades, we changed from a society that needed heroes into one that suffered under the burden of them.

The genius of The Last Jedi is that Rian Johnson understands this, and will wield all the tools of his art to right the ship and assert a reformed heroism based on empathy, love, equality, and democracy. Poe and Finn are not unceremoniously dumped from the Resistance, they are instructed, reformed, and embraced. Rey is not a carbon copy of her predecessors, but she is a fully realized feminine (badass) hero. This ain’t your daddy’s “meat and potatoes,” and that’s the whole point.

All of these varied strands amount to a singular message: we worship the wrong heroes. 40 years ago, Star Wars: A New Hope started a revolution to redefine cinema and create the booming market of the summer blockbuster that ultimately, though perhaps unintentionally created the fan bro. In reshaping modern movies to the demands of these values, Hollywood generally, and nerd culture specifically, has affirmed the dominance of alpha male attitudes and let bravado substitute for leadership. The bully is in the AV room. But that is not the end of the lesson, and Star Wars has a lot more to teach us about who we admire, who we follow, and who we are. The fan bro backlash only confirms that this is the lesson we need, even if it may not be the lesson we want.

 

The Last Jedi closes, having wiped the slate clean of much of the toxicity and inferior forms of heroism, on a small scene of three oppressed and downtrodden children on Canto Bight retelling the story that we have just witnessed. Closing here, with one of the children gazing into the stars, reminds us what the whole enterprise is about. Lest you think the film has worked to burn down the mythic completely, Johnson reminds us that the value of heroes is not in what they do, but in what they inspire. Or as Leia tells Rey in their last scene: “We have everything we need.”

[1] Disambiguation: I’m using Fan Bro here as a moniker for a segment of nerd culture fandom I’ve observed online and at conventions. I intend the coinage to invoke the intersection of nerd culture and hypermasculinity. This is not a reference to the podcast Fan Bros which seems to be excellent multicultural analysis of popular culture. (https://soundcloud.com/fanbros)

[2] This theory died out quickly upon the film’s release, but since the character’s actual origin family remains obscured, it still finds purchase from time to time.

[3] The explanation, of course, is hereditary. Being of the Skywalker nobility means your power is limitless.