Everything John Boyega has said on Twitter about racism in ‘Star Wars’

John Boyega has had a rather interesting and public career. He quickly became a household name when he was announced as one of the fresh faces intended to champion the last three movies of the nine originally planned Star Wars movies. Before The Force Awakens even premiered in theaters Boyega was already well known, simply from the relentless press tours and ubiquitous advertising of the film.

Already Boyega found himself the target of anger & hate from the more abhorrent corners of the internet. Apparently they were mad that a (rather handsome, if we do say so ourselves) black man was one of the new faces of the beloved space franchise.

Since then, Boyega has deftly risen to become the very definition of “take no sh!*” and has also become quite the leader in the Black Lives Matter movement. When internet trolls with no life tweet nasty things to John Boyega he doesn’t ignore them or block accounts – he replies to them in succinct, poignant, and scathing remarks.

Now that Boyega is no longer under the restrictive contract of a Disney-owned franchise such as Star Wars, he’s willing to speak out about how the “fans” weren’t his only problem.

Sidelined

A lot of fans will be speedy to agree to the sentiment that the final three Star Wars movies had some issues with the scriptwriting. Boyega, however, will be the first in line to do so, and he did in a recent British GQ interview.

He points out how his character, and many of the other characters who were people of color, were heavily sidelined. “What I would say to Disney is do not bring out a black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are, and then have them pushed to the side. It’s not good.”

Boyega readily acknowledges that his character, Finn, was by no means the only sidelined character. He says Jannah (Naomi Ackie), Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran), and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) all had similar experiences with their character development or lack thereof.

Further explaining, John Boyega points out, “Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver. You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know, f*ck all.”

And he has a point. Anyone who watches the three movies in question can clearly see how the characters are introduced, set up to be interesting & endearing – only to suddenly have dramatically decreased screen time in subsequent movies, leaving fans feeling like they never got to know the characters.

Twitter replies

We mentioned previously in this article that John Boyega is the epitome of “take no sh!*”. Those who appreciate seeing Boyega stand up for himself as well as people of color in general have grown to adore his numerous clapbacks. For those who enjoy seeing Boyega shut down the haters as much as we do, we put together all the best Twitter @s. Though, it’s also important to note Boyega has a lot of other tweets which are thoughtful & well written, so we’re including some of those too.

:) no. Thanks though.

— John Boyega (@JohnBoyega) September 2, 2020

Telling a man how to feel

We don’t recommend telling anyone how to feel about something, it’s counterproductive & just not cool – but to tell a man to be grateful for experiencing racism in the workplace is pretty gross.

These conversations and me sharing isn’t about a witch hunt. It’s about clarity to an anger that can be seen as selfish, disruptive and self indulgent. Obviously in hopes of better change.Bruh. In short. I said what I said. Love to you all seriously. Your support is amazing ! ❤️

— John Boyega (@JohnBoyega) September 2, 2020

Regarding the GQ interview

Boyega’s statements in the interview aren’t meant to call anyone in specific out, he’s just here to tell the truth and spread some love.

Don’t care

One “fan” talks about how they hate Finn and Rose as if it’s the actors’ faults and not awful writing. Boyega manages to send a massive eye roll through the internet.

Not entitled to politeness

Boyega doubles down on fans being rude to actors. Again. We’ll say it louder for the people in the back – actors are not the decision makers.