A new study suggests that racist and sexist attitudes may be driving some Star Wars fans’ dislike of the newer, more diverse characters in the franchise. The research has been published in Psychology of Popular Media.
Some fans have criticized the newer Star Wars films for their plot and character development, and expressed disappointment with the direction of the franchise. But other fans have lashed out over the inclusion of diverse characters. Finn, played by John Boyega, is a Black man, while Rose Tico, played by Kelly Marie Tran, is a woman of Vietnamese descent. The authors behind the new study sought to scientifically investigate the role of prejudice in the backlash.
“When Disney purchased the rights to the Star Wars franchise and began releasing new movies, the new characters were more diverse than in prior films. Some fans took to social media to express their dislike of the new characters. This isn’t unique to Star Wars, fan backlash was also observed for Ghostbusters Answer the Call, Doctor Who, and Star Trek: Discovery,” said study author Stephen Reysen, a professor at Texas A&M University-Commerce.
“News reports and other fans in the community suggested that the criticism of the new characters may be driven by sexist and racist motives. Researchers analyzed tweets from fans and offered mixed interpretations. We decided to conduct this study to examine if there was a link between fans’ degree of racism, sexism, and preference for new and old characters.”
For their study, the researchers surveyed 1,925 people who identified as Star Wars fans. Most of the participants were male and around 24 years old. The survey asked them to rate six Star Wars characters on a scale from extremely negative to extremely positive. Three of the characters were from older Star Wars movies (Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, and Padme Amidala) and three were from newer movies (Finn, Rey, and Rose Tico).
The researchers chose these characters because they are all main characters and should be well-known to all participants. The older characters were White, while the newer characters have been the target of criticism from some fans on social media.
Reysen and his colleagues found that hostile sexism and symbolic racism were associated with greater dislike of newer characters. In other words, those who agreed with statements such as “Women exaggerate problems at work” and “Most women interpret innocent remarks as sexist” tended to dislike Finn, Rey, and Rose Tico. The same was true of participants who agreed with statements such as “Racial minorities are getting too demanding in their push for equal rights” and “if racial minorities would only try harder they could be just as well off as whites.”
Greater hostile sexism and symbolic racism were also associated with greater dislike of Leia, to a lesser extent.
“Fans’ degree of racism and sexism was positively associated with greater dislike of newer characters but not older characters,” Reysen told PsyPost. “One exception was a smaller, but significant, negative association with a preference for Leia. This may be explained by the change in Leia’s character in the newer series: from damsel-in-distress to an agentic and powerful general.”
“The results suggest there may be some truth to the notion that the fan backlash against the newer, diverse, characters is partly related to fans’ degree of racism and sexism. Fans real-world prejudices may influence their media preferences.”
But the findings also suggest that Star Wars fandom, in general, is largely opposed to sexism or racism.
“Star Wars fans were well below the midpoint of the racism and sexism measures,” Reysen explained. “The results do not suggest that there is a large portion of the Star Wars fandom endorsing these beliefs. Rather there is simply an association. The research is correlational. Thus, we are unable to make causal claims. We chose the characters in this research because all fans (even new fans) would know who they are. If we were to redo this study, I would add more characters (e.g., Lando) for fans to rate.”
“Representation is important in media and has an influence on the audience (reduced prejudice). However, as studios seek to reboot or continue older series and include greater diversity they may see fan backlash.”
Interestingly, in another study on perceptions of extreme fan behavior, Reysen and his colleagues found that Star Wars fans tended to be opposed to bullying others.
“In that study we asked anime fans, furries, and Star Wars fans their perception of when a fan goes ‘too far,'” he explained. “Star Wars fans were unique in showing a higher percentage of fans saying that a fan is going too far when they are pushing their opinions on others, including spamming or bullying content creators. The results suggest that the majority of Star Wars fans viewed that behavior as toxic.”
The study, “Sexism and Racism Negatively Predict Preference for Diverse Characters in Star Wars Fans“, was authored by Stephen Reysen, Grace A. Packard, and Courtney N. Plante.
