It’s unsurprising that the newest Star Wars installment was a monstrous success. It was released to critical acclaim and became the fastest movie to gross a billion dollars worldwide.
As is the case with every movie there were people who were underwhelmed with the J. J. Abrams-directed sequel. You can find (spoiler-filled) examples at Death and Taxes and Vice.
There is, however, another group of people angered by the new movie. White nationalists have, from the first previews which depicted a black Storm Trooper, lost their collective minds, arguing that the film would serve as a promotion for multiculturalism and “miscegenation.”
Misogynists criticized the strong female lead. Over at the far-right blog Return of Kings the movie was denounced as “[Social Justice Warrior] propaganda. RoK writer David Garrett used some fuzzy math (and misleading polls) to claim his reporting cost the film $4.2 million at the box office.
None of this is shocking when you take into account the fact that this is the same crowd shrieking about “white genocide” and “cuckolds” when they see an interracial family starring in a Cheerios commercial.
The latest to join this bandwagon is white supremacist videoblogger Paul Ramsey (a.k.a. RamZPaul), who offers his take on Rey, a female protagonist.
Apparently Rey sets a bad example for the kids, because strong female characters encourage women to be, well, courageous and heroic. This, in turn, is bad because only men can be those things, and women should stay at home and give birth.
After decrying Rey as a “Mary Sue” character, Ramsey says that the “more sinister thing” about the film is that “these people are saying it’s good we have a strong, empowered woman” as a protagonist. “What they really mean,” he asserts, “is a woman that acts like a man. And that is a male behavior, because our sexual strategies are different.”
As an example, he states that men find Rey “attractive” not because of her heroism but because “she’s young, she’s thin, and she’s white.” Women, on the other hand, look to men’s “actions”, and are attracted to “the heroic knight, the brave man…that slays the dragon.”
“Really, what this girl should be doing — Rey, the character — she should be having babies,” said Ramsey.
“She should be a mother. That’s more valuable. She’d pass on the Jedi blood to her children. But instead she’s running around and it’s giving a wrong message to both girls and boys. ‘Cause boys need heroes, they need to see the bravery.”
For some reason, women don’t need heroes. Instead we “need women to have children and be homemakers.” Did I mention this guy thinks women shouldn’t vote either?