John Boyega is starring in the new Star Wars film, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. And some fans are just going to have to get over it.
Boyega recently did an interview with V magazine in which he told fans to give up on complaining about his role in the movie. “I’m in the movie, what are you going to do about it? You either enjoy it or you don’t. I’m not saying get used to the future, but what is already happening,” Boyega said. “People of color and women are increasingly being shown on-screen. For things to be whitewashed just doesn’t make sense.”
He went on to say that he tried to take roles that had “a secret commentary on stereotypical mentalities.”
“It’s about getting people to drop a prejudiced state of mind and realize, ‘Oh shenanigan we’re just watching normal people’,” Boyega said.
Some of Boyega’s more vocal opponents are particularly opposed to his character Finn being shown in a Stormtrooper suit. They say that a black man cannot be a Stormtrooper, citing the prequel movies in which the troopers are all clones of one man (who, it should be noted, is of partial Maori descent). However, it has been suggested that Finn is only impersonating a trooper.