#StarWarsLove

If you lived through the Special Edition and Prequel era then this time period in Star Wars fandom is all too familiar. Beginning with the SE, Lucas did some things with the Original Trilogy that sent some fans into literal hysterics. The arguments over whether “Han shot first” got ugly, but that was nothing compared to what happened after the Prequels. Lucas, the mild mannered creator of the galaxy far, far, away was accused of “raping our childhood”. One “comedian” went as far as to say he wished he could go back in time and kill Lucas with a shovel so he couldn’t create anything past the Original Trilogy. And not to be outdone, a TV show showed Lucas to be a rapist because of the fourth Indiana Jones movie. It was in vogue to do this, it was considered “funny” to say these kinds of things about George Lucas, it was accepted. Sadly, we’ve not learned from history.

For some reason in fandom, it is still acceptable to say these kinds of things about directors, actors and heck, anyone involved in the process and social media has only made the problem 100 times worse. People can now hide behind an avatar and anonymously say anything they want about anyone they want. People in creative positions are constantly treated less than human, getting insults and death threats regularly over….. yup, that’s right…. movies, tv shows, comics and books. This is not acceptable. It never should have been acceptable. These creatives are human beings and deserve to be treated with dignity, grace and respect! Let’s remember the Golden Rule folks! Treat others the way you would want to be treated. Remember when your parents told you, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”? Maybe we should start practicing that again.

Yoda famously said, “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate and hate, leads to suffering”. There is so much suffering happening out there because of fandom and it needs to stop. So my challenge is to stop treating creatives like some sort of commodity that owes you something, treat them like real people, BECAUSE THEY ARE! They pour their heart and soul into their work, let’s begin to respect that. Will we like every single thing that comes out of every single fandom? No. But does that give us the right to treat people like less than human? NO! Constructive criticism of art has happened for centuries and it’s fun to debate others about what we think about the latest movie or tv show, but again, we don’t have the right to treat people like less than dirt.

It says in the Bible, “Perfect love casts out all fear”. Even if you are not spiritual, I think we can all see the wisdom in this. My last challenge is to focus on what we love, to build each other up in that and not tear each other down. It’s fashionable to work very hard to be the snarkiest on social media about the latest thing in any fandom. I challenged you, let go of your Hate, as Luke Skywalker would say, embrace the light side because the cynicism of our age is slowly killing us. Let’s celebrate what we love and when we criticize, let’s remember to do it constructively, thoughtfully, respectfully and with grace. And above all, treat people, all people with the respect and dignity that’s due them. I hope you will join me in using the hashtag #StarWarsLove to pass on what we love about Star Wars. Let’s set an example to those that follow, it is not ok to treat people the way George Lucas, Ahmed Best, Jake Lloyd, Hayden Christensen, Kelly Marie Tran, Rian Johnson and so many others across so many fandoms have been treated. Galadrial said in the Fellowship of the Ring film, “Even the smallest person can change the course of the future”, so let’s change it! Will you join me?