Kathleen Kennedy Says Women in Star Wars Struggle with Toxic Male Fandom: “It’s Terrifying”

It’s not a secret that Star Wars fandom is facing sort of a social crisis. In recent times, much of the focus of the franchise has been put on female leads and representation within live-action projects. Some fans consider it to be a good thing, while some are criticizing that direction.

The reasons behind the criticism are numerous, some fans are genuinely misogynistic, but a vast majority feel that the female and minority representation feels forced and therefore falls flat and bland, being there just for the sake of being there, which makes the overall products all that worse.

Kathleen Kennedy is often the target of attacks as well as female leads of the shows and movies, the most recent example being ‘Star Wars: The Acolyte’ a show that is heavily criticized and boycotted online despite not airing a single episode yet.

Now during the promotion for the upcoming show, set to arrive on June 4th, Kathleen Kennedy tried to explain part of the issue why women in Star Wars are generally being treated worse than women in other franchises. Speaking to the New York Times, Kennedy called out toxic male fandom and how terrifying it is to be a woman in Star Wars Currently:

I think a lot of the women who step into Star Wars struggle with [toxic fandom attacks] a bit more. […] Because of the fan base being so male dominated, they sometimes get attacked in ways that can be quite personal… Operating within these giant franchises now, with social media and the level of expectation — it’s terrifying.

While I do personally agree that personal attacks cannot be excused and should stop I can see why mostly male-dominated Star Wars fandom feels like their franchise is being taken over and ruined – but it has nothing to do with female representation within it.

In the last couple of years, the quality of writing had dropped significantly across the board when it comes to all Disney projects, which leads to overall worse shows and movies, something that both Iger and MCU associated Kevin Feige admitted.

Perhaps instead of thinking about the ways to shoehorn virtue signaling into every single thing they should focus on building great stories again. You know…the thing that made them famous in the first place.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!