Actress Kelly Marie Tran, who plays the character of Rose Tico in ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ has deleted all of her Instagram posts following abuse from trolls. A day later, Director Rian Johnson hit back at the troll “manbabies”, who forced Kelly to leave Instagram after months of racist and sexist abuse over her Star Wars role.
Rian Johnson described the trolls as “unhealthy people” who had taken a great dislike to Kelly’s character in the eighth instalment of the Star Wars franchise, which was released back in December.
Taking to Twitter to address the abuse, Rian said: “What we talk about when we talk about manbabies.”
Kelly Tran as Rose Tico in ‘The Last Jedi’ has been mate with a barrage of Star Wars hate. Credit: Reddit
“On social media a few unhealthy people can cast a big shadow on the wall, but over the past 4 years I’ve met lots of real fellow SW fans. We like & dislike stuff but we do it with humor, love & respect.”
“We’re the VAST majority, we’re having fun & doing just fine.”
What we talk about when we talk about manbabies
— Rian Johnson ()
On social media a few unhealthy people can cast a big shadow on the wall, but over the past 4 years I’ve met lots of real fellow SW fans. We like & dislike stuff but we do it with humor, love & respect. We’re the VAST majority, we’re having fun & doing just fine.
— Rian Johnson ()
Actor Mark Hamill, famously known as Luke Skywalker in the movie franchise, backed up the director’s response: “Same here, but over the past 40 years for me.”
The Last Jedi was a hit, successful both financially and critically. However, the film didn’t impress everyone, with some “die hard fans” abusing its director, cast and producer Kathleen Kennedy. The abuse has only continued, with fans accusing Rian of “killing Star Wars” and causing the newest film, the Han Solo spin off, ‘Solo‘, to flop at the box office.
Actress Daisy Ridley, who played the role of Rey in the last film, also left Instagram because of the same kind of sexist comments that she had been receiving. And if that wasn’t enough, one particular fan released an edited version of the film, cutting out the female characters.
Source: Giphy
The anonymous creator of the video, said he had removed “Girl Powah and other silly stuff”, including “superpowered Rey” and “bomber heroism by china girl”. Apparently they need an education too, as Kelly Marie Tran is of Vietnamese heritage, not Chinese.
Kathleen Kennedy, who was put in charge of the franchise after George Lucas sold his company to Disney, previously said she was keen to introduce more women to the franchise. And apparently, that really doesn’t go down too well with a lot of Star Wars fans.
Aside from Carrie Fisher’s role as Princess Leia, it was revealed in a video last year that throughout the total run-time of 386 minutes, the original Star Wars trilogy featured just over one minute of dialogue spoken by a woman.
Daisy and Kelly are due to return to the big screen for ‘Star Wars: Episode IX’, which is due to be released on December 20th next year. Hopefully, by then the pair will return to social media, and learn to ignore silly comments made by manbaby trolls.
<Story by Emily Clark>
Featured Photo Credit: Revenge of The Fans