The ridiculous reason #BoycottStarWarsVII was trending and how Twitterati responded

The trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens released on Monday and took the internet by storm with fans crashing ticket sites. The video has been viewed over four million times since it was released. However, clearly, you can’t please everyone. Some people have been complaining about the absence of Luke Skywalker and others about JJ Abrams sneaking in lens flare. And then there’s the group that has termed the trailer ‘racist’, ‘anti-white propaganda’ and has called for a boycott of the upcoming film. [caption id=“attachment_2477318” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] John Boyega in a screengrab from the trailer[/caption] To put it simply, there are people out there who think that Star Wars shouldn’t have so many people of colour in its cast. (Obviously iconic characters Lando Calrissian and Mace Windu have been forgotten) #BoycottStarWarsVII was started after these people decided they were angry about the casting of black actor John Boyega as Finn. They claimed the film was promoting “white genocide” and called director JJ Abrams a “Jewish activist”. And they also claimed that the cult film franchise is apparently ‘alienating core audience of young white males’. While this may sound far-fetched (even by desi troll standards), there were many users who believed that the presence of non-white actors was offensive and planned to boycott the highly anticipated film. Here are some of the tweets that were at the centre of the protest:

Soon, the hashtag started trending on Twitter. But not because the trolls won and people actually decided to boycott the sequel. Star Wars fans on Twitter united in support of the film and drowned out the ridiculous tweets, pointing out just how invalid the ‘racist’ argument was. From listing the other coloured characters in the film to plain trolling the wannabe trolls, the Twitterati’s message to the whole propaganda theorists was clear - you know nothing!

For the record, both Boyega and Abrams have spoken about the casting of the film and its impact. At the San Diego Comic-Con Abrams responded to a question about diversity in casting saying , “I think it’s important people see themselves represented in film. I think it’s not a small thing.” Boyega had hit back at the racist comments as well saying , “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 … [it] is already happening. People of colour and women are increasingly being shown on screen. For things to be whitewashed just doesn’t make sense.”