I feel like I’ve put up a lot of stuff about Star Wars on my blog in the last year or so. In a way it’s sort of odd because my Star Wars fandom peaked when I was younger and as an adult I don’t have that same pull towards the franchise that I did before. I still really enjoy it for what it is, but the original trilogy don’t really do it for me like they used to. That doesn’t mean that I can’t have fond memories and that The Force Awakens didn’t give me goosebumps or make me emotional at times, because it did.

The trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story came out this week. Since it isn’t a continuation of the main story like The Force Awakens was there isn’t as much of that whole, initial ZOMFGOMGOMGOMG reaction. The trailer serves to introduce the lead character in the upcoming prequel to A New Hope and shows what the main plotline will be; following the character who stole the plans to the original Death Star. Along the way you see stormtroopers, rebels, hear klaxons, see a lot of capes, AT-ATs and hear a familiar, if not muted melody.

Essentially, we are getting another glimpse into the Star Wars universe and it’ll follow another kick ass female lead — Jyn — on her journey. Cool, right? Apparently not. A simple Google search of Rogue One right now brings up alleged “controversies” and a brief look at the YouTube comments on the trailer show the kind of shit that we’ve grown accustomed to; people being shitlords.

A tweet that I saw from Kumail Nanjiani of Silicon Valley fame on April 7th really kinda hammered home the whole thing for me.

https://twitter.com/kumailn/status/718114775624847360

He breaks it down so simply and eloquently. When he was a kid all of the stuff that he saw had kickass white guys as the leads and he, as a kid, had to wish that he was like the lead character. I’m a white dude, which puts me in a privileged class of people. No, my life hasn’t always been easy and I still have a lot of struggles that I deal with on a daily basis. That being said, I’ve never been left wanting or feeling left out when I want to escape into a movie, television show or book. I’m always represented.

In a way, I’m bummed that other kids didn’t get the same experience as I did growing up. I’m bummed that girls growing up had Disney princesses but didn’t have their own Luke Skywalker or Han Solo to play as. Sure, there was Princess Leia and she had her moments, but she still felt like an afterthought a lot of the time and like a built in love interest for first Luke, then Han. I could aspire to be a hero who fended off the bad guys because I was shown it, while female characters have historically been on the sidelines cheering for the hero and waiting for his manly return to plant a kiss on his cheek.

Being excluded feels crummy, we’ve all been excluded at one time or another, and having films, television, books and more excluding less and less people isn’t a bad thing, it’s a good thing. It isn’t a sign of an overly-PC society looking to simply not rock the boat or make people upset, it’s a sign of progress and trying to reach broader audiences. Nor is it a sign of some sort of strange, dystopian future brooding over the horizon of a female-dominated society where men are castrated and forced to do dishes in high heels at the whim of their amazonian female overlords.

Women have been doing the same shit as men for a long time now, sometimes without the same amount of credit or acceptance. Maybe instead of simply having a knee-jerk reaction of “WELL FUCK THIS SHIT, THIS ISN’T FOR ME, YOU JUST LOST A LOYAL FAN,” those who have such reactions should hold back a bit and reflect on how they feel. Those feelings are very real and are not actually wrong. It sucks feeling left out. Instead those people should stop and think about how everyone else felt while the straight white male rode roughshod over popular culture and society and everyone else was left feeling that way, but were told that their opinion didn’t matter.

There will still be kickass dudes in Rogue One, no doubt. There are a few top-billed guys in the movie who no doubt will do some cool stuff, not all of them are white, either. Because really, in what sort of future will there only be kickass white guys? I for one and excited about Rogue One and will do my damnedest to go see it when it opens just like I would for any other Star Wars movie.

It is Star Wars after all, right?