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The BBC reports that supporters of US President-elect Donald Trump are urging a boycott of the Star Wars film, Rogue One, next week, over claims that scenes had been reshot after the election to make the film more of a thinly-veiled jab linking the president-elect to racism.
Supporters of Donald Trump are urging a boycott of the Star Wars film, Rogue One, due for US release next week.
The campaign began with a series of tweets from activist Jack Posobiec, who claimed the writers changed the film to add scenes linking Mr Trump to racism.
Screenwriter Chris Weitz said that this was "completely fake", though he and another writer have tweeted their opposition to the US president-elect.
#DumpStarWars has been retweeted 120,000 times in the past 24 hours.
In a Periscope video, Jack Posobiec, who is an activist with Citizens for Trump, claimed the writers had said the Empire in the film "is a white supremacist organization like the Trump administration and the diverse rebels are going to defeat them".
"They're trying to make the point of using this movie to push the false narrative... that Trump is a racist." he said.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @05:23PM
No, protesting one's innocence is perfectly fine.
However, if you see racist behavior in a movie, and your first thought is "that's me"... that's quite telling, eh?
There is a reason slander and libel laws exist. Imagine somebody made a movie about "Bnonymous Doward" who had your job, married somebody similar to your spouse, went to a school similar to yours, was about your age, lived in a similar neighborhood, also did your hobby, and was otherwise like you. However, this "Bnonymous Doward" was also a flagrant racist. And remember that business deal you turned down a while ago due to the potential partner having bad financial statements, Bnonymous turned down a similar deal due to the counterparty having "dirty blood."
I don't know enough about the situation to say whether these protests are fair, unfair, or these protests are some publicity stunt by Disney (unlikely for Disney to do so, but other publishers have done similar things in the past). However, it is very easy for a non-racist to see themselves within a racist character depending on the other attributes of the character, and it's very reasonable to take offense at the accusation.