In finally breaking her silence regarding its cancellation, The Acolyte lead Amandla Stenberg has seemingly suggested that an overwhelming majority of the backlash leveled towards the Star Wars series was based near exclusively on “hyper-conservative bigotry”
The Osha/Mae actress offered her thoughts on The Acolyte‘s cancellation by way of a series of videos uploaded to her Instagram Story on the evening of August 28th.
Speaking to fans as she brushes her hair, Stenberg began, “I thought i would get on here and just speak candidly. I hate doing this, but I’m going to do it. Honestly, I don’t use social media much anymore. And I’m so happy about that. But, there are many folks out there that I want to acknowledge, and I want to show appreciation and love and support for, so that’s why I’m hopping on here to talk about this, which is that our show, our Star Wars show, is going to be cancelled.”
“I’m gonna be transparent and say it’s not a huge shock for me,” she continued. “Of course, I live in the bubble of my own reality, but for those who aren’t aware there has been a rampage of vitriol that we have faced since the show was even announced, when it was still just a concept and no one had even seen it. That’s when we started experiencing a rampage of hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol, prejudice, hatred, and hateful language towards us. This really affected me when I first got the job because it’s just not something, even though I anticipated it happening, it’s not something you can fully understand what it feels like until it’s happening to you.”
“However, I feel like I’ve kind of moved through those feelings in various ways, including being vocal about it, myself,” she then noted, seemingly making reference to her previous Juneteenth rap video in which she likewise accused a majority of criticism leveled towards The Acolyte of coming from “silly racists”.
“For me, it just became a situation where there was no option but for me to honor my sense of ethics, and my beliefs system and my value system, while being in this very unique position,” the actress recalled to her followers. “It was kind of like, I had this very unique experience of experiencing the world at large, which is of course hyper-divisive right now, through the lens of this very unique opportunity of being in Star Wars, and it brought up a lot for me, a lot of social-political dynamics,a lot about my own value systems, how I respond to that kind of hatred, how I move through the world at large, and it just became inarguable to me at a certain point that to continue to be myself, I’d have to honor my value system by being vocal even within the context of working for Disney and working within the large, massive IP that is Star Wars.”
From there, Stenberg moved to acknowledge the series’ fanbase, asserting, “On that topic, I have to say It has been an incredible honor and dream for me to be in this universe. It still feels, even though of course I’m very sad about the show being canceled, and I’m sad about us not being able to give people who are invested into it more, because people feel so much levity and joy, and the fact that I got to experience, and people loved it, and people were so responsive.”
“I poured through a lot of different iterations of fan art and ship art and fan theories and things that were just so beautiful and filled my heart with joy,” she affirmed, “and I just want to let those people know out there who supported us in that way, and supported us vocally in the face and in despite of all of the vitriol that we received, and the kind of the targeted attack I would say we received by the alt-right, just that you were deeply loved and appreciated, and it made this job all the worthwhile for me and it made all of the challenging elements of it completely worthwhile for me. So, that, plus my love of sci-fi and fantasy and getting to be a part of the legacy of something I so deeply value and means to much to me, and that I’ve looked up to for so long…”
Continuing on in her thanks, Stenberg next turned to “say thank you to Lucasfilm, for just being a f–king awesome team. “
“They were so wonderful to work with, and just everybody I worked with at Lucasfilm, partifularly Rayne Roberts, my producer, just had such vision and hope and such a mission for what we were going to continue doing into the sci-fi universe, the Star Wars universe, and it was a really beautiful, energizing, life changing experience to be a part of,” she said.
“And I have to thank Leslye Headland,” Stenberg further noted. “I just…I just fucking love that b—h. Excuse my french. She’s just one of the best people in the world. I think she’s to talented and kind and I’ll love her forever. And I’ll love this experience with her forever. But, at the end of the day, I just want to thank everybody who watched it. Thank you for being so loving, and supportive, and excited, and nerdy, and awesome.”
As her nearly 10-minute video drew to a close, The Acolyte star admitted, “I’ll continue to process this for a long time.”
“But, maybe the last thing I’m going to say on the subject is that, we all exist in the context of which we live,” the actress then laughed, making reference to the infamous ‘Coconut Tree’ quote uttered by Vice President Kamala Harris. “But I’m serious, it’s not lost on me how the way that these events have unfolded is also due to the hyper-divisiveness of the time that we live in, that is driven, I would say at this point, by echo chambers of thought and algorithms that reinforce our biases. and I think that applies to everybody, but in a particular sect of people, it manifests in a lot of fear of what is changing, a lot of hatred for anything that is ‘other’, and I would challenge us all, challenge myself, to continue questioning what I digest and think critically about what shapes it.”
“And let’s vote y’all,” she ultimately concluded. “Let’s vote. Let’s vote. I think that’s all I have to say.”
