Justified creator Jon Del Arroz recently claimed that Disney and Lucasfilm’s marketing strategy for Star Wars: The High Republic is calling fans racist.
Del Arroz’s claim comes after Bounding Into Comics reported on a number of tweets from newly announced Star Wars: The High Republic host Krystina Arielle, where she claimed white people are racist.
In one tweet Arielle wrote, “White people: f***ing stop it. Your racism won’t save you. Your ignorance is not an excuse.”
In another she specifically took issue with white conservatives and then President Donald Trump.
She wrote, “White conservatives please stop invoking racism like you give a s***. You don’t. You just want to be able to say ‘what about’ when someone calls out 45 and his blatant racism.”
Arielle also took issue with white women writing, “Just a reminder that White Women are just as complicit in the upholding and enforcing White Supremacy.”
Related: Star Wars And Lucasfilm Officially Support Calling All White People Racist
The official Star Wars account would then endorse Arielle’s comments about white people.
They wrote, “Our Star Wars community is one of hope and inclusivity. We do not stand for bullying and racism. We support Krystina Arielle.”
Del Arroz begins his video stating, “At this point these marketing campaigns are very obviously coordinated. I’ll be surprised if anyone falls for this one.”
He would later describe Arielle’s tweets, “Yesterday, we talked about this whole Disney kerfuffle, if you want to call it that, where their new host to talk about this High Republic stuff, which nobody is interested in, is all up on Twitter going off on white people. Saying awful things about white people, swearing about white people, and being extremely racist in general. And yes, that is the accurate definition of racism is when you talk about an entire race and do so negatively and with prejudice. So, she is in fact being racist.”
The Justified author continues, “What happened was Bounding Into Comics called out the situation and then the media went into overdrive because you know of course the backlash she got from being awful, which she should just apologize, or if this happened in reverse the person would be fired, of course. But instead the media is attacking the people who are upset for…being called awful things by this lady. They are righteously upset here.”
“But this has been the game plan all along, she probably did these racist things intentionally. And I think it is a marketing stunt because nobody is interested in this Disney High Republic stuff. If you’ve gone through and even perused it, it just looks like an awful outing and it’s very clear they are pushing people in there as diversity hires intentionally. It’s sort of an Al Sharpton shakedown, but with science fiction. And nobody is going to want it,” Del Arroz stated.
The author of the newly announced A.I. Wars comic then said, “And so because nobody is in advance going to want it, they are going to try and make a political cause out of it in order to generate sales. It worked very well for the Captain Marvel movie because they knew that movie was needing some help because it was a tertiary character that really people are not that invested in.”
“So they trotted Brie Larson out there to say controversial things in order to get free promotion from the press out of this and to get people to get hyped up on the political end so that they are backing “the cause.” And that’s what happened with that movie and it worked very well. So this is the playbook at this point and they are doing it again.,” he explained.
Del Arroz then points to The Mary Sue’s coverage of Arielle, “You see The Mary Sue is already going out there, ‘Racist Star Wars Fandom.’ Very crazy headline here. Calling fandom racist immediately… Of course they do not show her original comments at all where she is swearing at white people. They just show this sort of thing where people are ‘defending her’ from these ‘racist Star Wars fans.’ It’s pretty disingenuous. But that’s how these news articles always go. They make these headlines. They are always disingenuous. They never show the truth of what is going on.”
He then points to another example with the BBC, “And of course the BBC did the exact same thing. ‘Racist abuse.’ Wait a minute. She was the one being the racist abuser. She was calling white fans awful people to start before anyone came back at her and was upset about that. But of course the BBC will not show this and will not report it. They will only this sort of stuff.”
He then reads off a tweet from Arielle from back in June that reads, “And I was in such a good mood. White People: You do not get to absolve people of racism. You do not get to point out their ‘Growth’ when they say black lives matter after treating us as if we don’t. You don’t get to accept apologies on our behalf. That shouldn’t need to be said.”
While reading the tweet, Del Arroz comments, “So there is no forgiveness for whatever this perceived nonsense is.”
The Deus Vult author adds, “But this is not one of the more offensive tweets that she was going off on that people are upset about. She was literally swearing at white people.”
Getting back to the media narrative surrounding Arielle, Del Arroz says, “Of course they want to downplay anything she did in order to do that.”
He then concludes, “But, yes, this is just a marketing gimmick for Disney at the end of the day because there is no talk about The High Republic that is positive. Nobody is interested in the comics. Nobody is interested in the books. Nobody is interested in the show discussing the comics and books. And so they have to try to make some sort of cause about it in order to get people interested. It’s a tired tactic at this point.”
What do you make of Del Arroz’s claim that calling fans racist is part of Disney and Star Wars’ marketing scheme for The High Republic?