A group previously intent on sabotaging the rating of Marvel movie Black Panther has claimed responsibility for the hounding of Star Wars actor Kelly Marie Tran. Tran, who plays Rose in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, was subject to a long campaign of racist and sexist abuse on social media, leading her to close her accounts.
On 8 June, an outfit called Down With Disney’s Treatment of Franchises and its Fanboys said it was behind the attacks in a now-removed Facebook post. The group accused longtime Star Wars producer Kathleen Kennedy of pursing a “feminazi agenda” that had led to the “perversion” of the “canon” of films, which feature intergalactic bounty hunters and their talking robot friends.
The post, which was photographed before deletion by the site Screenrant, expresses no remorse for any actions, instead declaring Tran’s exit from social media as “bloody glorious”. Down With Disney’s Treatment of Franchises and its Fanboys’ aim is for Star Wars to be controlled by a studio who will reverse “forced diversity” and “bring back the Straight White Male Hero that isn’t manufactured by a corrupt corporation”.
In February, the group was thrown off Facebook for creating an event called Give Black Panther a Rotten Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes, which aimed to derail the critical reception for Marvel’s superhero movie on the popular reviews aggregator. At the time, Down With Disney’s Treatment of Franchises and its Fanboys made unsubstantiated claims that Disney encouraged negative buzz for the DC movies produced by rival studio Warner Bros.
Black Panther has so far made more than $1.3bn and is the third-biggest film of all time at the US box office.
