Many in the entertainment community are showing support for actress Kelly Marie Tran, the "Star Wars" franchise's first woman of color in a major role, after she deleted all her Instagram posts following months of trolling about her.
Tran's account, with 212,000 followers, remains active. The page's tagline, which had been "Am I doing this right?" in November, currently reads, "Afraid, but doing it anyway." Tran, a 29-year-old Vietnamese-American born in California, has no Twitter or Facebook accounts
While it was unclear Wednesday if the abuse extended to comments on her Instagram feed, '"The Last Jedi" actress has been suffering trolling for months. The page for her character, Resistance fighter Rose Tico, on the "Star Wars" wiki Wookieepedia has been locked "due to vandalism and unwanted edits" following offensive and racist revisions. Alt-right internet personality Paul Ray Ramsey in December tweeted harassing comments about Tran's appearance, with his post being retweeted 103 times and earning 442 likes.
"This girl is a force to be reckoned with and there will be no slander against her name. #kellymarietran," tweeted comedian Margaret Cho on Wednesday. Comic John Hodgman tweeted sardonically, "Some days I get tired of watching our whole democracy curdle and prefer the boutique micro-trumpism of online dudes claiming that the harassment of Kelly Marie Tran is a Disney orchestrated false flag operation designed to draw attention from the Solo box office #s. True story."
"The Lord of the Rings" star Elijah Wood tweeted Tuesday night, "I #kellymarietran and her incredible work in The Last Jedi." "The Big Sick" star Kumail Nanjiani wrote, "I totally embarrassingly fanned out when I met Kelly Marie Tran. Rose Tico was unequivocally one of the highlights of The Last Jedi. You'd have to be an idiot to disagree with that. I look forward to the hundreds of awesome things she will make over the course of her long career. #TeamTran."
Author Claudia Gray, whose young-adult novels include "Star Wars: Lost Stars," tweeted, "I'm very, very angry Kelly Marie Tran was harassed by these ghouls ... . Maybe I'm supposed to say something like "I respect all opinions," but I don't. I have zero respect for the harassers." Saying most Star Wars fans are "sane and decent," she noted that, "Star Wars centers on the Force. And the Force isn't just some superpower. It matters how you treat people. Kindness matters. Decency matters. If you don't understand that, you were never a Star Wars fan to begin with."
