May the froth be with you
Don’t you hate it when this happens? You run over a curb and puncture the sidewalls of two almost-new tires. You drop your car keys into a sewer without having a second set ensconced in a magnetic case under a fender. Your chewing gum loses its flavor on the bedpost overnight. Yeah, me too.
Oh, sure, in the wakes of these mini-catastrophes I swore, banged my fists on inanimate objects and placed a curse on the Wrigley Co. for not having had the foresight to make Juicy Fruit retain its all-natural succulence for several decades. But in the long run, I got over it, for good reasons: I was lucky enough to have the money to replace the tires; the slow-motion mental replay of my keys arcing into that storm drain was almost poetic; and day-old Juicy Fruit tastes about the same as a fresh wad.
My point here is, we have more than enough real problems to occupy us. Why get your panties in a twist over things that, a few weeks, months or years hence, will lack any semblance of importance? Things like a black Stormtrooper.
What? You hadn’t heard? What? As Jar Jar Binks might say, “Meesa can’t believe yousa notta Star Wars geek!” Of which there apparently are, to quote the late astronomer Carl Sagan, billions and billions. And most of them have access to Twitter and YouTube.
When the first trailer for “Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens” hit the Internet last week, self-proclaimed critics responded at the speed of light. Some were impressed by a snazzy new three-bladed light saber. Some thought a soccer-ball-like droid was even more stupid than aforementioned Jar-Jar. But among the most vocal critics were those who dissed Disney over the appearance of a black man in a helmetless Stormtrooper uniform.
Some couched the complaint in the guise of a black Stormtrooper being out of kilter with the Star Wars backstory, in which the first Stormtroopers were clones of Boba Fett. Boba, the bounty hunter who made Han Solo into a carbonite wallhanging for Jabba the Hutt, was the son of Jango Fett, who was played by actor Temuera Morrison, himself a New Zealander of mixed race. If you’re already confused by this storyline, I suggest that you stop reading and watch reruns of “The Andy Griffith Show” on cable TV instead. If Gomer and Goober aren’t clones, who is?
Hard-core fans complained that if Stormtroopers are clones of the interstellar equivalent of a South Pacific islander, how can they look so … so … black? Others weren’t quite so circumspect. With one posting a YouTube comment with all the eloquence and misspellings that make anonymous posting so great: “The black stormtroopers is probally stealing his comrades speeder bikes and shoot his blaster (expletive)-gangster style.” Apparently, this is what you do after your friends no longer listen to your argument that Barack Obama is Kenyan.
To their credit, other Star Wars geeks blasted the racism contained in many comments. Some went into great detail: “The clones were disavowed when Order 66 was given and the commanders of the clones gave up their power to the chancellor. The Stormtroopers are just normal people: multi-race, multi-ethnicities,” wrote another YouTube commenter. (Again, you have the Andy Griffith alternative.)
Actor John Boyega, who plays the black Stormtrooper in “Episode VII,” took things in stride with a thank-you note to fans on Instagram, adding the postscript: “To whom it may concern … Get used to it. :)”
“The Force Awakens” won’t open until December 2015, so fans have plenty of time to froth at the mouth over the validity of events that never really happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
For the rest of us, there’s the real world.
Our Juicy Fruit is petrifying.