User:Amanda.vitello/Tokenism

Tokenism in Film
The Disney's Star Wars universe is one franchise which has its fair share of raised eyebrows concerning tokenism. Even though the story takes place in a "galaxy far, far away," this cinematic universe can't avoid topics of racial representation. The only two human characters of racial minority who appear on screen in more than just a handful of scenes are Lando Calrissian (portrayed by Billy Dee Williams) and Mace Windu (portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson). Though these two characters are recurring over several films, they are certainly not headliners; Star Wars is "utterly dominate[d]" by heterosexual White men. The character of Lando Calrissian is simultaneously one of Han Solo's best friends and most feared criminal adversaries. When fans talk about Lando, however, more often than not it is not about his developed character arc or his skill as a pilot, but his hyper-sexualization and scary "brand of masculinity." Though, some defense for Star Wars and LucasFilms with William's character is that Lando was one of the first developed Black characters in a si-fi film at the time. Though the introduction of this character was a quick way to get racial representation on the big screen, Lando's character is "a form of tokenism that placed one of the most optimistic faces on racial inclusion in a genre that had historically excluded Black representation."

Since the release of the original six Star Wars movies, there was much talk of this use of tokenism. When the first film of the newest installment of the franchise, The Force Awakens, was released in 2015 the conversation shifted. In a series which has such a strong focus on white men, The Force Awakens flips the script. Where in the past the main three characters have consistently been two white men and a White woman, in the new trilogy the main trio consists of a Black man (John Boyega), a Hispanic man (Oscar Isaac), and a White woman (Daisy Ridley). Though the canon representation was considerably better, there was fan backlash at the cast of a main Black storm-trooper.