It is unequivocally, absolutely disgusting how certain segments of the Star Wars fanbase, and even politicians like Ted Cruz are piling on upcoming Star Wars director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, this time for a quote where she said that she wants to “make men uncomfortable.”
The video Cruz is sharing from anti-trans crusader Matt Walsh shows Obaid-Chinoy on a panel, and it’s being characterized as a recent quote about her plan for her Rey-led Star Wars movie. That is not at all true.
In reality? This quote is not even from this decade. It’s eight years old, and the interview is in the context of her award-winning films about honor killings and acid attacks against women in her home country of Pakistan. That brutal patriarchy is full of the men she “likes making uncomfortable.” But now it’s being dragged up, stripped of context and using in the latest anti-women crusade that has plagued Star Wars for years, already feeding the maw of outrage YouTubers who make widely watched videos about how her upcoming Rey movie is “doomed” because of her feminism.
This is the second time in a few weeks an Obaid-Chinoy quote has made the rounds in this crowd, with the last one actually about Star Wars itself, albeit willingly misread many times over. There, Obaid-Chinoy said “We’re in 2024. It’s about time we have a woman shape a story in a galaxy far, far away.” This led men to start listing important female Star Wars characters, but Obaid-Chinoy is obviously referring to her being the first female director of any Star Wars movie ever, which is just…a fact.
As I’ve said previously, this discourse is going to be an utter nightmare. Obaid-Chinoy is going to keep delivering completely normal quotes about empowering women, and Ted Cruz and Matt Walsh and 200 YouTubers and their millions of subscribers are going to lose their minds. Plus, her film is about Rey, the character accused of being a “Mary Sue,” not earning her place as a powerful force-using lead, for the duration of the new trilogy.
What’s ironic is that Obaid-Chinoy’s quote about making men uncomfortable does stay true today, but instead of confronting men about horrific acid attacks, we have men (“men”) being made uncomfortable by a…woman directing a Star Wars movie, starring a woman, and talking about it publicly. It’s going to be a long few years.
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