A lot of people dislike Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker, and it seems to have confirmed the claims of many longtime fans that the sequel trilogy is not thought out, has poor characters, has too many plot holes, and is just overall not good. However, Social Justice oriented people have long supported the films for highlighting powerful women and minorities while criticizing white men. Kathleen Kennedy, who currently oversees the Star Wars project, is known for promoting her "The Force is Female" t-shirts during public appearances. So how are these social justice oriented types going to handle this film becoming one of the two worst (if not the worst, pending further reviews) reviewed Star Wars films ever?
Clearly, it is bad because it panders too much to white men(TM), and longtime fans of the series. At least, that is according to feminist film critic Krist Lopez, of Fansided.com.
Now, the film undoubtedly has issues based on every source I have heard comment on it, but these issues go back to the previous films. Characters were not properly developed in Episodes 7 and 8, and although it may have been possible to recover after 7, it is just impossible to develop good characters and a coherent, satisfying plot in one film. Episode 9 is two and a half hours long trying to do this, and is frequently criticized for trying to be two films in one, which is true, by director J.J. Abrams didn't really have a choice. He had to work with what he was given. Many of these problems originate from plot holes in The Last Jedi that had to be patched.
However, these problems have to do with character development, world-building, and story line. Race and gender have nothing to do with it. Nevertheless, Kristen Lopez claims:
Anyone but the dreaded white male again, please! We can't go trying to make them happy! But of course, the reality is most white men seem to dislike this film - so much for pandering. This film is not reviewing especially well among women or people of color either. It's almost like bad character development and story really brings us all together.
There is also some dishonesty in this review. The concern over a black stormtrooper was not due to racism, but rather because the stormtroopers were supposed to all be cloned from a Filipino man based on previous films, so this seemed to contradict the established story. However, once a reasonable explanation was given regarding how stormtroopers are now recruited, rather than just cloned, this criticism disappeared.
What I find most interesting about this review is that it seems to be a way of turning around the obvious conclusion of this trilogy - the character development, respect for the existing galaxy, and plot were not prioritized as they should have been. The SJW agenda of the films unfortunately took too much control over the process. To be clear, I think you can do a social justice narrative in an intelligent way - see the film Selma about the Civil Rights movement as an example - this series just did not do that. Well developed, likable, strong female characters are often received well in Star Wars. Instead of admitting that the Social Justice priority is not enough to carry a film, which has significant implications for how other films should be made, those of this ideological bent have to find an excuse. In this case, as usual, they blame white men. Especially geeky white men who are enjoying a form of entertainment. Nevermind the popularity of Star Wars among people of all races, all around the world (the original film in the 70s famously had people lining up to see it all over the globe), and regardless of gender. What matters is spinning the failure of the sequel trilogy so that certain people can keep pushing their agenda, rather than facing its shortcomings.
jfc