There’s a mild disturbance in the Force today, as Forward reports that white supremacists plan to boycott Rogue One: A Star Wars Story for its “anti-white agenda.” According to the publication, these efforts began where they usually do—a subreddit filled with angry white men who want to cheer on the angry white men of the Empire without encountering what they deem a “pro-multiculturalism” message. Redditor and presumed Palpatine fan GenFrancoPepe put forth the perfectly ridiculous hypothesis that “(((Star Wars))) Is Anti-White Social Engineering” in one of the nooks of Reddit’s alt-right forum. The writer cites the casting of women and people of color as marginalized people, rebelling against an Empire described by the screenwriter as being full of villainous white guys, as part of an “anti-white agenda.”
GenFrancoPepe and his supporters aren’t just going to watch any one of dozens of other movies out right now that are full of white people and men. They think the best way to keep women and minorities out of their pew-pewing space opera is to boycott Rogue One (or just torrent it, suggest some of the less motivated bigots). This racist, anti-Semitic railing—the three sets of parentheses in that subreddit title are a kind of typographical dog whistle for “Jewish”—against the movie goes at least as far back as August, in an InfoStormer post that mostly blames Jewish people for the movie’s “anti-white hatred.”
The Force Awakens was also met with prejudiced backlash for having female and black leads in Daisy Ridley and John Boyega in spam bots and a boycott only Jar Jar Binks would consider successful.