Actress Amandla Stenberg recently confirmed that the upcoming Star Wars series, The Acolyte, being showrun by former assistant to Harvey Weinstein, Leslye Headland, was developed with her in mind some four years ago.
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: The cast of The Acolyte (L-R) Lee Jung-Jae, Charlie Barnett, Rebecca Henderson, Dafne Keen, Amandla Stenberg, Leslye Headland, Manny Jacinto, Dean-Charles Chapman, Jodie Turner-Smith and Joonas Suotamo attend the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Disney)
In an interview with C Magazine, Stenberg claimed, “All the artwork was conceptualized with my face, and Leslye was like, ‘So I’ve been working on this for about three or four years for you. I don’t know what I’m going to do if you don’t do it. No pressure.’ So I was sent to the moon, of course.”
This revelation might be surprising to many, but it perfectly aligns with The Walt Disney Company and Lucasfilm’s identity-based quota goals when it comes to casting. Stenberg is a black woman who claimed to use “they/them” pronouns telling Teen Vogue in 2016, “They/them makes me feel comfortable.”
Back in 2015 Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy made it explicit that she wanted to inject feminism into Star Wars.
During an appearance at Fortune Magazine’s The Most Powerful Women Summit, Kennedy stated, “I think the interesting path we’ve had is the conversation that took place around consumer products. Because there were a lot of companies that were in place who frankly didn’t initially feel that Star Wars was for girls.”
She continued, “And when you have a company situation where between Lucasfilm and Disney, we were all looking at this situation saying, ‘No, with Star Wars we have to change this. We have to make sure that we create products that are in a sense appealing to both boys and girls.’ What’s wrong with that?”
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 15: Kathleen Kennedy arrives at the special 3-episode launch event for Lucasfilm’s original series Andor at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on September 15, 2022. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
Kennedy would go on to detail, “The fact that the company was bought by The Walt Disney Company has been amazing because they very much support the fact that we are trying to grow in the work force a number of women in executive positions and in all positions inside the company. And with the movies that we are making and with the protagonists that we are putting in the stories. So I get a huge amount of support with that.”
She added, “But we have 50% of our executive team are women. And six out of eight of the people in my story group are women. And I’m sure there’s a lot of people that would be surprised that we’re making Star Wars movies and the majority of the people involved in the development of those stories are women. And I think it’s making a huge difference in the stories that we’re trying to tell.”
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: Kathleen Kennedy onstage during the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 attends the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images for Disney)
Not only did Kathleen Kennedy make it abundantly clear she wanted to inject feminism into Star Wars, but The Walt Disney Company also launched their Reimagine Tomorrow campaign back in 2021 and clearly had been developing it before that.
The website originally made it clear they were hiring based on identity with a claim stating, “By 2022, 50% of regular and recurring characters across Disney General Entertainment scripted content will come from underrepresented groups.”
Reimagine Tomorrow Website
The company would update the website.
It now reads, “We are committed to inspiring a more inclusive world by reimagining the way we tell stories and who tells them. Our intention is to to broaden access and diversity in our industry by adopting inclusion standards across Disney General Entertainment and live-action Studio productions by the end of 2022, with the goal of advancing representation in front of and behind the camera, in marketing and more.”
Reimagine Tomorrow Website
It also links to ABC Entertainment’s Inclusion Standards, which the company launched in September 2022.
Those standards make it even more explicit the company is hiring based on identity. One section states, “Characters: 50% or more of regular and recurring written characters come from Underrepresented Groups.”
Another section states, “50% or more of producer & above on writing staff and 50% or more of Co-Producer & below on writing staff come from Underrepresented Groups.”
ABC Entertainment Inclusion Standards
These quotas are now a subject of an Equal Employment Opportunities Commission complaint.
The complaint filed by America First Legal accuses The Walt Disney Company of engaging in “‘systematic discrimination’ related to the illegal employment practices of The Walt Disney Company and its subsidiaries (‘Disney’) in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2.”
Furthermore, it states, “An unlawful employment practice is established when the evidence demonstrates that race, color, religion, sex, or national origin is a motivating factor for any employment practice. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(m). Here, Disney admits and affirms that it knowingly and intentionally uses race, color, sex, or national origin as motivating factors in its employment practices.”
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: (L-R) Ali Plumb, Kathleen Kennedy, Leslye Headland, Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae, guest, Manny Jacinto, Dafne Keen Fernandez, Charlie Barnett, Jodie Turner Smith, Rebecca Henderson, Dean Charles Chapman, and Joonas Suotamo attend the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images for Disney)
Not only does Stenberg fill the quotas for the show, she’s also an activist and has no inhibitions with playing the victim card. She informed C Magazine she dealt with racists due to her role as Rue in The Hunger Games.
She said, “I think already, at age 12, I was like, Yeah, people are racist. Why are y’all surprised?”
Stenberg added, “When I reflect on it, I don’t remember being very upset about it. I remember feeling that I don’t give a flying f**k what these racist people think of me. I think bigots don’t really bother me.”
(L-R): Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae and Director Leslye Headland on the set of Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, exclusively on Disney+. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
These comments are not out of the ordinary for Stenberg.
Back in 2015 she did a video for Hype Hair Magazine titled “Don’t Cash Crop On My Cornrows” where she made the accusation that celebrities wearing cornrows was cultural appropriation.
Stenberg’s comments appear to confirm this show was made with the intention to push “The Message” and wokeness. And it’s not the first piece of evidence either.
Actress Jodie Turner-Smith made it abundantly clear the show would push feminism during an appearance at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London.
She said, “My character, you know, she’s a powerful leader. She’s a powerful leader in a very woman-centered world, which I was very excited to kind of be in that because I feel like Star Wars is very patriarchal.”
“So it was kind of cool to have this sort of woman-centered figure,” she continued. “And you know she’s really sort of going through a struggle because I mean that’s Star Wars, right? She’s really kind of like in this sort of quandary and that’s sort of her journey is to to kind of go through this struggle between two ideas.”
She went on to inform ScreenRant, “We don’t ever really see these more like matriarchal energies.”
She added, “I think we already kind of started to center women in this world with the latest movies, and we’re seeing it as well in a lot of the other TV shows too. But I think it’s often very much about a man’s journey. And this is less about that.”
Turner-Smith also told Entertainment Weekly that the show is “part of a wave of more inclusive and beautifully represented Star Wars shows. So that felt really cool. And I felt the importance of that, especially in some of the stuff that I got to where everyone really was excited about what they were seeing and what that would maybe mean for different fans — fans that don’t necessarily look like what you normally think the traditional Star Wars fan looks like.
“Because if there’s anything that I learned from this show, it’s that the Star Wars fan is varied,” she said.
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: (L-R) Dafne Keen Fernández, Charlie Barnett, Jodie Turner-Smith, Rebecca Henderson, Dean Charles Chapman, and Joonas Suotamo onstage during the studio panel at the Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images for Disney)
Charlie Barnett, who also plays a role in the show, said, “I don’t think I could have ever imagined myself as a Jedi. Yes, one, because I was not reflected for so many times throughout these films in the past. But it was also something that didn’t equate in my mind. I don’t know about you guys as well.”
He added, “So to see such a diverse group played out now, I know that it’s going be a healthy reflection on so many other young people and old people. No ageism allowed in this. It’s Star Wars we can all fit. I think it’s going to be a really impactful. It’s gonna be a cool moment for me for sure, I can tell you that.”
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: Charlie Barnett attends the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 attends the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Disney)
What do you make of Stenberg’s comments and how it neatly aligns with Disney’s quota-based hiring practices?
Diversity isn’t a strength. Tell me about the story and how good the writing is. All I’m reading is how all these narcissists can now “see” themselves in this universe.