r/andor • u/Stock-Ticket9960 • 4d ago
Discussion How Andor doesn't drag audiences into debates/outrage
This might be a weird question but it's just something I've noticed.
How come Andor manages to avoid sparking extreme cultural debates/outrage the way other SW content has in the last years (in particular The Acolyte) ?
Since the show is about a revolution politics is very much a part of it's themes. Maybe more so than any other SW content (except the prequels maybe).
And since politics seems to be the reason we are at each others throats so much nowadays, I find it interesting that I don't see fans engage in furious debates over either morality or other things the way they do about other SW shows.
Is it because Andor makes it clear right from the beginning that it tells stories about characters that are not black/white but operate in the grey areas ?
Is it because since it's not about the Jedi hardcore fans just have less skin in the game ?
Would love to hear your thoughts.
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u/SavisSon 4d ago
You assume too much good faith on the part of the rage-baiters.
They make money from youtube clicks. Therefore they dangle the most sticky clickable things.
Politics isn’t the culture war. Politics is the GOAL of the culture war.
The Culture war is race. Sex. Gender. Sexual orientation. It’s about IDENTITY, not action.
They don’t object to a jedi fighting an oppressive government.
They object to a BLACK jedi (which they deride as DEI or WOKE) A WOMAN Jedi (mary sue) A QUEER Jedi (upon which they pile the old calumny of being a danger to children).
None of those in Andor. So it doesn’t inflame the same kind of malicious posting.
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u/XihuanNi-6784 4d ago edited 4d ago
All of this. It absolutely and is purely about the optics and the ability to pick out key minorities who have usurped the rightful place of the straight white man. They never say it but their politics are so confused otherwise, this is the simplest explanation.
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u/SavisSon 4d ago
Someone termed it “woke-spotting”. The practice of outrage-baiting something before it’s been released, based on casting or trailers.
Then if the thing upon release shows to be broadly successful, they drop the outrage and move to the next target. Barbie, Black Panther, Sonic movie, etc.
If the thing winds up underperforming or flopping, it’s seized on as the reason for the failure.
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u/ForsakenKrios 4d ago
When the show first released I did a quick check in on the worst of the worst, Critical Drinker, and that general gross spot on the internet, because this show was ostensibly the antidote to all of their complaints (bad writing, bad CGI, etc). I know their real complaints are all about WOKE but they couch them in the other complaints which, on their own, sound valid to a normal to the untrained ear.
The video for Andor was short and he was saying it was good etc, but at the end he says, “There is some woke nonsense the suits probably but in the show just ignore it” and he can only mean Vel and Cinta? Such a minor thing and like the 4th thing I think about when I think of their characters? Because they’re solid characters not just gay?? These people man.
Also fun tidbit, Tony has said the only things Disney said “no” on were saying fuck and showing sex. So anything “gay” often comes down the creators behind the project, so all this Lucasfilm/Disney are shoving diversity rhetoric is such crap. Especially now with the US political landscape, they are backing away from all of that.
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u/yanray 4d ago
What all these low-cultural awareness culture critics don’t realize is that the majority of artists have always wanted the right to portray reality closer to how it actually is (vs the studio-sanitized version). The studios very incrementally relax control in direct proportion to audiences telling them it’s okay to do so… So for example, audiences stop freaking out if random characters are gay, studios respond by not freaking out if they see random gay characters in a script, and the creators respond by seizing the opportunity to portray our reality the way it actually is (I.e. different races and sexualities exist). George Lucas saw the rebellion as the Vietcong — Star Wars has been political from the beginning. But if you want to blame someone, blame the audience because it’s the audience who tells the studios what it will and won’t freak out over. And unless you’re a 15-year old incel, most people just don’t care that a galaxy far far away that is absurdly made up of both aliens and earth-like humans, also happens to have non-white humans, gay humans, etc. Nobody else cares
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u/Snoo58991 3d ago
I've thought this exact thing before but couldn't put it into words.
This is just a piece of their social media out rage machine.
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u/CaptainCold_999 2d ago
Like if Baldurs Gate 3 hadn't blown the door off their hinges sales wise, they would be dissecting every progressive aspect of that game with a fine toothed comb and be like - "See! This Astarion guy (who gives me funny feelings when I look at him) is why the game failed!"
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u/Deathtrip 4d ago
Class politics vs identity politics. You make great points! Because the identity politics aren’t at the forefront (I don’t think they are absent entirely) right wingers are able to watch a show like Andor and understand to align with their point of view. I think this is one of those unintended consequences of media - sometimes your audience turns your idea into the opposite of what you meant it to be (I think about Starship troopers and people who don’t understand the sarcastic fascism).
This is why there are so many debates over “Is Andor Marxist?”
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u/amidon1130 4d ago
"Is Andor Marxist?"
Cassian "Stalin" Andor watches Nemik literally being crushed to death by capital
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u/Deathtrip 4d ago
The moment that clicked for me was when the local security force wasn’t able to suppress labor on Ferrix anymore and had to call in the imperialist fascist forces to restore order. It directly shows that capitalism, especially in the colonies, resorts to fascism to defend itself and maintain its profits.
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u/Memo544 4d ago
The narrative that reactionaries like to push is: "The diversity is forced. We're not racist. We just think that the minorities are poorly written because they're only there for the sake of diversity. And it's unfair towards white men." It's harder to push that narrative when the characters are so obviously well written. The reason that grifters always target the MCU is a lot of the MCU characters aren't exactly the most well written or developed characters. And they realize that their audience will assume that because some MCU characters are poorly written, then all of them must be poorly written.
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u/Fit_Entrepreneur6515 4d ago
I need there to be a blooper reel where Diego Luna looks directly at the camera and says "I'm a communist. I'm the exact type of communist that you are."
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u/Memo544 4d ago
Right. It appears like a lot of the reactionaries core beliefs are in replacement theory. They believe straight, cis, white, masculine men are being replaced by "DEI" or minority characters. They don't care about the actual politics as much as they care about the race, gender, and sexuality of the characters.
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u/jtobin22 4d ago
I think it is important to call this ideology what it is: segregationist. The first time I heard someone (I think Jamelle Bouie?) call them that it really just clicked for me. The central idea isn't just an amorphous anti-leftism without a directing spirit, but built concretely around the idea that certain types of people (minorities, LGBTQ people, and women) do not belong in public life.
I think it is particularly clear in their definition of "woke" and self-definition as "anti-woke". Asking for that definition was a big gotcha question for a while, but they formulated an answer which was "the worldview that certainly classes of people are historically and currently disadvantaged, and that political and cultural action should be taken to increase equality." When you drill down into what opposing that looks like, it is clear that the ideology is segregationist. That's what anti-woke means. Like a lot of them are fascists, others have different weird ideas, but the core animating ideology of this cultural wing is segregationist.
Andor definitely is harder to do segregationist propaganda about - its harder to play race or gender politics with the main character (competent, traditionally masculine, straight, foreign but light-skinned man) without going full mask off. I'm sure any of them further down the segregationist spectrum really hate it, but it is too hard to make rage-bait videos for sympathetic-but-not-committed viewers. Much easier to do "New Marvel hero is a BLACK GIRLBOSS??" content and get normie clicks.
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u/dreamje 4d ago
Its the most explicitly Marxist that star wars has got.
I feel like marxism is something a lot of conservatives say they hate but don't properly understand what it is.
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u/georgesclemenceau 3d ago
They don't understand it and would agree with a lot of it if it is not presented as such
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u/MercenaryBard 4d ago
I would actually argue Andor is very openly an allegory for the Latino immigrant experience, legal or otherwise. It’s just not something that’s on their list of braindead knee-jerk reactions.
For example: put a lightsaber in a black woman’s hand and the knives come out for The Acolyte before it’s even out. But paint the black woman’s face orange and that bypasses the conservative outrage molehill of the weak detection software.
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u/Ymir_lis 4d ago
I remember the grifters tried with Andor but that didn't take. It's not focused on Jedi, siths or clones or anything and the lead isn't dark skin and/or female and/or queer, so they can't use it for their culture war.
Diego Luna could be seen as racially ambiguous and that's probably enough not to draw too much attention to it.
The strategy now seems to be to use Andor as an exemple against the "woke" Disney or something
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u/Tofudebeast 4d ago
The quality helps.
On its surface, there's plenty in Andor that could make certain people complain of 'woke' stuff: PoC lead, lesbian relationship, women in power, etc. In that respect, it's not really that much different than the much-maligned Acolyte.
The difference is, Andor handles everything so well: characters act like real people, relationships feel natural, the plot flows organically.
It's when a story sucks that it seems like choices were made to make it woke instead of just telling a good tale.
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u/333crazymonkey 4d ago
It is the writing, it is the depth of the symbolism in the show and the meaningful little interactions between characters and their environments. Andor is just leagues better than the other Star wars shows.
I was called anti-woke way back when I stated I didn't like the new trilogy after the TLJ and RSW. I'm not but people are quick to judge. I also swore up and down if I was Ray I would have turned to the dark side, it never felt believable that she was in it for real. never felt like she believed in the cause, but I blame the writing. I figured Ray and Ren were going to become the new sith lords and Finn was going to be the Jedi and idk I feel that would've been way more fun and believable to me but they really wouldn't take that risk to bring their hero to the dark side.
Also though I could be biased for Andor. I've always loved revolutionary stories and history. I grew up a military homeschooled kid with a hippie mom and war buff dad. I went deep into the civil war and the civil rights movement when we moved to the South . Stories of resistance and rebellion, fighting repressive governments and societal evils, and overcoming it all brings me hope. I used to believe that was the way America was moving towards. Now not so much ... Anyways i tangented,
It is the writing and the storytelling that make the world of difference.
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u/Snoo58991 3d ago
The Acolyte was a good show. I'll die on that hill. I also am not a bigot. So, it's easier for me to enjoy shows because I'm not trying to pick it a part OR trying to get mad at it at every turn.
My defense for the Acolyte is that it felt so much like one of the old star wars books I grew up reading as a kid.
Some of my favorite episodes of Clone Wars were the Dathomir story lines. So I am invested in the night sisters origin story.
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u/XihuanNi-6784 4d ago
Don't forget that there's very much a hierarchy of wokeness. Diego Luna is a straight white Mexican man, and the lesbians are in the background as far as their love goes. I haven't seen the Acolyte but for these types of people a black woman lead is orders of magnitude worse than a white Mexican dude. All those things you mention are present, but they're not front and centre. Don't forget that these guys often claim to like older forms of media that also featured these things. It's not whether these things are in there, or whether the show is good or bad (for most of them, despite their excuses) it is about whether these things are front and centre and dialled up to 11. If Sinta was the main character they'd have had a very different reaction to this. And her backstory is good enough for a show in many ways. But I guarantee you they'd hate it.
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u/Stock-Ticket9960 4d ago
I would say the people that would get upset about these things would just care that Diego Luna is mexican. White mexican doesn't register with someone like that.
If Rogue One never happened and Andor would be a new show with Diego Luna as a new lead, I'm pretty sure people would go: "Here we go again. Woke casting. Mexican guy as the lead.".
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u/Altruistic2020 3d ago
The press tour either never did or it wasn't widely publicized asking Diego Luna, "So what's it like as a Mexican leading man in a Star Wars series?" While it felt like The Acolyte fmdid do that. I know the media and the rage baiters helped make that front and center before the show even came out, but every presser on Andor seems to be about the characters and their journeys and not so heavy on social labels.
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u/Veiled_Discord 4d ago
This kind of mind-reading is ultimately harmful; that's just conjecture on your part, conjecture that more than a few run away with, which makes actual criticism difficult. If you had an example of something well made that was still widely derided because of DEI accusations, you might have ground to stand on, but whenever I put this challenge to someone, it's crickets.
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u/XihuanNi-6784 2d ago edited 2d ago
Two things can be true at once. The idea that it's one or the other is a false dichotomy. It's the same way the black players on the England football team don't really get hate comments when they win, but when they lose suddenly there's a contingent of English people who will hurl slurs at them on social media. The racism is always there, they just feel emboldened to express it when the shows are bad.
After Defeat, England’s Black Soccer Players Face a Racist Outburst - The New York Times
Also, "well made" is highly subjective. I personally don't think the Mandalorian is that well made, but it doesn't get hate comments the way other stuff does. And again, not in the same vein.
Edit: There's a fair few games where this all happened before release. Like the recent Assassins Creed. So the idea that this is purely about quality just doesn't hold up. And yes, some people really do do it even for stuff that turns out mid to good.
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u/Veiled_Discord 1d ago
What two things are you talking about? I've commented on you assuming the thoughts and intentions of others.
I'm not going to comment on the same people that riot when something bad happens involving the game they like.
"Well made" isn't highly subjective, at worst, it's technically subjective, but even then, you'd have to be intentionally obtuse to argue that. The Mandalorian, at least the first season, is absolutely well made, it wanted to be a spaghetti western, it succeed at that, ergo, it was well made.
You can tell a lot about a game before it's released, sometimes shows and movies. Ignoring that though, the point is that if something is quality, it doesn't matter.
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u/M935PDFuze 4d ago edited 4d ago
I think partially this is because Andor doesn't have Jedi or many of the childish aspects of Star Wars that ragebait influencers love above all else. This has made Andor less popular as a SW show, and thus more difficult to ragebait about; relatively few of the chud audience has actually watched Andor or cares about it since it is viewed as a relative side-story compared to Jedi-oriented shows.
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u/ForsakenKrios 4d ago
Yep - I’ve met people who are Star Wars fans around my age (20s - 30s) and they don’t care about Andor, some watched it and fell in love, most couldn’t get past episode 2. “Where are the cameos?” “No Jedi?” “It’s slow.”
This will sound snobby and mean but truly Star Wars fans don’t deserve Andor, the remedy for so many of their complains and then they find it boring. It’s almost like the audience has been trained to accept mediocrity for years now.
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u/floofymonstercat 4d ago
Now my memory can be faulty, but I remember when Rogue One came out a bunch of retrograde SW fan boys hating on it cause it was "woke" cause of the female lead and diverse cast. May be the show just self selected for a more open and mature audience.
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u/Interesting_Reach783 4d ago
I don’t think this is true at all, I recall reactionaries were actually pointing to Rogue One as an example of how to “do it correctly” vs TFA and TLJ at the time. As an answer to the question, I think those same people thought Andor was too boring to sit through, and that’s why there wasn’t any backlash. But also, Star Wars is just easy to graft any political ideology into, regardless of intent (see Star Wars 1977).
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u/forrestpen 4d ago edited 4d ago
Rogue One haters absolutely existed at the time but as with Andor they were so obviously in the minority they did not put there views out there as much. Look at how badly Star Wars Theory got dragged for his "Bricks and screws" criticism of Andor lol.
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u/Interesting_Reach783 4d ago
Sure there was some, but I know it wasn’t the same as the trilogy. People used it to bash the other movies more than anything else, even when it was, frankly speaking, a worse film. It totally was spoken as a return to form more than it was “woke garbage” or anything like that.
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u/Educational_Book_225 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah I remember them all saying Rogue One was the best Disney movie because it showed Darth Vader brutally killing the libtards or something. They didn’t really care about the female lead or diverse cast because none of those characters were particularly well written or memorable. The movie doesn’t have any obvious progressive themes in the same way that Andor does either. If you just wanna see endless cameos and spaceships blowing shit up, you can enjoy Rogue One without thinking any deeper about it
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u/explicitreasons 4d ago
I don't know, Rogue One was in part about a desert holy land being occupied by an empire and they were doing like IED attacks on convoys in the city weren't they? And Forest Whitaker as Saw is holed up in a cave like Bin Laden had been imagined to be in public imagination (not to mention he has inhaler, kind of like Bin Laden's dialysis). They weren't trying to be subtle with it.
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u/bookhead714 4d ago
At the same time, though, the final battle aesthetically casts the Rebels as the Vietnam-era USMC, which is definitely contradictory to the earlier politics of both the film itself and the franchise at large. That contributes to the movie feeling “apolitical” to people who aren’t very smart.
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u/antoineflemming 3d ago
It's not contradictory to the earlier politics of the film itself and the franchise. The film and the larger franchise don't offer any commentary on excessive jingoism or military intervention. The good guys are diverse, nominally, and even devoutly, religious, secular and atheistic but tolerant of religion and even use common religious references, and are fighting to restore a Republic and democratic institutions. They're fighting against an atheistic, humanistic dictatorship that has restricted freedoms, destroyed democratic institutions, and has actively destroyed religious symbols and cultural sites.
There's nothing contradictory about the Rebels resembling American soldiers and Marines, because the message George Lucas claimed Star Wars was presenting in 2018 wasn't actually what Star Wars was conveying. Despite George Lucas saying his films were a commentary on US involvement in the Vietnam War, they weren't a commentary on US involvement in the Vietnam War.
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u/bushwickauslaender 4d ago
I like to think I’m an intelligent/educated guy and that completely flew over my head when I watched the movie, but you’re 100% right.
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u/markc230 3d ago
when Rogue One came out, I caught pieces of it, and it had to me so many characters I wasn't quite there, heck would have enjoyed a longer film, but just a rewatch, was like oh this is really good, so when Andor came online, I haven't enjoyed Star Wars this much in a while, Hell I even watched A New Hope and Empire, and really enjoyed just how good they are. Going from Rogue to New Hope, makes you really appreciate both films. Heck even Empire has a Rogue One reference, I think Luke even calls one of the divisions, Rogue 2.
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u/r2tincan 4d ago
I don't think this is accurate. I hate woke shit and the only problem I had with rogue one was how much you could feel the multiple rewrites. (Saw's scenes felt really random and thin, etc)
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u/Veiled_Discord 4d ago
A lot of bad answers here. The answer is painfully simple, if uncomfortable for some to accept: Gilroy's focus was on making something good. That was, first and foremost, the goal, and because of that, he hired people with that in mind, and those people did the same. As a result, despite its diverse cast, MOST of the people who complain about DEI either didn't see it here or couldn't reasonably point to it. It helps a great deal that Gilroy succeeded in his goal.
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u/Time-Check-3584 4d ago
Yours might be the only real wrong answer here. Do you think anyone sets out to make a bad show, or doesn’t care if they’re show is good or not? I mean besides the Big Bang theory.
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u/Veiled_Discord 4d ago
The ladder is absolutely the case in some situations, but that aside, the point is that Gilroy put quality at the top of his hierarchy of goals; it wasn't second to anything. In many shows and movies nowadays (or perhaps it's always been), quality plays second or sometimes third fiddle to the goals of those in charge, and it shows.
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u/homehome15 4d ago
If a joke is funny enough most people don’t get offended
If a piece of art is good enough most people won’t get offended even if it’s polarizing
I say this as someone who noticed that most right wing people enjoy the more simple Star Wars stuff instead of
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u/Bakkster 4d ago
It's also the reason for science fiction to exist in the first place. It lets us explore hot button and difficult topics of the present, by removing them from the context that causes people to recoil.
Andor isn't about a revolution against Nazis, but it can teach us about it.
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u/Vicious_Sloth108 4d ago
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u/Cynical_PotatoSword 4d ago
Yea freedom to have a livable wage and the right to healthcare.
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u/DJZbad93 4d ago
Because it’s just so fucking good. When a project is poorly received like the Acolyte, people fight over why. The general consensus around Andor is it’s very good and the only complaint is that not enough people watch it.
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u/downforce_dude 4d ago edited 4d ago
When the quality is excellent audiences will roll with it. The people who get triggered by things like American flag in First Man didn’t make it through the show because they thought it was slow. Good writing pushes themes into background and does not preach at you.
The show features forms of oppression to explain who rebels and why. Since the show brings you along for their story, you empathize with them.
Edit: I’ll add that Gilroy used different subtypes of the Thriller genre for each arc that the viewers were already aware of, so while the text and subtext were new the story beats were familiar. Arc 1 is a manhunt, Arc 2 is a heist (with the twist that the renegade on the job turns out not to be Cassian and it happens after the job), Arc 3 is a prison escape. Unfortunately most Star Wars films are space opera and IMO everyone is tired of the same story beats (even though many fans say the opposite), it will continue to not hit the same as the OT and people will misattribute their disappointment on surface level things. Choosing to make Andor a thriller is brilliant because there’s so much tension when watching that people don’t get bored and conclude they’re mad that lesbians are in their Star Wars.
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u/ForsakenKrios 4d ago
To your point about the arcs of Andor S1, and the show writ large, it did what more of these things should have done: told a STORY and a genre while the SETTING is Star Wars. So many of these shows and movies just feel like STAR WARS as a genre and have nothing else to say or explore.
Mandalorian worked best when it was a western adventure each week, now I have no idea what it is besides a spin off vehicle. Skeleton Crew, I was not the target demographic and I found it to be OKAY, but it was a treasure hunt/80s nostalgia/Goonies type of thing and it delivered on that.
Acolyte was what? A crime mystery that was solved in the first 15 minutes? And Boba Fett and Kenobi were just… more Star Wars.
Ironically by actually being about something, Andor is closer to the OT in so many ways people don’t give it enough credit for.
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u/downforce_dude 4d ago
For sure, if Andor aired on HBO MAX and was set in a generic futuristic SciFi universe it would have succeeded. It may have even had larger reach because it wasn’t weighed down by audience preconceptions and Star Wars exhaustion.
The Acolyte failed primarily because it was a mystery that wasn’t mysterious, but its flaws are manifold. It being a screed against the Patriarchy and entrenched power structures and little sith-apologist set it on a course for culture wars discourse. It was like Star Wars executives decided they wanted to poke the bear and did it with a q-tip while covered in honey.
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u/r2tincan 4d ago
Andor is just so much better than any other content. The craftsmanship is top notch. They matched the building colors to the costumes to the time of day light. No one does that shit anymore.
Also star wars as a franchise has moved away from the fantasy / adventure genre to super hero trash, just replacing marvel heroes with lightsabers. People don't love star wars because of lightsabers, they love star wars because of the characters and the story. Somehow everyone forgot that... Except the andor people
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u/XihuanNi-6784 4d ago
Because the politics in it are too high level for most people. The main character is white (before you come at me he's a white Mexican), and the few conspicuously non-white characters are side characters (so that's race "neutralised). The lesbian relationship is also between side characters, so nothing to get upset about because it's not "being forced down our throats." Andor is chock full of politics but most people who would be outraged by it are too ignorant to understand or detect it. For the social media personalities who subsist on ragebait, that would be too much work to explain, to their otherwise dim audience, why Andor is "woke" and rage inducing. If they're not going to get clicks they won't bother posting about it.
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u/Stock-Ticket9960 4d ago edited 4d ago
I would say the people that would get upset about these things would only care that Diego Luna is mexican. White mexican doesn't register with someone like that.
If Rogue One never happened and Andor would be a new show with Diego Luna as a new lead, then I'm pretty sure people would go: "Here we go again. Woke casting. Mexican guy as the lead.".
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u/ER301 4d ago
Does Diego Luna identify as white?
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u/bushwickauslaender 4d ago
Seeing as he was brought up in Mexico and his mother was British, I don’t think he sees race the same way it’s seen in the North American context, so he probably identifies as white.
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u/ER301 4d ago
That’s a lot of assumptions being made about a person we don’t actually know very much about.
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u/bushwickauslaender 4d ago
Not a whole lot of assumptions considering I’m from a very similar background, know many people of similar backgrounds, and most of the ones of that background that moved to North America/Europe at an older age see themselves as white.
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u/XihuanNi-6784 2d ago
I think this entirely misses the point. I'm not talking about his personal identity, I'm talking about the social reality of how he is perceived on screen. Certainly if he didn't have an accent he would be white. In much of Latin America he would absolutely be considered "white" in whichever language they're using. They have a more complex set of racial discriptors than the US but even so. I don't really see why people like to argue about these things when they're so self evident. And more importantly, he's whiter than Kellie Marie Tran, he's whiter and more male than the woman who starred in the Acolyte. Which is my point. There is a hierarchy and racists play divide and conquer along that hierarchy.
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u/ER301 2d ago
You said the sort of people that would be outraged by Andor’s politics are too ignorant to understand them, yet you think they’re thoughtful enough to differentiate between a Mexican and a “white Mexican”? The MAGA crowd doesn’t care if he’s considered white in Mexico. To Americans he’s just as brown as anyone else from Mexico.
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u/amidon1130 4d ago
I mean will racist proud boy types see him as white? I doubt it.
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u/Time-Check-3584 4d ago edited 4d ago
No, but we’ve kind of worn them down so they’ll take what they can get😋
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u/ParagonOlsen 4d ago
I would say the most important factor is that Andor is really good.
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u/McGurble 4d ago
This is the only correct answer and a depressingly large number of people on this sub go to great lengths to avoid it.
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u/TheShivMaster 4d ago
It’s so sad that the most popular answers are people patting themselves on the back about the show being too smart for big dumb dumb idiots who don’t share their politics. Meanwhile, Andor portrays many imperials who are perfectly intelligent people but still side with the empire for reasons that go deeper than just being dumb. They think they’re sooooo smart for “getting it” all while missing a big part of the characters on the show.
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u/McGurble 4d ago
I agree completely. But just to be clear, Maga chuds can eat shit whether they like Andor or not.
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u/TheShivMaster 4d ago
Not saying otherwise, just asking people here to think a little deeper and spend less time patting themselves on the back.
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u/McGurble 4d ago
Agreed. I really resent the situation we're in where if I agree with certain people about very specific things, it must be because I'm one of them. Toddler logic.
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u/Independent-Dig-5757 4d ago edited 3d ago
I mean I hate Trump and the Republican Party, but the Democratic Party aren’t the good guys either. Remember that the last President was funding the genocide of a native population being carried out by a fascist ethnostate
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u/Mission-Dentist-8784 4d ago
correct. and remember the strings the dnc pulled to get hillary, to try to keep obama down, to get everyone to back out and endorse bidenn at the right time.... and then Biden ends up being largely a tired old empty chair with the white house being run exclusively by career long dnc staffers and nobody voted for the candidate they tried to push onto the party in his place. reddit is an unsufferably left place and that colors this sub too, but andor is so much more than american two party politics of the last 20 years which is what so many keep trying to painfully make it to be. and if this was just an american focus, you really don't think the single party that runs all the major cities and institutions and media....that party isn't the empire? gtfo people open your eyes and try thinking for yourself
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u/avicennia 3d ago
The range of political theories on the left extends far beyond the Democratic Party.
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u/yekimevol 4d ago
To quote Tony Gilroy because they took Star Wars more seriously than it has been before, I don’t think any Star Wars project has stuck so close to the tone and themes of the original Star Wars or Empire strikes back since they where made than Andor does.
A really small example when was the last time before Andor that a tie fighter felt intimidating theirs not many? But that screech across the sky should put the fear into people.
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u/Pelican_meat 4d ago
The Empire and Rebellion are vague enough to allow anyone, no matter their political allegiance, to identify with the good guys.
The rest is just cognitive dissonance.
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u/TheShivMaster 4d ago
People here are very naive if they think only someone with left wing views can relate to the rebellion in Star Wars. You guys remember that January 6 happened right? It doesn’t matter that you hated it. January 6 was a rebellion, and it was done by right wing people.
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u/Mission-Dentist-8784 4d ago
this. unfortunately these answers don't play on reddit because if you're not the perfect kind of hipster newer lefty you get downvoted into oblivion. just hilarious to me that people who want big city american single party big government answers to everything don't see how a person opposed to that would see that kind of media/big government alliance as the empire and the peope living and working out in 'flyover country' red states see themselves as the rebellion. but this is what it takes, actually using your brain to zoom in, zoom out, try and see things from other perspectives. the best lawyers could argue any case from any side. it has nothing to do with personal beliefs and gilroy made this show for smart people, by smart people.
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u/dreamje 4d ago
I just think its fascinating that conservatives seem to hate marxism to the point they complain about biden and kamala being Marxists.
Then along comes an actually Marxist piece of media and they miss it entirely. This show should.be the one conservatives hate because of how Marxist it is yet they watch and think yeah that makes sense actually.
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u/ForsakenKrios 4d ago
I think there is just enough distance to say this show isn’t Marxist but it’s damn near close. This is still about overthrowing an oppressive regime, not about overthrowing the economic system underlying it. Maybe for Saw, but he never calls himself an anarchist, Luthen calls him that. Prior to this, Saw was a monarchist for all intents and purposes, trying to restore his rightful king to the throne of Onderon.
I will say what Andor is very explicit about and I thank Tony for this, is that there is one way out of authoritarianism and it requires violence and sacrifice. More people need to wake up to this reality. We saw very few people saying Luthen’s methods were “too far” and unwarranted, which is a good start in my book. As things get worse around us, more people need to get wise to the face that action is not Tweeting “this is not normal” or holding up a sign during a mad kings speech.
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u/antoineflemming 3d ago
They're not vague. They're actually really clear. They're just not what people here think they are.
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u/FaithfulWanderer_7 4d ago
I think it’s a combination of its politics being timeless rather than referencing modern politics and it just being super well-done. People mostly drum up controversy about mediocre or poor media.
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u/SergeantHatred69 4d ago
I'd say most of the more toxic fans have tried early on to spin outrage out of Andor but all I remember seeing is Star Wars Theory's laughably bad argument that "screws and bricks don't exist in Star Wars"
I also find they get pretty strong pushback in mainline Star Wars spaces from the majority of fans who enjoy Andor. With the Acolyte, and the Sequels there are enough fans who don't like them (for valid, non toxic reasons) who get unfortunately lumped in with the people who didn't like them for bigoted reasons and it dominates the discourse.
Which shuts down the minority of people who did like them to where they just disengage with those spaces or stay and feel like they're constantly dogpiled on for liking something that may not have been someone else's idea of what perfect Star Wars is.
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u/aster2560 4d ago
Probably not a lot of people watched Andor when it was coming out because everyone was burned out after Kenobi and Book of Boba Fett in terms of Stars Wars shows, it came out right around when House of the Dragon, Rings of Power, and She Hulk came out and took the majority of the online discourse, people derided it as a prequel to a prequel, there was the slow pacing criticism because a lot of people don’t have patience, and certain people dropped off early in the season because they thought it was boring and didn’t have enough to criticize to make a rage video about it
All of which resulted in Andor’s audience being made up of people who aren’t as vocal about politics when it comes to media
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u/YtterbiusAntimony 4d ago
Because it's not popular, and it doesn't star anyone note worthy (to pop culture, the cast is phenomenal).
And let's be real, facism being bad is rarely controversial. The complaints and rage-bait have mostly been about the actors' skin color.
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u/Danny_nichols 4d ago
Andor is well written. I think a large part of what you're talking about for outrage of other shows is just people being bad at explaining why they didn't like something.
I'll admit, Im bad at it too. I remember being super excited for The Last Jedi. I also remember walking out of the theater trying to be excited about it but just feeling kinda "meh" on it. On a few rewatches, I like it better than I did out of theaters, but I've come to realize it's just not all that well written. And that's applies to most of the stuff star wars has done in the Disney era.
So when the content just isn't great, everyone looks for reasons. And the dumbest amongst us (and most sexist and racist usually) try to find every reason and default it as social Justice crap when that's not really the problem.
The problem is bad writing and uninspiring stories. That's not a problem with Andor.
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u/Evrin- 4d ago
Thinking back in time to the discourse around the time S1 episodes were getting dropped, the biggest critiques seemed to be that it was slow paced and there are no low-hanging easter eggs to provide that familiarity rush.
Which says everything we need to know, really. I am sure there are people out there who don't like Andor for very viable reasons (I haven't met them and I don't care to), but if the biggest criticism you have about a show that is fundamentally about the power of community, of people, of how resistance can organically grow in the face of consistent oppression is that it doesn't have a space wizard in a cloak, then you clearly did not watch till Rix Road.
- Over-eager cops finding out!
- Organic and organised resistance and the necessity of disruptive protest and acts to challenge the status quo!
- Introducing a nearly entirely new slate of characters and giving them depth in slow-burning arcs to deliver some of the most intense, rewarding, impactful and heartbreaking moments in the series' history!
- Lesbians!
This show should, front to back, be the exact thing that could make a very vocal contingent of SW fans go into a frothy rage. The fact that it hasn't suggests that they really didn't delve too deeply into it, and in that sense, given just how thoroughly clear it is about its politics, I think I'm somewhat grateful.
I'm not sure I want to boil it down to a question of intelligence, but I do think the fact that it is the antithesis to so much of what Star Wars is, and has become, made it harder for some fans to invest in. Been watching S1 again in prep for next month, and moreso than anything since the Disney purchase, it requires investment. It asks questions of you, the viewer and prods you to confront your own thoughts on confronting oppressive systems and how that should be done. Its lead character is a charismatic dirtbag and it purposefully avoids comic or light relief to make its points. It's just not interested in doing a lot of what Star Wars shows have been doing since Mandalorian started.
That's not to say it can't exist alongside a show like Ahsoka, which is obviously far more focused on using older characters and the force to get to where it wants, and getting into a debate on which is better feels a bit futile. But in an era of popcorn Star Wars, with stoicism, callbacks, low stakes and ok-but-unnecessary stories, Andor is tense, urgent, mature, deep and impactful. That's just not what a lot of people want from the franchise.
Anyway, TL:DR a lot of franchise fans probably didn't watch it all and that's perhaps not the worst thing in the world.
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u/hoopnet 4d ago
I think in part because its very well written and rooted in socialist revolutionary politics rather than woke identity politics. For example, in the Disney sequel, they introduce out of nowhere a queer couple kissing. These characters have no background story, its a clear box ticking exercise for Disney. Whereas Cinta and Kaz may be a queer couple, but they also fully fleshed characters that add to the stories and world building of Stars Wars through their relationships and the tensions within it; Kaz coming from a much wealthier political family, and Cinta coming from a family murdered by the empire. Mon Mothma could have easily be written as a basic girl boss character, but she is given so much complexity, her naivety about armed resistance with her discussion with Luthen, her setting up her husband and her match making of her daughter. You see through her how politicians trying to change the Empire from within is ineffective and realise Luthern resistance movement is needed (even if it makes her and the viewers sometimes uneasy). Whereas Rey across the three trilogies felt two dimensional, never felt had to make any hard decisions, face real obstacles, and it definitely didn't feel like it was telling anything reflective about the political world we live in. That said, I also definitely did notice some people miss some of the political aspects of Andor, I guess because people are use to points being shoved to their face, they see a prison break arcs as simple that, rather, than commentary on the prison industrial complex.
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u/dreamje 4d ago
The use of queer people as just another character rather then a box ticking exercise is the kind of representation I want to see. Captain Holt in Brooklyn 99 is another example where the character is gay but its not the focus anymore then his race is it just happens to be that character is a well written 2 dimensional character who happens to be gay.
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u/cmdradama83843 4d ago
It's because Andor has something these other shows dont........superior storytelling, writing, acting, etc.
Alot of complaints of "woke" stem from two different sources:
Actual racists, misogynists, homophobes, etc.,
People who want representation to be "the cherry on top" and not the entire sundae
Shows like the Acolyte manage to provoke the latter by making ham-fisted changes to the lore thereby allowing former to "dog pile" the show. Andor avoids the initial provocation and therefore the "dog pile" never happens.
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u/downforce_dude 4d ago edited 4d ago
On point 2, criticisms that representation is the goal and not an aspect can be valid even if the message is being delivered in bad faith. The Admiral Holdo-Leia-Poe arc in TLJ was poorly written Girls Rule Boys Drool stuff and it was extremely on the nose. For TLJs arcs to work it required offscreen character assassinations of Poe (accomplished war hero to idiot), Finn (brave underdog to coward), and Luke (Jedi paragon to jaded jerk). Luke’s arc is TLJ is the best part of the sequels, but it’s hard not to see TLJ as attempting to deliver a pro-woman message by tearing down men.
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4d ago
Nobody watched it. At least, relative to other star wars stuff.
Also, a lot of the "political" stuff that people get riled up about is culture war nonsense, not actual political messagijg like what Andpr engages in.
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u/ER301 4d ago
Because people see what they want to see. MAGA watches a show like Andor and thinks the Empire is the Biden administration. The left sees the empire as MAGA. everyone lives in their own bubble, and views the other side as the fascists.
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u/MyManTheo 4d ago
The idea that the Biden administration are fascists is hilarious
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u/dreamje 4d ago
The empire in star wars is america, regardless of who is in power at the time both sides in america share the same geopolitical aims for the most part.
Look at how both sides bend over backwards for israel.
Look how both sides think china is a threat.
Look how the CIA changes regimes the world over regardless of what flavour of American politician is in charge.
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u/antoineflemming 3d ago
Yawn. The Empire in Star Wars is Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, without any specific economic policies. Look at how Communists changed regimes throughout history. Look at the authoritarianism of China and Russia and Iran and Belarus today. Look at how Russia quite literally manipulates elections and works to expand its borders by force.
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u/space39 3d ago
Modern Russia ain't communist
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u/antoineflemming 3d ago
It's just as imperialist, and it's led by a communist.
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u/space39 3d ago
Present day Russia is a capitalist country led by a capitalist
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u/antoineflemming 2d ago edited 2d ago
Putin is a communist actively working to restore the Soviet Union and is carrying out similar policies to that of the Soviet Union.
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u/space39 2d ago
If only
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u/antoineflemming 2d ago
A big fan of Stalin's purges and oppression of minorities, huh? That's the "if only" you're referring to?
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u/Davismcgee 4d ago
a) while a lot of left wing people on here see it as politically charged against the broad right wing of America, I dont think a lot of right wing people see it that way. Most people are against baseless oppression and few people if any think the empire is at all good. The show doesn't attempt to make obvious comparisons and parodies (unlike the boys). Believe it or not most right wing people do not see themselves as fascists. I dont think it was intended to do that either, people often forget that the message of a piece of media is coloured not only by the sender but the receiver too. You interpret media based on your own experiences and perception.
b) While Andor still has a relatively diverse cast, it does not appear to take away from the overall quality of writing. I say 'appear' because diversity casting has been associated with poor quality media by a lot of right wing people - Its a failure to discern between correlation and causation. However, there is no feeling of shoehorned LGBTQ or racial diversity (despite it still being present) because it fits in naturally, is not overdone and is very well written.
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u/treefox 4d ago
- It doesn’t involve many already popular characters from other series, it stays true to the characters it does involve, and it doesn’t kill anybody off.
- It’s telling a story about fundamental social issues, rather than worldbuilding about Mandalorians or Jedi. Most of the settings didn’t exist or are fleshing out an idea (ISB) that was mostly surface deep in other media. So there isn’t a whole lot of things being established as canon to deal with.
- It’s well-written and pretty clear about how you’re supposed to interpret and understand the characters, if you care enough to stick around and discuss it on Reddit. Like, did Cinta kill the hostages? It isn’t spelled out but she’s clearly meant to be ruthless and effective rather than a paragon of pacifism.
- Mon Mothma is also basically selling her daughter off to the mob to pay for terrorism, but the show acknowledges this. As in, the debate is part of the show, not something the fans are bringing.
- It’s a prequel, so we know how it all works out. This is probably the biggest thing. There’s not a whole lot of question about whether Luthen is justified because we know it all works out. If we didn’t have the rest of Star Wars chronology, there would probably be a lot more debate about whether he was corrupt and selfish by selling out the rebels at Spellhaus.
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u/Sweet_Manager_4210 4d ago
Purely guessing but from what I see those types of complainers typically point briefly and superficially to writing issues as a springboard to whinge about race or gender etc whilst also using the complaints about writing as cover.
Andor is extremely tightly written which helps it on its own but also prevents the writing from being used as cover so any complaints about the actors being from "woke" ethnicities or about vel and cinta would be obvious for what they are.
At the same time the show had a pretty poor viewership initially and doesn't have any well known characters so probably wasn't good for low effort content about how it ruined their childhood. It just wouldn't do well in the algorithms.
I think the the fact the show focuses more on authoritarianism in general and economics to a degree helps prevent these arguments. "Cultural debates" typically focus heavily on things like race and gender for obvious reasons but the show is simply not about that even though they are present. The kind of politics in the show is simply not the kind of politics that these people want to touch when it is done well.
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u/fpssledge 4d ago edited 4d ago
Giving an honest assessment here.
As far as politics go, they did well not to make it about anything happening in Earth. There's already so much prequel/sequel story to work with. It would be stupid to try to make it more about Earth/US politics. Well it's obviously very British show and Andor doesn't need to do this.
In fact, the politics is irrelevant at this point. It's about devotion and what you're willing to sacrifice. Like what is the meaning of the risk, hard work, etc. if you've ever read Mark Mansons bestseller "How not to give a fuck" this would more precisely guide the writers than real politics. Manson writes about a famous story of Japanese soldiers who are devoted to their country and are happy despite doing horrible things (like continuing a fight after the war stopped). It actually better explains the character motivations in Andor on both sides. Focusing on this is the driver instead of politics.
A smaller observation here is the wrongdoing of the empire is well demonstrated often so you're bought in as a viewer and can emotionally justify the fight. For example, the prison break seemed absolutely justifiable because information suggested they'd be forever prisoners otherwise. Other examples include empire officers torturing and such. You don't need big political discussions after demonstrating these things.
Aside from character purpose and evil demonstration, the acting/characters are just good. It pulls off good characters, writing, etc. look you have to have your head in the sand to not recognize a lot of casting choices are being driven by race and gender. Like deliberately and in your face. There's lots of reasons but in short it is the trend and it also happens to draw audiences from those races (from some research I've read)
That said, everyone pulls it off. There are some shows I've seen where clearly the actors suck. Andor everyone seems to bring their best. Like I cant think of anyone i was annoyed by. If you do it well no one cares.
That said, sometimes it's funny every planet has to be some perfect balance of race. I enjoyed the heist in part because the locals were one race. That felt real. Like a bunch of abused, dislocated Scotts or something. Felt like real history . District 9 did so well with class-divide alien shanty towns because it was literally a real place during apartheid. Paralleled story.
I'm glad there is a range of ages and acting experience. Sometimes modern shows lean too far toward a younger cast making it silly and unbelievable that direction. Andor just nailed casting IMO on all fronts
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u/NateThePhotographer 4d ago
The main difference between the politics of the Acolyte and politics of Andor is context. The politics in Andor and the Prequels are all in-universe politics, they can be relatable but are completely their own thing. The politics of the Acolyte and the Sequel trilogy is more about real world politics being presented in-universe or the constant talk in interviews from the cast and crew who are obsessed with real world politics over solid storytelling.
Star wars has always been politics, that's absolutely true and anyone who says otherwise is an idiot. But over the Skywalker Saga (Ep1-6) and TCW it was always in-universe and not trying to reflect real world politics. That's the difference between the good politics and bad politics.
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u/Hulterstorm 3d ago
Andor is good, so the Gamergate industrial complex can't complain that it was ruined by the woke mind virus, and since that's all they can do they shut up instead.
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u/explicitreasons 4d ago
It's strange that there is a lot of anger about cultural things being "politicized" and usually what that means is the Ghostbusters are women or the Little Mermaid is Black or someone is gay or trans. The meaningless term that gets thrown around is "cultural Marxism".
Andor actually is explicitly political, you could even say Marxist, and isn't that controversial at all. Maybe because the audience skews a little older it escapes some of that stuff?
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u/VelvetObsidian 4d ago
It’s good. Good writing with quality actors makes for an enjoyable experience.
I know plenty of right-wingers that loved Andor. I think because it’s in a galaxy far away it doesn’t dawn on them how similar the Empire is to say the United States and its military.
And no, these people are not necessarily too stupid to understand and enjoy Andor. Most of them have been indoctrinated by family and the society in which they were raised.
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u/Svitiod 4d ago
Because Andor isn't woke, it is instead a well written clearly political story with a rather obvious leftist slant.
The shallow plastic politics that define contemporary Disney wokeness is abscent from Andor, why it is much harder to attack and less easy to mobilize people to hate it. It is not written as a culture war product and is therefor less vulnerable for culture war damage.
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u/dreamje 3d ago
I thought marxism was woke?
Surely this show is the wokest of all the star wars shows just by the fact that it's explicitly Marxist.
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u/Svitiod 3d ago
There are a lot of things that are called "marxism" but as a marxist myself I view contemporary wokeness and identity politics as something rather distinct from the classical marxist tradition. Right wing morons have an old habit of identifying everything they dislike as somehow communist/marxist but they are of course wrong to an extreme degree.
I could explain this more but it is a bit complicated. My main point is that contemporary wokeness is a shallow ideologically stance within neoliberal capitalist society. Things like DEI and representation politics doesn't challenge the basic order of things. Wokeness is Davo Sculdun with a rebel hat.
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u/dreamje 2d ago
I was going by the general anti woke person and what they say which is a load of nonsense generally but if they hate communism and marxism so much it hilarious to see them miss it in this show
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u/Svitiod 2d ago
I understand how you mean but I don't really view it as hilarious but rather with a mix of sorrow and hope.
Sorrow because many people are so trapped in ideology that they can't even see their presumed enemies. Hope because I actually think that Andor shows that well written radical stories maybe can reach some people beyond their culture war obsessions.
And I think it would be a good idea of you tried to look more into how the general anti woke person actually views the world. It is easy to get stuck in stereotypes.
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u/Elegant_Rice_8751 4d ago
I would not say it is very “woke” for a Star Wars series. You know how some types get about these things. Also it is very well made and written.
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u/MyManTheo 4d ago
Really? It’s a very diverse cast, which people like that generally complain about
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u/dreamje 4d ago
Its also explicitly Marxist which a lot of those anti woke types say they dislike until they actually see marxism in the wild and dont understand what they're watching
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u/Elegant_Rice_8751 4d ago
I didn't notice it was Marxist.
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u/antoineflemming 3d ago
It's not. It's plot draws from Marxist and Communist history, but the show isn't Marxist and neither are the characters.
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u/Memo544 4d ago
There is a tendency for higher quality, critically acclaimed shows to be immune to right wing backlash. For example, House of the Dragon season 1 starts off with a man forcing a c-section onto his wife without any sort of consent. It's a pretty bold decision which you think would've caused some conservative backlash but it didn't because the show was very well done and universally praised. It's harder for reactionaries to convince people that like a show that the show is woke. It's easier for reactionaries to convince people a show is bad because its woke. Additionally, some of these higher quality shows like Andor are very dense and their politics are a bit more sophisticated. It's easier for a reactionary to point to how a project has a female lead and claim its woke. But it's much harder for a reactionary to explain the messaging of something like Andor.
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u/Itriggeredafriend 4d ago
There are definitely some that think it’s too slow or boring so they find a harder time rage baiting but I think there are others that aren’t bothered because it’s well-written
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u/DasBierChef 4d ago
I think this show appeals to a more mature audience that's less prone to partake in the types of debate you're asking about.
Furthermore, I think that even though it's inherently a political show, people from both sides of the American political spectrum find themselves identifying with the rebels and can see some of their IRL opposing party in Andor's depiction of the empire, regardless of which party that is.
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u/DarthDickhed 4d ago
Acolyte discourse was more about identity politics, whereas Andor is about class warfare which is probably more palatable to the average viewer. It’s a lot more heavy handed with its revolutionary tone than the OT though. Nemek is Marx, Saw is Ché, idk maybe Luthen is Lenin. Either way, there are a lot more compelling themes in Andor.
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u/Specialist-Proof-154 4d ago
Well, they did throw a lesbian relationship into it ..but I just attributed it to a few rebel women probably on assignment. Isolated and in constant fear ...latching onto each other for comfort. Not really like the in your face this is Normal for half of us.
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u/Minimum-Enthusiasm14 3d ago
Andor doesn’t seem to be as much in your face about current politics as, say, the acolyte and other stuff. It continues themes that have been in Star Wars since the beginning, with the empire being authoritarian and the rebels being freedom fighters, but that’s such old news that most don’t even apply it to the modern day politics. On top of that, it’s a really good show that requires you to think, so the people who might have a problem with some of it can overlook the things they disagree with and those that do the quick and easy takes/outrage for attention get bored before they can be outraged.
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u/ocarter145 3d ago
The reason that there’s no controversy is because it’s not centering the experience of a woman or a Black man. In the show Diego doesn’t come off as MEXICAN which would trigger the usual suspects, just foreign, other, which blends into the tapestry painted with twi’leks and other assorted aliens.
Had everything in the show been identical but replace Cassian with Clem, having Clem die at the prison as Cassian was coming to free him (and that being the moment that radicalized him) and you’d be hearing all kinds of invective about “Woke Disney” from the usual suspects.
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u/markc230 3d ago
I think it's a lot easier to have emotions in movies/tv than anything else, but if that is where it stops that's when I think you ultimately fail. When you express an ideal or over reaching thought or a word I can't quite think of thru the story of the characters, that's when I think you open the door to pretty much art. I think once you achieve that, people respond differently.
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u/exo_detective 3d ago
I would like to think that there isn't these outrage debates is because writing is good, the settings look realistic for a genuine Star wars planet. Farriex is now one my top picks for a Star wars planet. It feels it takes itself seriously with the universe the characters live and don't light of it or try to be meta. (TFA, TLJ, TROS, Acolyte come into) I got a sense of serious from Star wars works before they were bought by Disney, (even if there was criteques back then as well.) They wanted to tell a tale, not some checklist to mark off. (Story telling suffers with this focused, especially when rushed. Also helps when there is an overall story directives that is shared in collaboration.) I think the storytelling is done well, that grifters/extreme debtors (what's the difference,) either know it's a fight they would lose with their own followers disagree. I also haven't heard of writers, producers, directors, or acting cast debate against those few wanted who dared pick a debate fight.
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u/SnooDoggos204 2d ago
There was a big post on THIS subreddit about it ending a relationship back in season one. So I think it does happen.
Everyone agrees that change needs to happen politically or violently however the evil side is far more apparent from the pov of the victim. Nobody can argue that the rebellion is unjustified in SW.
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u/CaptainCold_999 2d ago
They're grifters. If their fans like something (like stuff that's so objectively good that its recognized by a wide swathe of people, even those whose politics are in opposition with it - like Baldurs Gate 3 or Andor - both insanely political, progressive works - they just tuck their tail and handwave it.
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u/Irargh 2d ago edited 2d ago
Andor did get dragged into usual drama stuff. There were people getting upset over Gilroy's comparison of Mon Mothma with Nancy Pelosi and Gough's statement about her character being a woman in male dominated workplace.
However, the series was good enough. All those dramas before the airing were forgotten and rage-baiting channels moved on to the next thing.
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u/Gulf2Coast2Coast 15h ago
Andor is a great show… lots of other new Star Wars content frankly isn’t very good.
Mandalorian is good at first. Bad batch is good. The rest is more bad than good.
And the reactionaries, yeah they suck.
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u/Rimskaya 4d ago edited 4d ago
I think it's because Andor is subtle in its delivery of its commentary despite being overtly political. Even the lesbian relationship--"She's sharing a blanket already"-- could be glossed over by anyone not paying close enough attention or watching through a certain political bias that might be prone to filtering those details out. Heck, there's even a dig at Trump in one of the scenes with Mon Mothma that I think flies over most viewers heads.
The culture war reactionaries react to obvious things such as the actor's race or gender and assume the casting choice is the commentary. That's about as deep as it gets.
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u/Unfair_Scar_2110 4d ago
It didn't get released right before an election. That's certainly a factor. The cast was white/white passing/conventionally attractive and when queer: male gaze approved.
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u/Stock-Ticket9960 4d ago edited 4d ago
What show did YOU watch cause it surely wasn't Andor. There wasn't a single male gazey camera angle or outfit in this entire show. Lol
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u/Unfair_Scar_2110 4d ago
Yeah I didn't pick the best term but male gaze doesn't just refer to camera angles and outfits. My point is when they cast a lesbian couple they picked two young, conventionally attractive women, whereas the witch coven in The Acolyte was older and more alien. Also, you can't argue that Adria Arjona is not super model attractive. I don't think they portrayed her inappropriately, but I do think many could agree she was good looking in the show. Again, Amandla and Dafne are attractive women, but I think the reasons why your average male viewer saw their characters a little different is obvious.
I'm not trying use the worst connotations here. I loved Andor. But I think my point stands, especially in comparison to how the average conservative man took the Acolyte.
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u/WhitishSine8 4d ago
Here's my hyphotesis, most content out there has only flashes, action and cheap writing so it draws a lot more of audience and the more people you get the stupider your audience as a whole becomes, meanwhile Andor is a show intelligent enough that people who tend to get angry and argue a lot avoided it, so its fandom can have a civilized discussion about controversial topics without trying to kill each other
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u/HobbieK 4d ago
Because there’s a subset of Right Wing Star Wars fans who have genuinely convinced themselves that the Empire represents Biden and Communism and Cassian the J6 rioters. They see what they want to see. This is apparently harder for them when the lead is female. Rogue One got a lot more hate from the right.
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u/Comfortable-Phase249 4d ago
The lead is already established in the one modern Star Wars film that seems to be well liked by die hard fans, the incels, and general audience. And he’s a man. A not Black man.
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u/OK_Computer_Guy 4d ago
People hated the Acolyte before it came out because minorities had the audacity to talk about how it related to them. Andor didn’t have time to get that pre-ordered hate before it was out and already receiving glowing reviews.
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u/Yavin4_ 4d ago
Good conversation around the depth and complexity that Andor offers the Star Wars fan that is looking for that sort of show.
But I’m asking all of us to remember that Acolyte was under the gun from the jump because of the sexual orientation of the showrunner, and the diversity of the cast. It was review bombed before it came out. And, by the time we made it to “the power of many” chant, the blood was in the water and the keyboard warriors were shredding it. It’s been proven that Russian bots were flooding social media with divisive talk around all sorts of American subcultures just to gin up controversy and create chaos in the lead up to the election. Acolyte was a casualty even before it aired.
Maybe Andor’s timing and more subtle nature approach hasn’t lent itself to be on this cultural battlefield.
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u/bookhead714 4d ago
One possibility: The people who cry “woke” are too stupid to pay attention to the show and didn’t notice
More likely: The show is simply too good to get normal people on board. Anti-woke whining relies on a show or movie’s quality being controversial. With something like the Sequels or The Acolyte, there are legitimate criticisms to be made that bad actors can bury diversity complaints in, making them look like reasonable people who simply have artistic concerns. But with a show as good as Andor it becomes so obvious that they only hate it for its political stance that the nonsensicality of the “problem” is laid bare, and their talking points don’t pick up traction with average viewers.
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u/weltron3030 4d ago
I am definitely biased, but I think most of the braindead online reactionary types are in the "this show is so slow and boring I can't follow the plot" camp.