Calling for Kathleen Kennedy’s Head Over the Obi-Wan Delay Is a Ridiculous Double Standard
Did you know that if you want to get a script right for a highly anticipated show so you delay production, Twitter will call for your head? Well, that’s what is happening to Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy over the Obi-Wan Kenobi Star Wars TV series! News broke from the premiere of Birds of Prey (also featuring Old Ben himself, Ewan McGregor) that the Obi-Wan series we have all been waiting for had its start date for shooting change from August to January. That’s it.
I wrote a piece when the rumor first started to circulate about a “cancelation” of the series because I’m tired of there being a constant string of takedowns of shows we really want from Disney+. That still stands. I hate this cycle and would rather just have news that centers around what is actually happening—you know, like Ewan McGregor simply saying that production was pushed back by a few months, when he doesn’t even think it’ll affect the series’ launch date.
The reasoning seems to be that Kathleen Kennedy wanted more work on the scripts, which probably comes from a mix of things, like the success of The Mandalorian and the not-so-success of The Rise of Skywalker. Star Wars, as we currently know it, is in an interesting place.
The Mandalorian came and became my favorite property in the franchise, and the highly anticipated Rise of Skywalker upset many fans throughout the galaxy—both those who were already unhappy after The Last Jedi and those who weren’t—so I’m not surprised that Kathleen Kennedy wants to get the Obi-Wan series perfect before they jump into filming.
What’s fascinating is the backlash that surfaced on Twitter because of this “report.” Tweets like the one below took over Twitter, and calling a woman a “fucking whore” because she wants to get Obi-Wan and his highly anticipated series right is, honestly, just the tip of the misogynistic iceberg that permeates this fandom.
#kathleenkennedy is an incompetent fucking whore , she doesnt know any thing about starwars , she’s welling to destroy the whole series just for the sake of her feminist agenda , FUCK YOU BITCH!!! FUCK YOU!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/a4UiFCu4rI
— N (@Naifoo_) January 24, 2020
So, what is the moral of this entire mess? It’s that we should maybe just trust the process. With the exception of my feelings on The Rise of Skywalker, I have trusted and enjoyed every other property under Kathleen Kennedy’s jurisdiction. As many have rightfully pointed out, the same people who blame her for every single fault never seem to give her any credit for the good things—conspicuously including, in this case, The Mandalorian, a very successful live-action Star Wars TV show under Kennedy’s leadership.
Hollywood is an inherently sexist place, and Kennedy’s rise to power has consistently been met with a mix of fans yelling for one reason or another. “Too much diversity” or “not enough diversity” has been a constant back and forth, and now, nearly 8 years into her presidency at Lucasfilm, I understand what she’s doing.
What I don’t understand and don’t like is the fact that a perfectly reasonable explanation for a filming pushback has resulted in Kathleen Kennedy being called every sexist thing under the sun. Let’s just trust, for a little while, shall we? Just wait and see what is happening with the show, and maybe we can all stop calling Kennedy a “whore” because she’s doing her job.
(image: Lucasfilm)
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