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Fictional Women Around the World: Rose Tico · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha and welcome to Steffan
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: ever told you a protection of iHeartRadio, And welcome to
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: another edition of our sub sub sub segment Fictional win
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: around the world. Because this is May Star Wars, stuff abounds,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and today we are talking about Rose Tycho. You can
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: see the episode that we did on Star Wars sequel trilogy.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: I've also been thinking, Samantha, I feel like we should
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: have a Star Wars playlist.
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  Speaker 2: Well probably at this point that in the last of us,
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  Speaker 2: like you need two separate playlists, to be honest.
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  Speaker 1: Because I think it would be interesting to hear how
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I went from like pre pandemic. I don't know too
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  Speaker 1: much about this Star Wars too.
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  Speaker 2: Whoa who we are? Here we are?
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  Speaker 1: I think it'd be interesting, that's fair. But we'll see
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  Speaker 1: about that. We'll see about that. But we haven't talked
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  Speaker 1: about this before, so let's jump into it. Rose Tycho
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  Speaker 1: is played by Kelly Marie Tran and was first introduced
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  Speaker 1: in mainstream Star Wars media in the twenty seventeen film
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  Speaker 1: The Last Jedi. If you somehow have not heard our
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  Speaker 1: past Star Wars episodes, this was and continues to be
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  Speaker 1: a very controversial movie people still like fighting about it woo.
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  Speaker 1: Though of note, a not insubstantial amount of things like
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: review bombing was carried out by Butts. Again, you can
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  Speaker 1: see that past episode.
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  Speaker 2: Yep.
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  Speaker 1: That being said, and we'll get into all of this.
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  Speaker 1: She was forced off social media due to the sexist
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  Speaker 1: and racist hate she received for this role. The character
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  Speaker 1: has nonetheless appeared in the Rise of Skywalker. More on
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  Speaker 1: that too, Oh comics cartoons often voiced by Trent, which
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  Speaker 1: is kind of rare that the actors from the movies
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  Speaker 1: will do the voices in the cartoons, but.
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  Speaker 2: She has but okay.
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  Speaker 1: The last Edi starts with Rose's sister Page dying while
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  Speaker 1: fighting for the resistance. Rose works in maintenance and engineering,
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  Speaker 1: and through this Workshane counters Finn, which is John Boyega's character,
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  Speaker 1: and is at first in awe of him since he's
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  Speaker 1: viewed as a hero due to his actions in the
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  Speaker 1: previous film, but she soon realizes he's planning on what
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  Speaker 1: seems to be deserting, so she's not cool with that.
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  Speaker 1: She stuns him and turns him in through a series
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  Speaker 1: of events that largely involve Finn trying to contact Ray,
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  Speaker 1: which is Daisy Ridley's character and Poe author Isaac's character.
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  Speaker 1: Not trusting the Resistance leader, they make their way to
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  Speaker 1: Canto Bite, which is basically like space Las Vegas, but
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  Speaker 1: it's a whole planet because that's what Star Wars does,
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  Speaker 1: and I do love that to make contact with the
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  Speaker 1: master Codebreaker. I could, I could explain it more, but
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter here. So Rose at this point shares
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  Speaker 1: some of her past with Finn of seeing this excess
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  Speaker 1: and being underpaid and coerced people making that excess happen,
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  Speaker 1: never being seen, and they free the what we shall
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  Speaker 1: call space horses to make an escape. A distraction, this
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  Speaker 1: is that section. People complain about that section a lot.
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  Speaker 2: To me. That is like a video game side quest.
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  Speaker 1: I get why people are mad, but like, that's so
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  Speaker 1: many big action movies do that now where they have
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  Speaker 1: It's like it feels like a video game. You have
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  Speaker 1: to go to this place and accomplish this thing and whatever.
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  Speaker 1: So the Codebreaker betrays them to the First Order, which
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  Speaker 1: is the Empire uh and they are tortured. They are
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  Speaker 1: able to fight their way out, but the Resistance ends
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  Speaker 1: up in a really dire situation. Finn goes out to
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  Speaker 1: face enemy forces and certain death, but Rose stops him,
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  Speaker 1: saying that's how we're gonna win, not fighting what we hate,
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  Speaker 1: saving what we love, and they kiss. Rose is injured
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  Speaker 1: during this whole thing, and in a mirror of her
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  Speaker 1: previous saving of Finn, Finn saves her somewhere in her healing,
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  Speaker 1: they decide to remain friends. A lot of this all
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  Speaker 1: happens in the comics, so I would not blame you
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  Speaker 1: for big Like wait what? So once healed, Rose helps
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  Speaker 1: out Leah setting up communications, and she helps Ray with
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  Speaker 1: the right that Ray is trying to complete, and she
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: is promoted.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, all of this.
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  Speaker 1: After all of this, she starts studying the technical specs
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  Speaker 1: of star destroyers and is present during the assault on Exagal,
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  Speaker 1: which is like the cult planet I guess we'll say,
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  Speaker 1: against the resurrected Emperor and Imperial Remnant forces. So here
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  Speaker 1: quick backstory. Rose's family grew up in an impoverished mining colony.
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  Speaker 1: Her and her sister were very close and they enjoyed
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  Speaker 1: holodramas and racing. Eventually, the First Order, which is again
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  Speaker 1: the Empire, took over their mining colony and forced the
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  Speaker 1: constituents to mind materials for their weapons. Rose and her
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  Speaker 1: sister Page fought against them and eventually went on to
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  Speaker 1: join the Resistance officially. Soon after this, they learned that
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  Speaker 1: the First Order had killed their people, Essentially, General Leah
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  Speaker 1: Organa approaches them and they decide to stay and work
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  Speaker 1: with her. Thanks in part to her sister's meddling, Rose
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  Speaker 1: proves herself to be a really great mechanic. One of
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  Speaker 1: her first experiments didn't work at first, but she kept
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  Speaker 1: trying with encouragement from Leah, and when it did work,
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  Speaker 1: she and her sister went out racing. Page disappeared, Rose
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  Speaker 1: blamed herself and set out in search of her. She
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  Speaker 1: was able to find her, in part with the help
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  Speaker 1: of birds that she named squawks. Rose saved Page and
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  Speaker 1: discovered the reason why their communications were jammed, which is
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  Speaker 1: really really important. Eventually, Page got assigned as a gunner
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  Speaker 1: while Rose worked as a mechanic, but they remained close
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  Speaker 1: and they wore matching pendance. That's in the last shot out.
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  Speaker 1: It's a pretty big plot point. Rose helped save star
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  Speaker 1: pilot po Dammarin in part due to reading something that
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  Speaker 1: her bully mocked her for. Strange. Okay, so, as we've
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  Speaker 1: discussed before, there is a lot of controversy and legacy
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  Speaker 1: to this character. This is a character like people love
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  Speaker 1: or hate, which I find fascinating. According to The Last
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  Speaker 1: Jedi director Ryan Johnson, he created Rose to be someone
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  Speaker 1: who would challenge Finn because he believes that Poe, who
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  Speaker 1: was originally slated to go on the whole trip to
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  Speaker 1: Canto Bite, would be boring. When it came to dialogue
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  Speaker 1: from Tran, Rose is not an amazing pilot or a Jedi.
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  Speaker 1: She's strong in a different way, and I think that's
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  Speaker 1: kind of how she holds her own. She has this
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  Speaker 1: fangirl experience. Then they started realizing the two of them
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  Speaker 1: have abilities that nobody else has that they could really
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  Speaker 1: help the Resistance if they were to work together. Interestingly,
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  Speaker 1: some have complained she was too boring, but this is
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  Speaker 1: what I liked about her. I liked that she was
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  Speaker 1: normal quotes, she wasn't a Jedi, and she did these
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  Speaker 1: amazing things, and she picked up and she still kept going.
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  Speaker 1: And she also speaks to the hope that is so
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  Speaker 1: key to the series. Some of you have written in
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  Speaker 1: about this, and I think it was a really salient
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  Speaker 1: criticism that in a lot of movies like this, the
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  Speaker 1: martyrrism is really lauded. But when she has that line
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  Speaker 1: with Finn after her sister died in this like sacrificial
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  Speaker 1: act at the front, she's saying like, no, we got
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  Speaker 1: to survive, That's what this is for. And I thought
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  Speaker 1: that was really powerful and I liked that a lot. However,
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  Speaker 1: there was a huge backlash against her character that again
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  Speaker 1: pushed this actress off social media and resulted in her
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  Speaker 1: character's screen time being greatly reduced to one minute in
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  Speaker 1: the following film, The Rise of Skywalker. Now, the writers
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  Speaker 1: have said this has to do with the cost of
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: putting cgi Carrie Fisher slash Leo or gone in the
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  Speaker 1: film because she had died. The actor had and essentially
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: they had a lot of scenes together, but they couldn't
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  Speaker 1: achieve the quality of photorealism that they wanted with Lea.
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  Speaker 1: But at this point, Carrie Fisher had died several years earlier,
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  Speaker 1: and they later clarified that these were rumors and weren't true.
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  Speaker 1: So hmmm, and I really hate this explanation because reportedly
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  Speaker 1: Carrie Fisher was super into working with Tran, even saying
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  Speaker 1: that they needed space jewelry, which was part of the
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  Speaker 1: inspiration between the pentons that rose in page where, So
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  Speaker 1: I don't like her getting used in this way. Another
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  Speaker 1: quote from Tran. It wasn't their words, it's that I
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  Speaker 1: started to believe them. Their words seemed to confirm what's
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  Speaker 1: growing up as a woman and a person of color
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  Speaker 1: already taught me that I belonged in margins and spaces,
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  Speaker 1: valid only as a minor character in their lives and stories.
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  Speaker 1: Their words reinforced a narrative I had heard my whole
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  Speaker 1: life that I was other, that I didn't belong, that
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  Speaker 1: it wasn't good enough simply because I wasn't like them,
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  Speaker 1: And that feeling, I realized now was and is shame,
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  Speaker 1: A shame for the things that made me different, a
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  Speaker 1: shame for the culture from which I come from. And
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  Speaker 1: to me, the most disappointing thing was that I felt
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  Speaker 1: it at all.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Also, we did talk about this in our discussion of
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  Speaker 1: the Seagull trilogy. But to be clear, the creators, like
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: jj Abrams, kept saying how much they loved her, but
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: really did not do anything to prevent the harassment she
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: was getting online. Right, and wrote, I mean you still
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  Speaker 1: wrote the story.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: Here's a quote from nerdist. But if inspiring her to
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  Speaker 1: abandon Twitter felt like a petty victory for the franchise's
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: least deserving fans, the choice to minimize her role in
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: the Rise of Skywalker gave them a much bigger one.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: They won't see The Rise of Skywalker as bad storytelling,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: but as vindication they were right about the character and
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: the actress. In spite of insisting he was grateful for
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: the character, even as Kelly Marie had been extraordinarily generous
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  Speaker 1: to him, jj Abrams rewarded the hostile and deeply insensitive
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  Speaker 1: individuals who tortured her. Yep, and I thought this was interesting.
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  Speaker 1: George Lucas recently ish said about his selling of lucasfilm
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  Speaker 1: to Disney, Why would I make any more Star Wars
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  Speaker 1: movies when everybody yells at you all the time and
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: says what a terrible person you are? This this I
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  Speaker 1: mean if George Lucas, the white guy creator, is like, no, thanks.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm done with y'all. Y'all are the worst. I
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: don't work this anymore. This is a current meme in
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  Speaker 2: Star Wars.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if you've seen it, but it's like,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: we love George Lucas until we hated him.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: We love Dave Filoni until we hated him. Like it's
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: all right.
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  Speaker 1: It was celebrated for about two seconds, and then when
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  Speaker 1: half of us disagreed, we all hate him.
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  Speaker 2: Right exactly.
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  Speaker 1: When this character was introduced, she was seen as symbolic
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  Speaker 1: of all the quote woke things wrong.
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  Speaker 2: With Star Wars.
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  Speaker 1: And I've spoken before about the difference between legitimate critique
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  Speaker 1: between weak writing and just being a racist, sexist whole.
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  Speaker 1: The storyline this character was given in the last Jedi
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  Speaker 1: was uneven. It had its strengths and it had like
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  Speaker 1: really interesting ones and its weaknesses. But that's not unique
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  Speaker 1: to Rose. But she's the one right that gets this reaction,
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  Speaker 1: her and Ray. When I was researching this, many of
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: the top results were people asking, I don't get why
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  Speaker 1: people hate her, and the number one response was her
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  Speaker 1: plotline uselessness. So again, I think that a section people
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  Speaker 1: are complaining about which does as I said, full very
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  Speaker 1: video gamy to me, is not something we should blame
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  Speaker 1: on the character or the actor. I've been thinking about
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  Speaker 1: this a lot lately about how male writers, when they
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: write women, we blame the women who are playing that character.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Right as opposed to the people who write them. But
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: that's not generally the case for male actors in my experience,
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  Speaker 1: Like we weren't coming for like po damn.
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  Speaker 2: Rin right, they were all like why would they do that?
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  Speaker 2: Then the exactly.
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  Speaker 1: They didn't do him justice. They didn't do him justice.
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  Speaker 1: But for women it's like, how are you actress? Who
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: plays her right? And yes, you can see our episode
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: on Mary Sues and there's this whole section. It's one
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: of the final it's the final chapter of every book.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: It's about Mary Sues for more on this and Ray
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  Speaker 1: and all the heat.
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  Speaker 2: That character got.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Oh, this is also an issue of all of the
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: other material that aren't the movies. I got a disagreement
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: with a friend about this recently, because most people only
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: see the movies and maybe some of the shows, and
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: I totally get that. So there's a lot of other
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: stuff explaining huge plot points that are in aren't in
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: the movies, which.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: It just I have been to me.
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  Speaker 1: Like, wait, in what comic did it happen that this
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: huge movie plot point you explained it a comic somewhere.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: That I haven't read.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: I love the comic, So I think there's also just
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: a mess of that happening on the very small silver
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: lining side. Fans at conferences have chanted her name when
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Tran appears on a panel. She does still do a
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: lot of the voice acting for the character, and there
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  Speaker 1: are despite all this negativity, there are plenty of people
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  Speaker 1: a large contingent I would say, actually love her. It's
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: just sad that again these terrible fans who aren't really
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: fans in my get such a like.
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  Speaker 2: So much space and make things worse for all of us.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: The yep wow.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: I would love to know if people have thoughts about this.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: If you have read the comic of which I speak,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: I please point me in.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: The right place direction.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: If you would like to email us, you can. Our
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: email is Stephandia mom Stuff at iheartdia dot com. You
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts, or
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: on Instagram and TikTok at Stephane Never Told You. We're
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: also on YouTube. We have a tea public store, and
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: yes we do have a book. Thanks as always too,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: our super producer, Christina, our executive producer, my In, our
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: contributor Joey, thank you and thanks to you for listening.
• 15:22
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