It’s now been a few months since Disney+ and Lucasfilm canceled The Acolyte. And it’s fair to say that the fandom still hasn’t let it go. As the petition to continue the show keeps getting traction, more actors from the series, like star Amandla Stenberg, are speaking out. Especially when it comes to the bigoted vitriol the show faced from almost the moment they announced it. In speaking to Glamour, via TV Line, The Acolyte’s Jodie Turner-Smith, who played Mother Aniseya in the series, called out the powers-that-be directly for failing to stick up for their actors receiving bigoted attacks online. Here’s what she had to say:
Stop doing this thing where they don’t say anything when people are getting f–king dog-piled on the internet with racism and bullshit. It’s just not fair to not say anything. It’s really unfair. It would just be nice if the people that have all the money… were showing their support and putting their feet down. Say this is unacceptable…. Make a really big statement and just see if any money leaves. I bet you it won’t, because people of color, and especially Black people, make up a very large percentage of buying power. They might find that it’s actually more lucrative for them, but everyone’s using ‘woke’ like it’s a dirty word.
Needless to say, she did not mince any words in this interview. The behavior she spoke of is hardly limited to The Acolyte (or even Star Wars in general). But we’ve seen it happen time and time again over the past decade with this franchise. John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran during the sequel trilogy, Moses Ingram in Obi-Wan Kenobi, the list goes on. And although Obi-Wan Kenobi star Ewan McGregor did speak out against the harassment, he did this of his own volition. Would an official statement from Disney/Lucasfilm stop the harassment? Of course not. But it would be nice to know the people in charge have your back, and aren’t just throwing their actors to the internet’s wolves.