Episode 3: William Proctor and Lisa Granshaw on Star Wars Fandom responses to The Last Jedi

The news media has had much to say in the past few months about the ways Star Wars fans have responded to this The Last Jedi. Much of this reporting has depicted Star Wars fans in a monolithic terms — mostly focusing on the response of white male fans, who, as many have noted, dominate media coverage in an age where geek culture has been mainstreamed. Our two guests this week challenge that construction: William Proctor from the World Star Wars Project because he feels that journalists have misrepresented fan objections of the film (often through amplifying the voices of alt.right fans and even white supremacists) and fan-journalist Lisa Granshaw (Syfy Wire, the Daily Dot, Boing Boing, The Huffington Post, Mashable, Salon.com, Star Trek magazine and Star Wars Insider) because the diverse and highly creative work of female Star Wars fans has commanded little media attention. Keep in mind that there are many more kinds of Star Wars fans than we can discuss here — that’s part of the point — and that the focus on gender in defining fandom can be as misleading as it is sometimes illuminating.

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