Andor’s Faye Marsay hasn’t received any backlash for playing queer Star Wars character: “It’s gorgeous”
Faye Marsay, who is not on social media, didn't experience any abuse for being part of Star Wars' first onscreen queer couple
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The Star Wars fandom doesn’t have the best track record with how it treats marginalized fans. Sequel trilogy star John Boyega was so entirely turned off by the racism he experienced (and the lack of protection from Disney) that he seems to have been soured on the franchise altogether. His co-star Kelly Marie Tran endured similar abuse, and more recently Obi-Wan Kenobi star Moses Ingram also faced harassment. Luckily, though, Andor star Faye Marsay managed to escape the worst the fandom has to offer.
Asked by The Independent if playing Star Wars’ first canonically queer character on screen got backlash, Marsay said, “I’ve not had any. …Nothing. It’s gorgeous. And reassuring. And the way it should be.”
It should be noted that while the character is queer, Marsay is white, which makes her experience different from some of the actors who came before her. And it’s also possible that she hasn’t experienced any Andor backlash because she’s not on social media. (“I’m just a bit rubbish technology-wise,” she shared. “I’m like, the worst millennial on earth. The struggle is real! Like, I can’t really properly put a post up. It takes me a while.”)
Nevertheless, Marsay is cognizant of the impact of representation. While she admits she “wasn’t thinking too much about it” during filming, “The further we got, the more myself and Varada [Sethu, her on-screen partner] were aware that we were the first openly written queer characters, and how important that was” to those who long to see themselves “mirrored” onscreen, the Game Of Thrones alum said.
“The way it was done wasn’t some big announcement,” she added. “Like I always say: people in the LGBTQI+ community, it’s been going on since the beginning of time; it’ll go on till the end of time. Andor was just normalising the normal. That’s it.”
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The backlash isn’t prevalent because she’s “white”, it’s because she doesn’t have a social media presence.
Still disappointed her character Shona from the Last Christmas Doctor Who special didn’t become a companion on the show, as I think was intended if Jenna Coleman had left at that point. Having both of them would have been fun
She was delightful in that episode, and it’s definitely fun to think about what season 9 would have looked like with Shona’s snarkier presence in place of Clara.
There’s zero excuse for bigotry or harassment, period.That said, it’s worth noting that unlike Rose Tico or Reva, Vel Sartha doesn’t take agency from a guy and smooch him against his will (or lose her cool fan-girling out over some stormtrooper when she works for freaking General Organa), nor does she nearly torture and murder children onscreen, only to be instantly forgiven because most of the horrible stuff she /did/ do was offscreen/backstory.Lucasfilm absolutely shouldn’t have to shield actors from a-holes by giving them well-written parts. But then, they should be giving all their actors well-written parts anyway. And if doing so provokes less harassment, well, that’s just gravy.
Man, people who complain about Reva but then fawn over Vader and his ‘redemption’ really bother me. I dunno if its just that EP3’s acting was just that bad but I found Reva’s backstory and ‘redemption’ a lot more meaningful than Vader’s.
The more Vader gets fleshed out, the more I dislike his character. Saving Luke at the last second kinda pales in comparison to hunting down and killing you former friends and family for 20+ years at the behest of the guy who was the cause of all your problems up to that point.
IMO, Anakin should absolutely not have achieved Force Ghost status. That said, his redemption, such as it was, did at least cost him his life. Even apart from the galactically incoherent plotting behind her turn, however, the really galling thing about Reva’s redemption is that it appeared to cost her nothing whatsoever (give or take a few sniffles).
I assume Reva is gonna get killed because of it eventually. Just like most of the new characters they’ve been adding/developing in stories that take place prior to the sequel trilogy. Pretty much all of non-movie heroes on screen have “…and then they were hunted down and killed by the Empire/First Order” as an ending to their story.
Maybe, but they wouldn’t even have Obi-Wan tell her she needed to find her own path to atonement and self-forgiveness. He basically told her that because she decided not to kill (yet another) kid, she was now a good person, and should follow her own path, without any indication of responsibility. Just horrible writing all around.
or lose her cool fan-girling out over some stormtrooper when she works for freaking General OrganaThe guy that abandoned his brainwashing to destroy Starkiller Base shouldn’t have fans? If anything, you’re telling on yourself if you think Finn’s just “some stormtrooper.” nor does she nearly torture and murder children onscreen, only to be instantly forgiven because most of the horrible stuff she /did/ do was offscreen/backstory.Anakin and Kylo torture and murder children onscreen and then are instantly forgiven.
The audience knows Finn isn’t just “some stormtrooper” (which is what Holdo calls him), but there’s no reason a mere mechanical tech like Rose should know all about him just a day or two later.And yes, the forgiveness of Anakin and Kylo sucks, but, in-universe, they *were* both being directly manipulated by Palpatine. Reva decided to fly across the galaxy to murder a kid to spite Obi-Wan all by herself.
Ah the ole “meaningful looks that overseas markets are ok with” gay.
Eh, Andor is probably too smart for your average toxic Star Wars fan. They probably tried to sit through the first episode, got confused by all the talking and subtext, turned it off after 15 minutes, and resumed angrily masturbating to Mara Jade DeviantArt pics or whatever those people do on their downtime.
Actually, not necessarily. A number of them who are content creator classed under this umbrella say Andor is one of the if not the best Star Wars thing Disney has produced.
The reference to masturbating is sort of ironic, because “this thing I’m watching is too smart for them” is one of the most masturbatory things you can say.
OK, I love this gif, but the idea is a BIT masturbatory, isn’t it?
It reminds me (a bit) of a friend I had who told me about how depression was the cost of being smart. All you can do is Wonka face.Fine, fine, I’ll stop typing “masturbatory!”
Again, I said average toxic Star Wars fan. Toxic. You know, the sorts who drove the Asian woman Star Wars actress off social media for…being an Asian woman Star Wars actress? No, I don’t think it’s “masturbatory” to think that Andor would go over the heads of those people. But, do go on defending the honor of vile bigots from atop that high horse of yours.
I haven’t watched Andor, and I’m not a big Star Wars fan, and I don’t care who you’re talking about, so I’m not defending anyone’s honor (except that of my horse, who is not high! He is a perfectly sized horse!)I was just trying to tweak you a little bit. It is a bit smug to say “my thing is so smart that other people don’t get it,” which I heard 8000x about, say, Rick and Morty. It’s not smug at all to say that Kelly Marie Tran got screwed because racist Star Wars fans are assholes.
Anyway, I’m sorry. I was trying to be jokey and clearly it didn’t come off as I intended. I see you commenting around here all the time and generally enjoy your input. I am sure you’re right that whatever incels you’re complaining about don’t care about subtext outside of, idk, Wagner.
“No, I don’t think it’s “masturbatory” to think that Andor would go over the heads of those people.”
Of course you don’t, because you’re the only one who gets it, because you’re totally not being completely and utterly masturbatory.
ETA: Folks, I gave you an out by appending that additional “toxic” modifier to “average Star Wars fan.” Not my fault if you’re telling on yourselves.
That very specific explanation. Are you sure you’re not the one telling on yourselves?
Holy shit the replies to you are hilarious.
Doesn’t the first part of the episode take part at what we assume is a Star Wars brothel?
This is actually mostly accurate. I lurk in some of the darkest corners of fandom (fan-generated comic book and sci fi news sites like comicbookmovie.com) and a lot of the same assholes constantly whinging about “genderbending” and “raceswapping” also devote a small amount of time complaining about how dull, colorless, and uninteresting Andor was.
I suspect the people who’d have a problem with her character’s lifestyle immediately recognized Andor as being over their heads, and gave up on it before they met the character.
Star Wars’ first onscreen queer coupleHaaa-haa-ha! I look forward to what they will do with the next 5 first onscreen queer couples.
R2-D2 and C-3PO know that “nobody worries about upsetting a droid”.
I meant Whathername and Whathernuts from Episode 9, unless you sneezed and missed their exclusively gay moment, but I don’t disagree.
She was a real standout in Andor for me, her character felt lived in and hardened by the years working for the resistance – tough as old boots.
Have to say when she was revealed as gay it barely registered as memorable. Which is testament to the deft way that show handles things, they don’t include stuff just for novelty, only to flesh out their characters.
You jinxed it.
Well I guess she hasn’t talked to my shitty boomer-ass dad then.
As the article states she has no social media so of course she hasn’t experienced any of it directly. The route this stuff usually takes originates in harassing DMs then it becomes a news story. Searching for anything the that occam’s razor of it reveals ones personal prejudices more than anything else. If they can’t attempt to hurt the person’s feelings directly it seems they don’t bother in reviews as much.
There wasn’t much of a backlash from the “anti-woke” Star Wars social media contingent about Andor because they didn’t get past the lack of pew-pew early on. They didn’t watch it so they don’t have anything to be fake outraged and abusive about.
The breakdown’s a bit more complex than that. I know some of that contingent rates Andor as some of the best if not the best of all the Disney Star Wars content.
You’d be amazed at how many otherwise intelligent people are “anti-woke”. I’ll never fully understand it, but I see it through my job which involves interacting with a lot of professionals in a red area. Most of them are even seemingly nice people, just don’t get them on the topic of politics. Likely it’s that they only get their news from right-wing sources.
lol
Maybe because their character was well written and didn’t look like “Hey lets put LGBTQ+/Color character for representation” out of nowhere.
Actually, that’s sort of how it works in real life. People are randomly queer and non-white ‘out of nowhere’ all around you. They don’t have an interesting backstory about their queerness or skin color for your entertainment/justification.
I think that’s their point. Her queerness wasn’t a subplot.
None of the actors of color had their skin color as a subplot either, so what exactly are you comparing this to?
Seems like a lot of these controversies happen when huge companies try to hide terrible writing behind politics after negative audience reactions. Andor was superbly written and executed. Disney’s Star Wars trilogy was not.
There might be less of a reaction because female queer couples are everywhere these days. Try putting a (human) male couple in Star Wars, then we’ll see how the ‘fans’ react.
“Faye Marsay, who is not on social media”So why the fuck is this a story? Did you think people were hand-writing letters of hate to people in Star Wars?
She’s not on social media. That’s the deal. Horrible behavior from a minority of the fandom gets boosted and amplified by platforms that are designed to do exactly that, which creates the illusion that the crap behavior is the norm. It isn’t.
Her TV space-girlfriend definitely murdered those hostages, including the kid, right? Feel like we don’t talk about that enough.