Today in internet troll fragility:

"Now, are you going to watch The Acolyte
or am I going to have to start shooting?"

-Disney, evidently

"Anti-entertainment...one of the most devastatingly embarrassing spectacles [he] think[s] [he's] ever witnessed on TV...[f]orty solid minutes of relentless, unadulterated, unapologetic, unaware cringe distilled down to its purest and most toxic form..." Those are some quotes from the first few moments of The Critical Drinker's review of the third episode of The Acolyte, and I have some questions. Chief among them: are The Critical Drinker and similar internet critics aware that they don't have to watch The Acolyte it if they don't want to?

"Women? In genre TV? Quickly, to the
internet! We must add to the toxic discourse!"

-Dudes

No, I'm seriously asking because this new Star Wars show has drawn a surprising amount of ire from--sorry, did I say surprising? The series centers a number of female and BIPOC characters, so this is exactly the amount of ire we should expect the kind of person who spends X amount of hours writing and editing a screed about a TV show they hate. Anyway, out of morbid curiosity, I decided to watch one of these videos, just to see just what their beef is and spoiler alert it's ladies. 

Let the hate flow through you...

The example I chose was The Critical Drinker's video, but that was just because the title was "I'm done and so is Star Wars." Which, I mean, I seriously doubt both that Disney is going to stop making more Star Wars, and that TCD (acroyms are just easier) is going to stop making videos about how angry he is about this fact. If anything, he needs Disney to continue to disappoint him, lest he have nothing to critically drink about, or whatever his deal is. 

Hey teens, are you guys still saying
"big mad?" Am I using that correctly?

I should be upfront and say that I've seen The Acolyte, and it's by no means perfect, and it's not the best entry in Star Wars, but it's fine. It's only three episodes in, but I like it so far and while I'm not offering a critique of this show, I feel the need to say that the backlash is far from justified. Also I am starting to detect a pattern. That is, when a long running series (or franchise) introduces new characters and those characters aren't straight white dudes, straight white dudes get big mad. And then they make YouTube videos about being big mad.

"We lesbian space witches believe 
in the free market, thank you very much."

-Mother Aniseya

If they didn't like it that would be one thing. And in my extremely limited sample size, that is, just this one guy's video, he did levy some complaints that weren't steeped in weird, misogynistic insecurities. He took issue with some of the lore the series established; he's wrong about it, but it's a fair criticism. Also, he found the chanting scene kind of silly which, ok, I did too. But he can't talk about the show's protagonist, without snidely referring to her as "strong female character," and he constantly calls the new Force-wielding coven "communist lesbian space witches." 

I love David Tennant, but you've got
to admit this felt a little...pander-y?

It all just feels like there's more going on here than just nerd nitpicking. That the negativity isn't about the story or the characters, but is instead a certain segment of the fanbase, say entitled straight cis white dudes, playing gatekeeper. It's something that's been happening a lot in the past few years. For every fan backlash resulting in something positive--like, fixing Sonic's teeth--we get two or three instances of something icky, like Kelly Marie Tran sitting out Episode IX to look at schematics or Jodi Whittaker's regeneration into David Tennant. I just hate it when trolls win, you know?

And again, I'm not saying you should or should not watch The Acolyte. I liked it, and your mileage may vary, but it won't leave you screaming into the void about how Kathleen Kennedy burned your childhood to the ground. And surely something that makes so many misogynists this upset is at least worth checking out.

Pictured: Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, seen here laughing maniacally
over how many grown adults she's driven into to rabid-foam fits over a kids' TV show.