The cancelation of Star Wars series The Acolyte on Disney+ doesn’t come as a huge surprise to star Amandla Stenberg.
They posted a message on their Instagram account on Wednesday, discussing the “rampage of hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol” that took place encountered following their casting.
“I’m going to be transparent and say it’s not a huge shock for me,” Stenberg said in a recent Instagram Story post, per Variety. “There has been a rampage of vitriol that we have faced since the show was even announced, when it was still just a concept and no one had even seen it. That’s when we started experiencing a rampage of, I would say, hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol, prejudice, hatred and hateful language towards us.”
The Acolyte received mostly positive reviews from critics, but the fan response was polarizing, with most of the criticism coming from toxic fans bombarding the series with negative reviews.
This also isn’t surprising, given that in many scenarios, when a person of color, a woman, or a person in the LGBTQ community is featured in a Star Wars property, a very loud minority of fans flood the internet with hateful comments.
Notably, the 2017 Star Wars film, Star Wars: The Last Jedi faced a huge backlash from these fans.
“This really affected me when I first got the job. Because it’s just not something — even though I anticipated it happening — it’s not something you can fully understand what it feels like until it’s happening to you,” Stenberg continued in the video. “However, I feel like I’ve kind of moved through those feelings in various ways, including being vocal about it myself. … It just became inarguable for me, at a certain point, that in order to continue to be myself, I would have to honor my value system by being vocal even in the context of working for Disney.”
Stenberg concluded saying, “It has been an incredible honor and dream for me to be in this universe,” they added. “Of course, I’m very sad about the show being canceled. … I just want to let those people know out there who supported us in that way, and supported us vocally — despite and in the face of all of the vitriol that we received and the kind of the targeted attack, I would say, we received by the alt-right — just that you were deeply loved and appreciated. And it made this job all the worthwhile for me.”
Stenberg played twins Osha and Mae in The Acolyte. The series ended on a cliffhanger, and now, since its cancellation, fans are holding out hope they can get some semblance of closure from the sereis.
