1. Larry Paris says:

    I cancel my fandom of franchises (Oh no!) fairly frequently. It is a sad thing but when a franchise crosses a line (Boy, is Hollywood prone to this!) that violates my convictions I have to dump the franchise. So I understand the get rid of baby Yoda thing. I understand it but that doesn’t mean I agree with it. (Let other people have their convictions. You just keep yours) To tell the truth, I dumped Star Wars when the 3rd movie (Episode 6) came out. Star Trek got a similar boot because of First Contact. (Actually, I’ve booted Star Trek several times. It’s hard to let go of things you love.) That doesn’t mean I don’t continue to like and remember things from these series or even joke about them. But I no longer look forward to new movies, new series, new episodes. If we need to cancel something and start over, I would say it was Hollywood. It corrupts everything it puts it’s hands on.

    • Parker J. Cole says:

      I can understand that. I know for myself, it’s been very difficult for me to get into newer incarnations of Star Trek — Enterprise, Discovery, Picard for a myriad of reasons I won’t go into. I just think that to take it to this extreme is ridiculous. Plus, I’m sure the producers will now make Baby Yoda do whatever to make him ‘palatable’ again.

      • Larry Paris says:

        Yes. Which is my ultimate point (which I didn’t make clear). Everyone has their convictions. They should keep them. If you want to change things then persuade others that your point of view is correct. It is the heart that must change. There are some things that should be changed, like abortion, but even if you cancel something or outlaw it that doesn’t change the heart of those who think differently. the heart is what must be reached.

    • Rachel says:

      Yes. I only keep up with this stuff because of my family. I wish Star Trek had ended with The Next Generation. And the movies had ended with Star Trek VI after leaving out the first and fifth. I wish Star Wars had ended with the prequels–and done those a lot better. Too many zombie series running around that need to have stakes put through them.

      We have a real dearth of originality in Hollywood. No creativity. Partly due to poor quality products from the monopolies.
      It can also be seen as a judgment on a decadent culture. The arts are the first thing to go (so I understand.)

  2. I shade toward Trekness, but my fam always gets me Star Wars merchandise because it’s readily available in flyover country. Dr.Who, The Expanse, and Thunderbirds Are Go! round out my passions.

    I’m glad The Child has fallen from grace, for the same reason I was glad that Superman died. (Sorry about the spoiler if you’ve been living under a rock with no library card since the ’70s.) You don’t have to retcon the cute little Furby because it starts cursing in Klingon or uses the Almighty Force to steal oviparous collectibles.

    I’m reminded of a speech given by a character in another show I’m a fan of:

    “You’d expect people who talk about the sanctity of life to be against the death penalty. You’d expect people who care about supporting the helpless to be against preventing the most helpless of all from living full and satisfying lives. Maybe the nuns were right and we are inherently evil creatures barely restrained by the threat of eternal damnation. Hypocrisy runs rampant, and it’s society’s job to keep us from forgetting that we are as guilty as the worst criminal we will tolerate.”
    Jack McCoy, played by Sam Watterson in Law &Order

    • Parker J. Cole says:

      Your comment reminded me of the John Wick franchise, and how he went gangster (literally) over the death of his dog. We all know why he did but at the same time, we here in the U. S., would never countenance the filmmakers showing the dog being beaten. In the movie, it’s implied with a raised crowbar over and a thud and a whimper, followed by a trail of blood leading to John Wick’s prone figure. Yet, most of us sat, me and Granny included, watching as he shot people’s brains out in revenge and how he got the Russian dude’s kid in the end. That’s human nature — eternally conflicted.

      • Rachel says:

        I dearly love my cat Abby. I spend extra money on special food she needs. But–much as I’d hate to–I’d let her die if I had to choose between her life and a human stranger.

  3. Tony Breeden says:

    Good post!

    I would point out three things.

    1. The Baby Yoda protesters probably don’t see the issue of abortion here simply because they think of it in terms of genocide. The frog lady mentions multiple times that these eggs are the last of her genetic line and that she must reunite with her husband to fertilize and keep her species going. so bringing up this valid issue of abortion will likely just end up with us talking past one another.

    2. The show clearly identified these as unfertilized eggs so it was not abortion in any sense anyway. If you believe it was, I hope you’ve sworn off omelets! 😉

    3. Baby Yoda might be 50 years old but he is a baby developmentally. He’s used his powers instinctively and sparingly. He basically hides, eats and gets into trouble otherwise. As a father of four, I can tell you kids eat things they’re not supposed to and they can be pretty sneaky about it, especially if you’re a Mandalorian trying to save his ship from, well, …spoilers. One of my kids even ate a sticky hand (one of those nasty squishy things you get out of a vending machine or [cough cough] a VBS program) and we never knew it until it came time to change the diaper! It a very alarming surprise to say the least!

    Man, people will argue over anything though, right?

    • Parker J. Cole says:

      Glad you pointed that out. And fair point about genocide vs abortion. It would be an instance in talking past each other, which isn’t my point at all. Thanks for the clarification.

    • I didn’t understand that the eggs were the last of her line to mean their loss would be the end of the frog people, but rather the end of her personal line. The reason the military service would not take all the sons of a household because somebody should be left to carry on the line.

  4. twb says:

    I quit calling myself a ‘fan’ of anything as fandom became more about what you hate (about what the creators do with your fandom, or against other fandoms) than what you love.

  5. Elise Roberts says:

    I absolutely agree with you. It’s much easier to deal with fictional outrage than to face the reality of our own fallen world. It makes people feel better but it accomplices nothing substantial.

  6. I could care less about the Mandalorian because…I’ve got better things to do with my money right now than pay to watch it, but reading this had me laughing out loud and then nodding in agreement with you.

    Our society is completely topsy-turvy when it comes to priorities.

  7. J.D. Rempel says:

    America has lost its sense of humor. My husband loves watching reruns of King of Queens and there is no way some of the things they say and do would be allowed on any current program. And that show ended in 2007.

    • Pam Halter says:

      I totally agree, Jen. I was in high school in the late 70s. Between Monty Python, Looney Toons, Mel Brooks, and SNL (John Belushi and crew, who also included guests Steve Martin and Eddie Murphey), and we LOVED dark humor. We knew it wasn’t real.

      So many things offend people. It’s weird, because what offends me may make you laugh. And vice versa. Who decides what’s okay and what’s not? Those who feel they’ll lose $$ if something continues. I bet if they polled every single person in the world, they’d find out people really aren’t as sensitive as media is telling us.

  8. The really exasperating thing about all this is that despite the hyperbolic articles lamenting about the hypersensitivity of fans, nobody “cancelled” Baby Yoda. What actually happened was that few SW fans on Twitter — most female, but some male as well — felt that the joke about the Child eating the Frog Lady’s eggs (and Din/Mando not paying attention soon enough to stop him) was poorly written because of the emphasis the show had already placed on the value those eggs had for her. So these fans remarked on their own Twitter feeds, in conversation with their own followers, that they didn’t think the joke was funny and that it also made them dislike Baby Yoda, which was probably not a smart choice for the scriptwriter to make since the Child is Lucasfilm’s most popular character at the moment.

    Of course, Twitter loves a good cancellation and will manufacture one at the least opportunity, so this quickly got retweeted and mocked by fans who disagreed, and eventually reached various Lucasfilm reps who proceeded to make sneering remarks about the fans making up stuff to be offended at, being too stupid to know how small children behave, and/or not being able to take a joke.

    All of which missed the point the original critics were making, that the joke was badly written *in the context of the episode* — especially given what we’d already been shown about how serious and important these eggs were to the Frog Lady. The episode even gave her an impassioned speech about how vital it was that her eggs survive long enough for her husband to fertilize them. So we’re expected to take her seriously and care about the eggs’ survival, but we’re also supposed to find it hilarious when the baby eats them? Even my husband, who is by no means a bleeding heart and who has no connection at all to SW fandom, remarked that it was “kind of sick and creepy, not really funny at all.”

    The whole issue could have been avoided if the script had been written differently — having Baby Yoda repeatedly go after the eggs and being caught just before he eats one, for instance. But as it was, the scenes of the Child eating the eggs weren’t comical so much as disturbing. Especially for some women SW fans who struggle with fertility and identified with the Frog Lady’s desperation. Is it fair to tell viewers to care about something, give them high-stakes reasons to care about it, and then be surprised and offended when they do end up actually caring?

    Anyway, while I agree that SW fandom has a lot of wackos and cranks in it, I don’t think this is an example of fans being extreme so much as Lucasfilm and their supporters being hypersensitive to criticism. It’s not that the fans who object to things like the Frog Lady’s eggs being eaten aren’t “getting” the joke — they just don’t agree that it’s funny or well written. And I agree with them.

    • Parker J. Cole says:

      Great points you made. Some other commentators have also pointed that out.

    • Jo M says:

      This. YES. Thank you. And also, I super hate spiders. So….. I was mostly just horrified and disturbed by this episode. It was totally unenjoyable for me. Which I was super disappointed by, because I’ve loved every previous episode of this show.

  9. Jes Drew says:

    Yeah, there’s a big difference between a fictional child eating the unfertilized eggs of another species because he’s hungry and real adults killing the fertilized egg- also known as a child- inside of their own wombs because they don’t want them.

  10. Linda Nathan says:

    I love this article. It nails the blatant hypocrisy of the cancel culture with its perverted, dying remnants of a once Christian conscience.

  11. But the important thing to remember:

    The true best captain of Star Trek is Captain Sisko. Any other answer is wrong.

What do you think?