Does the Star Wars franchise need more diverse directors? | The Tylt

Is it just us or was the BBC throwing a little bit of shade with the headline "Game of Thrones creators handed Star Wars project"? Even a white male director, Rian Johnson, replied "Hell yes it's time" when asked whether Star Wars needed an non-white, non-male director at the helm.

The Last Jedi and its predecessor, 2015's The Force Awakens, have been praised for having a female lead character and an ethnically diverse cast.

Yet the director's chair has remained an all-male preserve, despite the woman in charge of the series - Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy - expressing a desire for it to have a female occupant "when the time is right."

Many fans were not having the criticism. They say people need to keep gender and racial politics out of our entertainment. Just hire the best directors ( and can anyone actually argue that the GoT guys aren't good directors?).

Others say there are plenty of women and people of color involved in the Star Wars universe. The casting has been hugely diversified from its white male star beginnings. 

Others say the selection of the "Game of Thrones" showrunners is just depressing and typical. Directing a Star Wars movie is a massive position of power in the entertainment world, and clearly Hollywood does not want to cede any of that power to women and people of color. 

Some argue this could be the coolest installment in the Star Wars story yet. 

"Empire Strikes Back"—universally regarded as the best Star Wars film ever made—was the only one co-written by a woman.

Star Wars seems unable to look beyond the ranks of the tried and true, or at least white and male....
Of the 24 people hired to direct, write, or “otherwise take the creative lead” on Star Wars projects over the past 41 years, only one—Empire Strikes Back co-screenwriter Leigh Brackett—was a woman, which comes out to an abysmal 4 percent. The percentage of people of color is easier to calculate: It’s zero.