"My black face is going to be running throughout that whole thing"
Pacific Rim star John Boyega has discussed the controversy surrounding the Chinese Star Wars poster that was deemed “racist.”
In video clip posted by the BBC, John Boyega was asked about the controversial “racist” poster in China for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Compared to western posters for the film, Chinese posters presented Boyega much smaller. Many deemed this as a racist move.
However the poster did not really bother the for British actor. Boyega first became aware of the poster through social media.
“This poster in China was a big thing that only got in to my attention through social media,” Boyega said. “A lot of people were showing me this poster and I remember looking at it and they made me tiny in it. They made everybody else big.”
The 26-year-old actor said the response was, “you stupid arse racist people, man, who are just operating on 0.1% of your brain power. That’s how you see things based on how much melanin is in someone’s skin.”
Boyega was instead confident that the success of Star Wars would make the controversy redundant.
“For me, I was like, “it’s whatever.,”” he said. “I didn’t really even fixate on it. It don’t matter how small you want to put someone on the poster, a lot of people are going to see Star Wars. My black face is going to be running throughout that whole thing.”
In related Star Wars news, John Cho recently spoke up about the online abuse The Last Jedi actress Kelly Marie Tran received, describing it as “tremendously sad.”