BECAUSE SHE’S ABSOLUTELY THE VERY BEST AT SETTING GINORMOUS PILES OF CASH ON FIRE? How does Kathleen Kennedy still have a job at Lucasfilm?

The critics of Kennedy’s tenure as head of Lucasfilm certainly can’t blame her for everything that’s gone wrong with their beloved franchises. But it’s fair to say that the largest amount of blame lies at her feet. As criticism mounted, the seventy-year-old has turned increasingly toward the idea that the critiques are borne out of sexism or a “toxic fan base”, more upset about her “The Force Is Female” T-shirt and her promotion of Strong Female Characters. She’s repeatedly touted that the majority of her story team working on Star Wars is female, and Lucasfilm pointed out to the New York Times with satisfaction the introduction in The Last Jedi of the first Asian-American female star, Rose Tico — who became a target of ruthless fan hatred as soon as the film was released.

Kennedy’s next pet show for Disney+ is The Acolyte, whose star Jodie Turner-Smith was booed at the Celebration gathering for describing her character as “a powerful leader in a very woman-centered world, which I was very excited to kind of be in that because I feel like Star Wars is very patriarchal.” Leslye Headland, the showrunner whose experience includes The Bachelorette and Russian Doll, admitted her discomfort with Star Wars‘s masculine vibes: “I’m not sure how much I care about Han Solo anymore. When I was little I really liked him. When I watch him now, I’m kind of like, ‘Gosh a lot of my psyche makes sense now.’”

Inheriting a stable of beloved male characters only to have this year’s Mary Sue belittle them throughout the movie is not a way to keep a fan base happy; nor is using fan-baiting when the inevitable backlash occurs.