Worried Star Wars Fans Launch #WheresRose Campaign

There’s about three months left until The Rise of Skywalker premieres, yet there hasn’t been much word on Star Wars first Asian character, Rose Tico.  Along with the release coming up, another Triple Force Friday, a day in which new merchandise for the film is released, is occurring next Thursday night at 12AM.

There have been multiple leaked photos of merchandise and a particular calendar has become a concern, since it pays homage to almost all the main characters for every month, except for Rose.

While this may seem like a small concern, fans are starting to get suspicious after the lack of her presence in any of the two The Rise of Skywalker teasers.  Only two photos of her from the new installments have been released and otherwise, we’re in the dark on whether she’s going to be in the film for more than a couple minutes.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kylo Collector (@kylocollector)

Star Wars fans decided to combat this by taking to Twitter to start the hashtag #WheresRose, a play on the hashtag #WheresRey.  Back when The Force Awakens was released, fans encountered the same problem with Hasbro with the main character, Rey. I guess even being the main character can’t save you from some good ole’ capitalistic sexism?

While Rose had some mixed reception from fans, Rian Johnson bringing on Kelly Marie Tran to play Star Wars first Asian character was revolutionary.  It meant a lot to me specifically, as an Asian American woman, to see myself being represented in my favorite franchise. I can only hope that Rose gets her justice in this final film.

Just a heads up @starwars the glaring lack of Rose Tico merch is really making it look like you caved to a bunch of racist misogynists who already were or weren’t going to buy ur merch regardless of her presence. Sidelining your first woman of color? Really bad look. #wheresrose

— 🏳️‍🌈 Bisexual Disaster #WhereRose Ren (@jakkugerblin) September 25, 2019

The Rise of Skywalker comes out in theaters on December 20, 2019.

About Post Author

Kaila Spencer

Kaila Spencer is a full time student studying communications. She’s a huge fan of Disney and Marvel, but especially Star Wars. She loves going to cons and cosplaying her favorite characters, which you can find on her Instagram and Twitter @idkaila. She also hosts a female perspective podcast on all things nerdy with two other women of color called SHE-3PO.

See author's posts