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Thoughts On John Boyega Grinding On A Caribbean Dancer, And The Ensuing Debate

Thoughts On John Boyega Grinding On A Caribbean Dancer, And The Ensuing Debate

File this one under "pop culture soils its drawers again." This Instagram video surfaced not too long ago of Star Wars, Attack the Block, and future Pacific Rim star John Boyega at the Notting Hill Carnival in London grinding on a Caribbean dancer. Everything looks fine and consensual; nothing particularly questionable going on, just a bit raunchy.

But this is the internet, and we all like to be armchair sociologists and critical theorists when we can, so some feminist-minded fans start responding unkindly, saying what Boyega did was demeaning to women and problematic and a lot of other things that I generally say about the Harley Quinn comic book.

You see, here's the problem when you apply critical theories to the day to day of people's lives: it comes off as possessive and a little controlling. While nothing in life happens in a vacuum, it comes off as a bit douchey when you try to pick apart someone's personal life that isn't really worth attacking, especially when nothing objectively bad was going on.

Well, then Boyega responded with tweets that didn't really help things.

When someone pointed out that they couldn't see the strong female characters of Star Wars, like Rey, Jyn, Leia, or Padme doing what the Caribbean woman was doing — which is already a stupid critique that kind of comes from ignoring personality and only seeing, well, a woman and not a person — Mr. Boyega replied with "Rey would back it up."

OK, starting to get a bit creepy there Johnny. It kind of makes it sound like you want to bang a co-star, and it has a "you all know you want some of this" vibe to it. Did you ask Daisy Ridley if she would "back it up" first?

Fans went on to tweet things like "Don't let me find John Boyega at carnival — I'll be throwing all the booty on him!", to which he replied "Oooooo damn. I receive it!" and some ass-shaking gifs.

You know, if Mr. Boyega had just let people yell into a vacuum about this, then things would have probably been less awkward, but starting to go on about how much ass you want and could get just makes you look a bit like a creepy jerk.

There were conversations of cultural insensitivity in regards to the criticism of John Boyega as well, citing the centuries-long history of the full-contact dancing in the video, which originated in Trinidad and Tobago. That's is all well and good, I suppose. You're still probably overthinking this, and that doesn't really acknowledge that maybe you shouldn't pick apart this man's life so much. But Boyega didn't really say anything to acknowledge that conversation.


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Joshua DavisonAbout Joshua Davison

Josh is a longtime super hero comic fan and an aspiring comic book and fiction writer himself. He also trades in videogames, Star Wars, and Magic: The Gathering, and he is also a budding film buff. He's always been a huge nerd, and he hopes to contribute something of worth to the wider geek culture conversation. He is also happy to announce that he is the new Reviews Editor for Bleeding Cool. Follow on Twitter @joshdavisonbolt.
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