‘Acolyte’ Creator Plays The Fascist Card (Yawn)

An unspoken reason for Hollywood’s economic woes? Artists attacking their customers.

Too many stars directly or indirectly mock the very people who support their work. The most obvious example? The stars who not only savage President Donald Trump but also his voters.

Others turn awards show perches into lecture halls, wagging their fingers at the people who indirectly pay their salaries.

Dumb, right? Yet it keeps happening.

The latest example comes from a galaxy far, far away.

Leslye Headland, the showrunner behind 2024’s “Star Wars” series “The Acolyte,” didn’t take the show’s cancellation well.

The saga cost Disney a pretty penny – $230 million – and the rating droop following episodes 1 and 2 proved precipitous.

Thus, the one-and-done season cancellation. Perhaps if the budget had been leaner, she might have gotten the second season greenlight she craved.

Now, Headland is lashing out at a select group of fans who trashed the series. The digital blowback proved sizable, with YouTube-based critics spending endless hours eviscerating the saga.

The Critical Drinker, for one, pulled nary a punch.

Here’s Headland’s take on those critical of her high-profile failure.

There are some of them that I respect, and there are some of them that I think are absolutely snake oil salesmen, just opportunists. Then, of course, there are the fascists and racists.

It’s shocking she didn’t call them “Deplorables.”

The media routinely blames failed pop culture projects on “fascists and racists,” decrying attacks on shows where diversity reigns supreme. The framing is clear – knuckle-dragging critics recoil over diverse casts.

That facile explanation misses the obvious truths.

One, the vast majority of consumers don’t care about diverse casts, or at least don’t hold it against shows of better than average quality. They recoil when diversity is forced into a production.

The “Fast & Furious” franchise is cartoonisly diverse. The saga ran for 10 installments to date, and there’s yet to be a sizable, or even modest, backlash against its cast.

“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” is considered one of the rare Disney projects that captured the spirit of George Lucas’ space saga. Have you seen the diversity in that cast? Very few people cared because it’s an excellent film.

Are some “Star Wars” naysayers pushing racially-charged agendas? Most likely, yes. We’ve seen an explosion of antisemitism online in recent years.

Some consumers likely feel similarly about a project featuring minority heroes and villains. It’s sad but true.

Was that the prime motivation for the legion of critics who trashed “The Acolyte?” Hardly.

Headland would be better served thanking the show’s small but vocal fan base and vowing to keep making content to the best of her abilities.

Blaming fans, or calling them horrible names, serves no one well.