The termination of “The Acolyte” on Disney+ wasn’t a huge blow to Amandla Stenberg. The “Star Wars” series’ lead actor posted a message on her Instagram story on Wednesday, discussing the “rampage of hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol” they encountered following their casting.
In the video, Stenberg starts by saying, “I’m going to be transparent and say it’s not a huge shock for me. There has been a rampage of vitriol that we have faced since the show was even announced when it was still just a concept and no one had even seen it. That’s when we started experiencing a rampage of, I would say, hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol, prejudice, hatred, and hateful language towards us.”
Even though critics praised “The Acolyte” for the most part, the show was review-bombed, which is a term used to describe when a large number of fans organised an online protest and left disparaging reviews. Productions with LGBTQ characters and performers of colour are frequently impacted by this norm. After its release in 2017, the “Star Wars” movie “The Last Jedi” was met with intense criticism from devotees on the internet.
“It has been an incredible honor and dream for me to be in this universe,” they added. “Of course, I’m very sad about the show being canceled. … I just want to let those people know out there who supported us in that way, and supported us vocally — despite and in the face of all of the vitriol that we received and the kind of the targeted attack, I would say, we received by the alt-right — just that you were deeply loved and appreciated. And it made this job all the worthwhile for me.”
The season finale of “The Acolyte” premiered in July. It was announced that Disney+ series would be ending in August when Lucasfilm decided not to produce any more episodes of the prequel, which traced the Sith’s rise around a century before the occurrence of “Star Wars: Episode I— The Phantom Menace.” Stenberg portrayed Osha and Mae, two separated twins, in the course of the series. Despite the Season 1 finale’s cliffhanger and unresolved storylines, the show’s split fan base and dwindling popularity did not seem to indicate that another season was expected.