Disney+ doubles down on woke with pronoun scene in ‘Star Wars: The Acolyte’

It would have been tough to top the “lesbian space witches” scene in Episode 3, but “Star Wars: The Acolyte” at least made the effort in Episode 4 with a nod to preferred pronouns.

The Disney+ streaming series sparked a fresh wave of outrage after the Tuesday evening release of Episode 4, which includes a dialogue over the pronouns of Bazil, a Tynnan tracker who looks like a small rodent.

“Who is that?” asks Osha, a main character played by Amandla Stenberg.

“That’s Bazil,” replies Jecki Lon, played by Dafne Keen.

Osha responds: “Is he, or they, with us?”

Screenwriter Claire “CK” Kiechel said it was “obviously a joke” after being accused on X of “injecting modern woke politics” into the show.

“It was a joke about the pronouns of a large fictional beaver creature? No politics involved,” said Ms. Kiechel on X, adding, “Not sure [about] the upset on this one.”

Given that the show has been described as “arguably the gayest ‘Star Wars’ yet,” however, many commenters weren’t buying it.

“Disney ruins another series,” said David Shapiro on X. “Disney’s latest episode of Star Wars: The Acolyte features a scene with the use of they/them pronouns.”

There it is…

Disney’s latest episode of Star Wars: The Acolyte has a they/them pronoun scene:pic.twitter.com/wcfuDOHziy

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) June 19, 2024

The show headed by creator/director Leslye Headland was ripped by the fandom last week over a scene in which an all-female society described as “lesbian space witches” uses the Force to impregnate a woman without any male involvement.

Conservative activist Paul A. Szypula commented: “The Acolyte just had its first ‘they/them’ pronoun scene. In other news, The Acolyte only has a 14% average audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and Disney’s stock is now tanking. Go woke, go broke.”

Indeed, the show’s audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes ticked down Wednesday from 15% to 14%, while its critics’ score slid from 84% to 83%.

Meanwhile, Disney’s stock price closed Wednesday at $101.50 as shares steadily declined from a six-month peak of $123.53 on April 1 amid struggles over Disney+, which has lost 10 million subscribers since peaking in the fourth quarter of 2022, as shown on Statista.

On the plus side, the company settled in March its lawsuit with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and beat back a proxy fight in April led by activist investor Nelson Peltz.

The eight-part series “Star Wars: The Acolyte” reportedly cost an estimated $180 million, more than the $120 million per season spent on “The Mandalorian,” which received far better reviews, according to the industry website Inside the Magic.

“This isn’t the first intergalactic flop Disney has had to deal with in recent reports, as the company recently pulled the plug on its $300 million Galactic Star Cruiser Hotel at Walt Disney World,” said the Friday article. “Could it be that Disney needs to pull the plug on Star Wars before it goes down like the Death Star?”