Name: Baby Yoda Canceled Amid Accusations of Genocide
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Baby Yoda Canceled Amid Accusations of Genocide

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DaysHoursMinutesSecondsThe bigger they are, the harder they fall. That also turns out to be true of the tiny.Baby Yoda, who one year ago today with his bottomless eyes, fuzzy head, and adorable cooing, has invoked genuine social media wrath for , in which the mystical infant remorselessly snacked on the eggs of an endangered galactic species.Whether this is serious or silly depends, as Obi-Wan Kenobi would put it, on "a certain point of view."&nbsp;UPDATE: In the latest episode, , Baby Yoda himself was swallowed alive by a giant sea creature, learning a valuable lesson about what it's like to be the appetizer. It ended with him playing nice with one of Frog Lady's new pollywogs. Given the redemptive turn, it appears his cancellation has itself been canceled.This is how the tempest started: In last week's chapter of the Disney+ show, titled “The Passenger,” Pedro Pascal's bounty hunter agrees to ferry an amphibious alien woman known only as “Frog Lady” to a swampy distant world so she can fertilize her canister of eggs, which floated in the brine like peeled apricots. (Usually this show conjures memories of Boba Fett, but these called to mind boba tea.)Amy Sedaris' starship mechanic explains that if Frog Lady doesn't succeed in reuniting with her spouse before the equinox, the eggs will no longer be viable and “her line will end." That adds some dramatic significance to the cargo, although there remains debate about whether only her family line would cease or if the loss of the eggs would annihilate the species entirely. &nbsp;Then the unspeakable occurs! Throughout the episode, Baby Yoda is caught reaching his little green claw into her unsupervised container in order to gorge himself on the inappropriate morsels.&nbsp;The Mandalorian plays this for gross-out laughs—but a contingent of fans on Twitter has taken the actions seriously, expressing anger and sadness that the series would make light of something that is both a personal invasion and a potential extinction-level event. That has been countered by many others, who feel this comical sci-fi storyline is being taken too seriously.“I just wanna know who thought this was a good idea. Like... 'we have this woman whose species is facing extinction and she's very protective of these her eggs.' ‘We should have Baby Yoda eat them.’ ‘Hey yay dude, bro high five’ Like what????" one Twitter user posted on Nov. 9. (Vanity Fair is excluding links to protect people from potential harassment.)“Gosh, Baby Yoda is losing the charm,” another posted on Nov. 6. “I hated him because he ate the eggs of a lady frog and her species. IT'S IN EXTINCTION!!!!”Another wrote: “Baby Yoda not knowing any better...genocide for sake of ‘cute humor’ is never very funny. I mean, I laughed but I felt really guilty about it.”Another &nbsp;Star Wars-centric Twitter user quoted the Frog Lady herself: “'We fought too hard and suffered too much to resign ourselves to the extinction of our family line,' Frog Lady said after engineering a translator and standing up to a legendary Mandalorian. ‘But please use these eggs as the butt of your misogynistic joke.’”Most PopularStill others expressed disgust that a toy featuring Baby Yoda and the eggs is being sold. “It concerns me that The Child’s appetite might lead to the end of a family line (or maybe the extinction of a species IDK). But hey the kid is adorable, so here’s a POP celebrating that genocide," another fan posted, along with this retweet:This content can also be viewed on the site it from.The backlash ignited a counter-backlash, with those fans insisting that the complaints amount to an overreaction to what is obviously a fictional and fanciful situation. Lucasfilm creative art manager Phil Szostak, who usually shares behind the scenes goodies about the show, tried to bring calm to the situation by explaining the intent.&nbsp;This content can also be viewed on the site it from.Most PopularThat tweet then became a focal point of the complaints, with an increasingly hostile back and forth between those who were unhappy with the storyline and those who thought the uproar was overblown.&nbsp;“Ya know I was defending this story choice the other day because I thought it was intentionally very disturbing, not comic relief, and would hopefully have some meaning going forward. But now I'm just INCREDIBLY disgusted,” one user replied. “I'm so sorry I gave you all the benefit of the doubt.”Twitter being Twitter, it got ugly fast—and stayed that way. Some of the counter complaints were abusive in nature. “It's fu--ing funny because they are fictional characters besides nonexistent species, so stop the drama for a f--king tv show," one user posted. "There are REALLY important things in the REAL world﻿.”Some of the more heartfelt concerns were raised by fans who said they were simply reminded of the real-life pain of their personal medical struggles, comparing the Frog Lady's storyline to the often difficult experience of in vitro fertilization. “As a Star Wars fan with a history of multiple miscarriages who is saving up for IVF, them playing this as a bit feels extremely gross and mean-spirited,” one user wrote.“So, as a person who went through fertility treatments and the mother of a baby who tries to eat everything—I get the intended gag of Baby Yoda eating the eggs. My first reaction was ‘omg, it’s my child.’ But then...stop it? The story makes it clear those eggs are important,” another person posted.Yet another woman who lived this experience urged people to not take the incident so seriously. “The amount of people offended by this episode is ridiculous,” she tweeted. “I had fertility issues and I thought the part of Baby Yoda eating the eggs as dark humor. Chill the hell out. It's a sci-fi film. No eggs were truly harmed."Throughout The Mandalorian run, Baby Yoda has often done repellent things as a counter to his cuddliness. We've seen him slurp down a live frog, for instance; in the episode in question he also crunched and munched an embryonic space spider, leading to an attack by the creatures’ thousands of eight-legged brethren. Showrunners Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni told Vanity Fair's Joanna Robinson that they have deliberately added shocks to .Those explanations aren't likely to quell the controversy, though. To borrow a line from The Mandalorian's code: This Is The Way—at least on social media.&nbsp;More Great Stories From Vanity Fair— Borat 2 Spoilers: How Sacha Baron Cohen — Her Activism, and Her New Book— Sex and Texts, Secrets and Lies: How the Blew Up Hollywood— About Her Family’s NXIVM Nightmare— Isn’t Going Anywhere— on Amazon, Hulu, Disney+, and More in November— The Low-Key, Life-Affirming — From the Archive: The — Not a subscriber? to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now. is a senior Hollywood correspondent at Vanity Fair. He has covered film, television, books, and awards for more than 20 years, developing special expertise on blockbuster franchises such as Marvel, Star Wars, and DC, the films of Steven Spielberg, and the writings of Stephen King. Anthony previously worked... From the awards race to the box office, with everything in between: get the entertainment industry's must-read newsletter.

DaysHoursMinutesSecondsThe bigger they are, the harder they fall. That also turns out to be true of the tiny.Baby Yoda, who one year ago today with his bottomless eyes, fuzzy head, and adorable cooing, has invoked genuine social media wrath for , in which the mystical infant remorselessly snacked on the eggs of an endangered galactic species.Whether this is serious or silly depends, as Obi-Wan Kenobi would put it, on "a certain point of view."&nbsp;UPDATE: In the latest episode, , Baby Yoda himself was swallowed alive by a giant sea creature, learning a valuable lesson about what it's like...

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Anthony Breznican

Vanity Fair is a monthly magazine of popular culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast in the United States.  The first version of Vanity Fair was published from 1913 to 1936. The imprint was revived in 1983 and currently includes five international editions of the magazine. As of 2018, the Editor-in-Chief is Radhika Jones.

Baby Yoda Canceled Amid Accusations of Genocide

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