By Jess Shitara
After a dry spell on the representation front, StarWars.com announced that Deborah Chow will be directing the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series on Disney’s streaming service— starring Ewan McGregor as Kenobi.
Chow will be directing an episode(s) of The Mandalorian, airing on Disney+ November 12, which also has a diverse directing roster.
Chow will be joined by Hussein Amini, an Iranian-British writer (The Alienist). Other than Doug Chiang, these are the first Asian creatives announced for a live-action project and it shows promise that the TV arm of LFL’s Star Wars train is listening to our plea for more diverse storytellers behind the camera. Kennedy’s comments from Starwars.com mentioned that they saw how well Chow was able to develop characters in The Mandalorian, and it gave them faith she would do right by Kenobi.
A few comments were floating around the Twitter-verse about how Chow is not a well-known Director. Systemic misogyny and racism in Hollywood has historically made it difficult for people with backgrounds like Chow and Amini to break into major franchises like Star Wars. It’s a good sign that these big studios are actively assessing their head count and seeking out different perspectives, especially for original trilogy fan favorites like Kenobi.
While the team at #swrepmatters is thrilled by this news, we are still ready to see more diversity and inclusion on the silver screen, and not just TV, books, and comics.
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