“Star Trek Beyond” looks like a corny, frantic mess: This is supposed to distract us from “Star Wars” mania?

www.salon.com|Scott Timberg

It’s hard to think of another minute-and-a half that could set the Internet on fire like this. But in what looks like a naked attempt to keep the hype around “Star Wars” from blasting everything else out of the heavens, Paramount has released the first trailer from “Star Trek Beyond.” And while it’s always hard to get a full sense of a movie from these brief, chopped-up excerpts, it seems likely that – even by the standards of summer sci-fi blockbusters — this one is aimed squarely at amped-up teenage boys.

This is the third film since J.J. Abrams rebooted what seemed like a tired franchise, bringing in Chris Pine as James T. Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, and Zoe Saldana as Nyota Uhura. Abrams directed the first two – “Star Trek,” from 2009, and “Star Trek Into Darkness,” from 2013. This time, his hands full with “Star Wars,” he’s back as producer; Justin Lin directs.

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White racists are none too pleased with JJ Abrams’ new “Star Wars” film trilogy. In protest of last evening’s release of the much-anticipated final trailer for this December’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” disgruntled members of the White Right began a Twitter hashtag “boycottstarwarsVII.” It was a pathetic effort at getting attention; the hashtag was subsequently made popular by those who saw fit to mock it.

The previous “Star Wars” films, with one exception, featured an exclusively white cast. The new movie also has an all-white male cast except for Danny Boyega as the character “Finn,” Daisy Ridley as the presumed main character Rey; and Oscar Isaac, a Latino, as Poe Dameron. With the exception of Carrie Fisher, the remaining human characters as revealed so far are either depicting, or played by white male actors.

The writers, directors, and most of the senior creative staff for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” are also white men. This is a reflection of Hollywood’s broader demographics where by some estimates are at least 85 percent of the producers, directors, show runners, executives, writers, and other leading creative positions are held by white men.

But when viewed in a broader context, the White Right’s childish and petty protests about “Star Wars” are a reminder of how cultural politics reflect deeper social anxieties, worries, and concerns about power in a given society. And while white American conservatives repeatedly bemoan the “Left’s” supposed “identity politics”—note how the Right only uses that language to defame those causes (for the rights of gays, lesbians, women, and people of color) it disagrees with—in reality white conservatives and their allies deploy “identity politics” most often, and to the greatest effect, of any group in the United States.