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Women in Star Wars


DANA-kin Skywalker
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At some point...not for the majority of the film. Most of those "rescues" are just "oh ****" moments where another character temporarily steps into the action. Leia's constant need to be rescued drove entire plotlines. If she hadn't been captured and sent that message in ANH, arguably the entire movie wouldn't have happened, and all because Luke thought she was beautiful (which is, of course, the best reason for any woman to be on film.) I mean come on, she literally winds up mostly naked and chained up. Can you conceive for just a moment of that having happened to any one of the men from the movie? Did any of the men stop in the middle of a mission to profess their love? Did she even get a chance to come onto anyone, as opposed to being the object of someone else's chase? No. She was pursued until she relented.

 

 

Luke leaving Dagobah to try and rescue his friends (which included Han) was a major element of the trilogy. Han also needed to be rescued from Jabba, which was the first part of ROTJ. Also, Leia did come onto Han at the end of the Battle of Endor with a big smooch.....and Leia did come onto Luke in the Hoth base. :eek:

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Leia didn't "come on" to Han. They had an established quasi-relationship by that point. Nor did she "come on" to Luke by kissing him just to prove a point to another man. Come on now! Those are just 2 shining examples of that fact that she was pursued until she relented.

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How do we ever know when it's an "empty appeasing gesture" and when it's not?

For me it comes down to this. Define pandering or shoe-horning when you see the cast of any given TV show or movie. Unless it is a remake and pre-made roles are being changed, I challenge somebody to tell me what the baseline is to having somebody added to the cast for PC reasons.

 

The only barometer I can think of is if the cast member isn't a white dude. Which is the problem.

 

I've LITERALLY been in conversations with studio development people where they say they only want material for while 30s-40s males because that is what "tests" highest.

 

As far as Ghostbusters is concerned, be mad they are remaking a movie that doesn't need to be remade, not that they have women starring in it.

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Leia didn't "come on" to Han. They had an established quasi-relationship by that point. Nor did she "come on" to Luke by kissing him just to prove a point to another man. Come on now! Those are just 2 shining examples of that fact that she was pursued until she relented.

Ok. I'll agree on Luke. However, how often in real life are women the pursuers of relationships? Sometimes they may drop hints, but I don't really view them as pursuers. And why would coming onto someone indicate a female character is strong? As noted before, Leia does plenty of good things in the OT.

 

In ANH, she is unafraid of Darth Vader, handles a blaster well in the Death Star, was able to keep secrets under harsh interrogation, and was a major part of the rebellion.

In ESB, she is again a major part of the rebellion, gives orders before the Battle of Hoth, and shoots a lot of stormtroopers in Cloud City.

In ROTJ, she kills Jabba, decides to pursue troopers on speeder bikes so they don't alert other Imperial forces of the rebels presence, participates in the Battle of Endor, and takes a shot to the arm.

 

Just because she is not the Star Wars equivalent of Rambo does not mean she is not a strong character.

 

By the way, I think I may have misunderstood one of your previous questions. When you said "Can you conceive for just a moment of that having happened to any one of the men from the movie?", I assume you were referring to having a man rescued as a major plot point. But now that I read it again, it looks like you are referring to being mostly naked and chained up. If that is the case, can we at least agree that Chewbacca was chained up and (technically) naked in Jabba's Palace? :D

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Here is the thing, its all a progression. Star Wars is a tribute to movies that had almost no women. I mean we know The Searchers influenced Lucas heavily. The female characters in that movie are basically

1-A middle aged woman who is raped and killed

2-A late teen who is raped and killed

3-A young girl who has to be rescued

4-A woman in her young 20s whose whole purpose in the movie is to be pissed her boyfriend isnt around

5-A cartoonishly stereotypical Indian

 

That's really it. Now, I think any sane person would say a character like Leia is lightyears from nearly all female characters from the Golden Age of Westerns, right? You probably aren't going to go from directors heavily influenced by movies in the 50s to having females being equally heroic and strong as the males. But you hope to move in the right direction and once in a while have a movie with a real strong female lead. Then you hope those movies influence the next generation of film makers to go another step.

 

I mean look at the first 2 Star Wars movies being made by Disney. I know TFA has 2 of the 3 leads being male but I strongly suspect that Daisy Ridley will be THE lead of the trilogy. Then Rouge One the only announced casting is a female, which would lead me to believe that Felicity Jones is the main character.

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Bro. Haven't you been listening? It has to happen naturally. Cerina is a strong female presence in this thread. It just wouldn't make any sense if Driver or myself were women (for more reasons than one). It wouldn't be natural if I tweeted at Mara and was like "I know you're on a mini-vaca in LA right now, but we have internets to settle, so please report." That's the definition of shoehorning.

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There are points for and against Leia and Star Wars, as much or more for Uhura and Star Trek. Although what often gets missed during our vigor for equality is that these women, characters and real, were big wins towards what is still righteously craved after and demanded for today. This isn't to say, job done and model all after them. However at some point blasting them feels crass and is a discredit.

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Bro. Haven't you been listening? It has to happen naturally. Cerina is a strong female presence in this thread. It just wouldn't make any sense if Driver or myself were women (for more reasons than one). It wouldn't be natural if I tweeted at Mara and was like "I know you're on a mini-vaca in LA right now, but we have internets to settle, so please report." That's the definition of shoehorning.

 

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Guest El Chalupacabra

Oh good ****ing ****. Carry it to the Lyceum and let's start geeking out again. PLEASE

No doubt. All this whining about no strong female characters in Star Wars is tiresome, and definitely is a FWP. The irony is that the new film will likely feature Daisy Ridley as a female version of Luke Skywalker.

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Bro. Haven't you been listening? It has to happen naturally. Cerina is a strong female presence in this thread. It just wouldn't make any sense if Driver or myself were women (for more reasons than one). It wouldn't be natural if I tweeted at Mara and was like "I know you're on a mini-vaca in LA right now, but we have internets to settle, so please report." That's the definition of shoehorning.

Don't worry, I'm back and here to repress all the menz with my strong female shoehorned presence.

 

THESE POSTS might be relevant to the thread.

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Continuing - why is it a bad thing if J.J. Abrams decided to cast two actresses after people spoke out about only having a 2 to 11 ratio of women to men in that cast photo? I'm not understanding this. The entire point of criticism is go promote change, not because people like to complain. I don't go around asking "Where's Hera and Sabine?" on merchandise just because I like to hear the sound of my voice. Everything I've heard has pointed to the fact that either Lupita Nyong'o's or Gwendoline Christie's role was originally supposed to be a male character, but they cast a woman after the cast photo backlash. Again, why would this be a bad thing? Ripley was also originally supposed to be a man, after all.

 

Also, please do not cite Mon Mothma as a reason why Star Wars doesn't have a woman problem. She and Leia were the only two women who spoke in Return of the Jedi. Yeah, it's fantastic that a woman was leading the Rebellion. It's not fantastic that every other soldier, pilot, and leader were men.

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I will say, I think a good point was brought up earlier in regards to the makeup of the military at the time of RotJ's release. That was probably an accurate representation of real life. That doesn't absolve it of course, and the problems are well documented, but I thought it was an interesting point.

 

I am surprised at the amount of discussion about Mon Mothma. She's essentially a nameless/faceless background character. For all intents and purposes, there is one female character in the original trilogy.

 

And I'm not even saying this is inherently a bad thing (though I think Mara would?) or that in the sake of EQUALITY AND FEMINISM in the next special edition we should swap some genders or add more women in the background of shots. It's an observation. It's a true observation. And it's one that's worth discussing.

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