Intro + Commonplaces
Much like Apple, Microsoft, and Google forever changed the way our world worked, so did the Starwars film franchise. It was one of the first “summer blockbuster” movies, the first to use “worn out” environments instead of everything looking like it had been polished that morning, and created some of the most iconic designs in their costumes, music, and titles. Like any other brand in our society, Star Wars has become a staple in our culture, which certainly shows in their sales of merchandise. But who are they marketing to? That question has a whole range of answers depending on which lens you choose to look through. While the franchise does an excellent job in writing male heroes that are embraced by young boys and old men, they tend to fall short when it comes to their female characters. Somehow, the main female characters of Star Wars are written as both “strong, independent and brave” while also being the damsels in distress for the male heroes to save. In a similar way that commercials and other forms of media encourage people to do certain things and buy certain things, the Star Wars films encourage girls to be strong and brave, but only to a certain degree.
Padme
Padme Admidala had the greatest potential to be one of the best female characters in a film franchise even to this day. She was a woman in a position of power in which she was elected into, not given by birthright. With her power, she negotiated for peace, voiced her intelligent opinions, and even devised the plan to take down the trade federation by forming an alliance with the gungans. Yet the most impressive and a-typical part of her female character is her refusal of a relationship with the male hero. Padme consistently turns down Anikan’s advances because she knows it is wrong for them personally and politically. However, don’t get too excited over this because she does eventually agree to marry him in secret at the end of Attack of the Clones. From this point, we see a major decline in Padme’s “strong female” characteristics. She seems less capable of defending herself and doesn’t make as many political moves as her first two films. However, her original character does shine through in one of my favorite lines throughout the entire franchise “So this is how democracy dies, In thunderous applause”. Yet shortly after this, she simply “loses the will to live” and dies after Anakin calls her a traitor. Some may say this is lazy writing, but others may feel that this was an indication that Padme, who once ruled an entire planet on her own, could simply not go on without her husband.
Luckily, Padme is not over-sexualized in most of her costumes or body movements, and never speaks a word out of place for a former queen and senator. So while her character development kinda fell off a cliff going into Revenge of the Sith, she is able to keep her integrity in those senses. The same cannot be said for Leia.
Leia
Princess Leia is one of the most, if not the most crucial characters in the Star Wars Franchise, yet only had 15% of the screen time in A New Hope. Even though she is supposed to be this great political and rebellion leader, she spends most of her first movie being consoled or rescued by male characters, who never acknowledge the trauma she should have gone through in losing her adoptive parents and home planet to the Death Star. In the first twenty minutes of A New Hope, Leia is sassing some of the most dangerous men in the Star Wars universe saying “Governor Tarkin! I should have expected to find you holding Vader’s leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board”. Yet almost immediately after the Alderaan incident, she becomes a “princess in need of rescue”, “damsel in distress”, even kissing Luke before they swing across a gorge “For Luck”. Leia is unfortunately over-sexualized from the moment her cell door opens through the first 45 minutes of Return of the Jedi. She is constantly put into over sexual positions and kissing the male characters unnecessarily. While these actions were toned down for the prequels and squeals, it still paints the “strong female in need of a man” picture quite clearly.
Rey
By far, Rey is the best written female character from her introduction to her final moments. She wears the most practical and modest clothing, whacks boys with sticks, and manages to wield a lightsaber almost flawlessly with no training, proving that her raw strength and talent is far superior to any other Male jedi of the past. Yet even her character suffers from these slightly misogynistic overtones and gender stereotypes. In her battle with Palpatine, she “needs” Ben solo to come to her rescue. Granted he does fight with her rather than for her, but the action is still the same. When Rey begins her training and a very old age for a Jedi with Luke in The Last Jedi, he is upset and calls her weak because she cannot resist the urge to the dark side yet, even though she has no idea how to do that yet. Finally, She is constantly called “girl” in a degrading and almost dehumanizing way in each film she is featured in, both by her enemies and friends, while Luke is only referred to as “Skywalker” in the original movies where he is in Rey’s position,
Logos, Pathos, Ethos
One of the main ways Star Wars uses logos when it comes to dialing back their female characters’ heroic moments is in their costumes. Logically, you can’t fight as well when you are in a white dress with flowing sleeves, so when the writers want their male heroes to shine, they put their female characters in more feminine clothing in order to dial back their fighting ability. When Padme and Leia are wearing pants, they amazingly gain the ability to fire a blaster with magnificent aim, yet in a dress, Leia depends on Luke to help her escape. Rey is once again the only Main female character who seemingly has no problems fighting in her outfits, which are essentially a “female version” of Jedi tunics. When It comes to the use of costume logos, the question is “Did the writing affect the costumes, or did the costumes affect the writing?”.
While Star Wars Doesn’t have an official “speaker”, most would agree that the message of the films come from George Lucas and Hollywood. Lucas, as a young, successful, mildly handsome white man certainly would have the “credibility” to say that his female characters were accurate representations of a woman at the time, and people always seem to believe Hollywood’s standards even though they have proven themselves time and time again as an unreliable source.
Yet the biggest reason why so many people adopt these messages so easily is because of the Pathos these movies create. There is doubt that Star Wars creates an exciting, action-packed, and comedic mood for the audience to enjoy. Most people even walk away feeling inspired to become heroes after watching one of the films, feeling empowered after seeing a version of themselves on the big screen. For adult men, Han seems to be the go to choice- he Is charismatic, good with the ladies, and every other aspect of a carefree fly-boy that 18-25 year olds want to embody. Younger boys may look at Luke, the kid pulled away from his boring life to be a hero with a spaceship and a laser sword. But girls only get one choice in the original films: Leia. Which means that Leia’s character ultimately controls how all women who connect with her start to think and act based on how she is portrayed. This goes for Padme and Rey as well, while young girls look at their character’s strengths’ they also internalize their flaws.
Conclusion
So Even though Star Wars does an excellent job in writing and portraying their male heroes for young boys to aspire to be, they fall short in creating a female lead that is strong through and through. The writers even play into commonplaces that “girls aren’t as good fighters’ ‘ or that by wearing a dress you are automatically incapable of taking care of yourself. Because each female lead falls victim to misogyny in one form or another, they all serve dual roles as characters to aspire to be like and reminders of how Hollywood views, or at least wants to view strong women.
stories in history: The Story of Ching Shih.
