Despite the fact that as of right now, literally no one reading this has seen the prequels and has any context for what I’m talking about, I honestly feel  embarrassed for the intellectual dishonesty in one particular section of the first post of this blog.  I implied feeling alienated by sexist elements original trilogy, which to be fair, are accurately described by the late great Carrie Fisher as “basically boy’s fantasies,“ while neglecting to mention some of the very prominent misogyny of the prequel movies, elements of which unfortunately do permeate into  (though arguably to a lesser extent) the Clone Wars series.

So let’s talk about Padmé. The only major female character in the prequel movie trilogy,  Padmé is primarily characterized as a senator, an unlikely choice of love interest for Anakin Skywalker, and a fashion icon.

There are entire essays dedicated to critiquing problems with the way Padmé is written from a feminist perspective, but instead of expecting you to read those, I’ll just air a few of my personal, but for the most part widely-shared, grievances about her character as well as embed a short video at the end of this segment from my favorite Star Wars-adjacent Youtuber of all time, Jenny Nicholson.

Padmé is so cool in theory. She’s a senator, she wears the dopest outfits, she’s Luke and Leia Skywalker’s mom, and she deserved so, so, so much better from George Lucas. The major problem with how she’s written is that her entire character basically revolves around her romantic relationship with Anakin, and its a relationship that doesn’t even make sense, considering that she’s like Space Bernie Sanders and he’s like proto-Space Hitler.

He’s also really whiny and childish, and I mean literally childish because he’s five years younger than Padmé, which doesn’t seem like a big deal, but the romance starts when Anakin is nine and Padmé is fifteen and, I mean, tell me you can look at this in a romantic context and not feel a little skeeved.

From the moment its first introduced, this romance is already the worst most uncomfortable thing ever, and it only gets worse from there.

Yes, “You’re exactly the way I remember you in my dreams” is a real thing Anakin says to Padmé. It almost puts the “I don’t like sand” monologue to shame. This would all be fine if Padmé reacted like a normal human being, let alone a normal Galactic Senator to Anakin’s shenanigans, but look at how she responds to him in this scene where he literally confesses to her that he killed an slaughtered an entire village and killed a bunch of children. Please ignore the annoying Channel intro; This was the only video I could find with Padmé’s full reaction. Also, the context is that his mom, another  female character who deserved better, got killed by some dudes from that village.

“To be angry is to be human.” GIRL, WHAT THE HELL? HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME TO VIEW YOU AS A STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER WHEN ALL YOU EVER DO IS ENABLE YOUR INSANE SERIAL KILLER BOYFRIEND? WHY DOES GEORGE LUCAS THINK THIS IS HOW A NORMAL HUMAN WOMAN WOULD REACT TO SOMETHING LIKE THIS?

Man, I’m just really frustrated by Padmé. This isn’t even the worst thing George Lucas did to her though. Shortly after Anakin SHOCKINGLY turns out to be evil, Padmé  gives birth and dies, not of physical complications or anything, but because, out of sadness for Anakin, she “loses the will to live.” If you needed any more evidence that her entire character revolves around Anakin, there you have it. The moment their relationship ends, she dies for no reason. The concept of Padmé dying of sadness is funny for a lot of reasons, but its also THE biggest insult to her character and undermines any defense of the way she is written.

I’m coming to the realization that I set out to write a comprehensive analysis of how women in general are represented in the prequels universe. I was gonna talk about Ahsoka Tano, Asajj Ventress, Clone Wars Padmé, as well as other female prequels icons, but instead I accidentally vented for 779 words about movie Padmé and made a post that was nearly exactly twice as long as it was supposed to be. I will definitely address the other women of the prequels in future posts, but right now, I need to be stopped. I’m signing off with that Jenny Nicholson video I was talking about that both rehashes my points about Padmé and features other valid criticisms of her character. I need to go to sleep. Here you go, good night.