Saga How feminist is the Star Wars galaxy?—SEE WARNING ON FIRST PAGE

You forgot to mention the pink tax and how women should get used to buying products made for men if they want to save a few bucks.

Oops. I pointed out an inequality.

 

Oh boo hoo, is the FEMINISM IN STAR WARS THREAD too political for you?

Christ, get over yourself. It's just like when you strolled into the Disersity thread, started ****, then tried playing the victim. We all see what you're doing, you're just embarrassing yourself.

 

I think we should give starwars a pass on that in regard seeing as a big part of the franchise is about redemption. Starwars themes trump being worried about indirect tropes.

Now if Rey gets into a romantic relationship with him like some generic dumb teen twilight esque story then I would join you in getting the pitch forks out.

Yeah I hate tokenism and I think that's where some of the "SJW" complaints end up coming from as a character is added for simply showing how progressive the writter/producers is rather than add anything to the story and no one likes a soapboxer.

However I don't think starwars films have had fallen into tokenism, though the last jedi came close with how badly Finn was written, but because of having a good back story carried over from TFA I would say he avoided the token label.

Some of the starwars books however.........

 

With how much you hate Aftermath, I assume you're talking about the gay characters in them?

 

That's not why I dont like the book.

In fact I did not even get to the gay characters before I stopped reading.
The choppy writing and odd phrases put me off.

Though it did annoy me how Wendig made such a big deal on twitter over the fact he had gay characters like he was the first auther to do so in starwars and used it as a excuse when his book got trashed in the reviews.
Fact is he wasn't the first nor has he been the last. And no one cared about those because the books and characters were well written.

To add I have no issue with minority, gay or female characters as long as they are well written and fit with the story like any other characters. I think badly written tokens distract from the story and do more damage to the minorities they should represent as tokens tend to be accompanied by sterotypes.

 

Do you honestly believe that no one cares when there's a gay character?

 

Most people don't, most people shouldn't.
It's not exactly unusual these days.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ing-lgbt-people-2017-survey-shows/1062188001/

 

To be fair I don't tend to hang around YouTube or go searching for the latest backlash rant against gay charactors.
Hell I did not even know TLJ had people ranting that it was SJW propaganda until a few weeks.

Only reason I found out the Wendig backlash was because a friend showed me his tweet.

 

You'll forgive me speaking from a European perspective. It's far less of an issue here.

US intolerance towards anything doesn't seem particularly surprising these days.

 

As an European living in Japan: I can imagine a new surge of passionate slash fanfiction if they made a gay pairing canon in a SW movie. I have friends in my circles who come from very strict, conservative countries and it’s not like it stopped them from speculating whether or not Finn and Poe have romantic feelings for each other.

I do have the impression that American Youtubers are more uptight about what they call “forced diversity” or SJW politics or whatever. Honestly, it's thanks to them that I learned these "issues" are even issues.

 

I meant it more from an audience perspective. Like, "strong female characters? But there's Leia! She's a strong female character! So what are you whining about, SJWs?" That sort of thing. We saw it earlier in this thread.

Anyway.

 

I would hardly call Leia a token. She was a integral part of the OT.

 

Leia may have been an integral part of the OT (to a degree, anyway. Could've been better) but that doesn't change the fact that she's basically the only woman in it. There are a couple of background characters and only two other (very brief) speaking roles and that's it. For as far as we're able to tell, pretty much everyone else (speaking, nonspeaking) is male. So, she's a token. Particularly in the minds of the audience who believe that some quota has been filled and that women are appropriately represented.

 

It shouldn't be about how many of a particular group is represented.

It matters how they are depicted and what importance they have to the story

 

The fact is Leia was not there to fill a quota and she was a important part of the story.
If she had been portrayed as your typical helpless princess and just there for eye candy then yeah I would say token.
But she was a fully fleshed out charactor.

Could there have been more females in the ot? Deffinatly.

But it's a injustice to call Leia a token.

A token is a charactor that's been added purely to tick a box and adds nothing to the story.

Leia, Rey, padme, Mon mothma, Jyn, qira have all been great characters that I would not change. Holdo I am on the fence with as they had to kill Ackbar........ But even then I don't think I would call her a token.

 

Well that just dumb people being idiots.

I would not change Jyn in any way and apart from making Rey a little less powerful , she derseves her place too.

 

That's exactly what I meant, yes. Thanks.

 

I honestly never met anyone who had a problem with the female characters in the ST, or Leia in the OT. Maybe I need to get out more.

 

The main complaints I have seen is:

Rey starting far to powerful

Holder replacing Ackbar giving Ackbar a meaningless death and her a heroic one.

Those in my opinion are complaints that are not about feminism or women being put into starwars but crappy writing.


There is a minority however it seems that are against any female leads......but honestly I think they are just a pathetic minority of basement dwellers to be ignored.

 

@crazyewok The scary thing is that not all of them are basement dwellers or losers. There are anti-SJW reactionaries who actually have lives, charisma, and money. And they use that to spread their crazy, leaving people like us (who have legit criticisms of TFA and/or TLJ) in an awkward position.

I kinda just wanna live in a world where I never have to hear about conspiracies involving SJW identity politics ever again. It's old now. Please move on. Pls

 

In a larger sense, I greatly resent anti-SJW reactionaries for their hateful rhetoric and actions and the deleterious effect they have on the social fabric of our civilization. Within the contextual bounds of the Star Wars fan community, I too resent them because I often can't criticize these new films without being automatically lumped in with them by people who are (let me be clear) nowhere near as bad as the anti-SJW's, but still quite unbearable in their own way. Thankfully this board, unlike other venues of discussion, is actually quite civil and level-headed about this sort of stuff. Generally.

That said, the Star Wars universe has always been feminist. But it has its feminist roots in the second wave of feminism of the 1960s-80s, which often finds itself at odds with more modern forms of feminism. Some would argue that the old movies are outdated and deficient in that sense, and that's up for valid debate. Personally, I would agree that the new movies often implement their feminist themes in a ham-handed, overly didactic way which lacks that essential element of fun that the old films have. Watching the damsel in distress justifiably scold her rescuers for not having an escape plan before grabbing a gun and blasting a hole in the wall is fun. Watching poorly written characters lecture other poorly written characters about chauvinism as the payoff of a poorly written subplot which drags on and on and on is not fun. It doesn't matter how good your message is; if you have to turn your characters into cardboard cutouts and insult the audience's intelligence in order to deliver it, even sympathetic people are going to be turned off.

 

I think this mediocrity largely extends to every female character in the sequel trilogy thus far.

"Hey, you know Leia? You know, one of the chief figures of the last trilogy and one of the individuals that played an integral role in the New Republic's creation? Interested in seeing her develop as worn hero who is watching everything she built fall apart before her very eyes as she once again finds herself in the role of rebel commander once again? Well, we're just going to have her be incapacitated for most of The Last Jedi and expand on none of those concepts."

"Hey, this Holdo character looks pretty interesting, right? Apparently participated in some of the bloodiest battles in recent galactic history, has a pretty striking and different appearance from the rest of the command and crew, has a no nonsense attitude and she butts heads with Poe. Makes you wonder how this character will unfold into an compelling part of the trilogy. You are? Well, that's good because we killed her off for no real reason at the end, effectively wasting both the character and Laura Dern's performance. Have fun with this character that ends up lamentably one-note."

"Oh, this Phasma character looks awesome, right? Hell, Gwendoline Christie is even playing her, this should be fantas-oh, she barely has any screentime and has her "deaths" played as a running gag with no real dynamic with any of the characters and no interesting story for her and Finn's past. BUT IT'S A REFERENCE TO HOW MUCH PEOPLE LIKE BOBA FETT GIVEN HOW LITTLE HE DOES IN THE ORIGINAL FILMS SO IT'S REALLY CLEVER, I PROMISE."

"Wow, this crew member on the bombing fleet has a really wonderful set of scenes. Interested in her? Well, she died so here's her annoying sister instead that really doesn't need to be in the film and basically drags down every story element involving Finn. It's great."

I could go on but that's the general idea.