Senate Misogyny, Entitlement, and Pop Culture

Hey, that looks just like zas.

 

What a bunch of bs. Who cares that there is merchandise of Slave Leia? If you like it, buy it. If you don't like it- shut the hell up and move on.

I have been supportive of Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm, but I hope it doesn't mean they will give in to the uber PC triggered crowd in the foolish notion that it will grow the fanbase. Word of advice: those people just like to complain about things because everything is sexist when you crave attention.

 

This is (if true) probably going to be less about erasing slave Leia's gold bikini from history and more about not wanting that to be the first thing that pops into people's minds when they think of or google Leia. Which I'm fine with.

 

Excuse the double post, but this comment made me chuckle.

"You can't change the history of slavery in the Outer Rim by omitting it from the history texts."

 

I did a quick google image search for Princess Leia, and the most common outfit that popped up was her white Star Wars dress with the hair buns. I then did a search for Slave Leia, and many of those pictures were of women cosplaying as her and not Carrie Fisher herself.

 

You know, I did the same thing awhile ago and you're right. Most of the images were of her in her ANH outfit. Still, my regular point still stands that they likely want more variety in how Leia is marketed and avoid the whole controversy like when her first Black Series figure was her slave outfit look.

 

I wonder (with no basis) if so many women (not all!) costuming as Slave Leia do so because either they've "bought into" the cultural assumption that women should be pretty and sexy and having the body (well, usually) to wear the gold bikini makes them feel pretty and sexy or they're women who enjoy owning their own sexuality and dress in a manner they considerate appropriate for the setting.

Not all, mind you - I'm sure there's a lot of women who have other valid reasons, but I know as a woman who grew up with certain "expectations" of how I should look and/or behave, a part of me would like to be a "pretty woman" rather than the rather plain one I am and I sure wish I had the body to wear that. On the other hand, I rebel against "having" to look a certain way to validate my worth.

 

i guess some do. other may dress in a way that makes them feel pretty and sexy, not because they believe they should, but because they want to. i see nothing wrong with that.

 

I think Carrie Fisher not liking the outfit, to the point of telling Daisy Ridley to not let them put her in one, maybe comes from the fact that during pre-production on ROTJ, one of the guys who was to make the body cast for the slave outfit was creeping on her, and Carrie had to bring a friend along to the sessions to feel safe (Penny Marshall, IIRC).

As for banning the outfit in merchandising? I'm not for a blanket ban, but maybe just limit it to be realm of adult collectibles and such. A good rule of thumb to follow would be: if it's to be sold at a place like Wal-Mart, Target, or Toys R Us, it's a no go to be made.

 

Yeah, but the rest of the time the bikini was her PG sex slave outfit, and her ultimate act did not require her to be wearing any particular set of clothing. The character (and the actress, it appears) was forced to wear it without her consent for the pleasure of a gangster space slug and, let's face it, primarily for the pubescent boys and men who make up the majority of the audience. I don't know, I doubt the "ban" is real or blanket, so this is moot anyway.

 

I think George Lucas thought up the slave outfit to be based on the kind of outfits Frank Frazetta drew on his women in his artwork for Conan and John Carter of Mars paperback books, which make the slave outfit look modest in comparison.

 

So. Are toys featuring the scantily clad Princess Ariel going to be discontinued too?

 

Or Dale Arden from the classic 1936 Flash Gordon Serial.






I'm a gay man and I feel that its wrong to make straight men feel bad for finding Slave Leia sexy. There is nothing wrong with thinking a woman is beautiful and sexy or enjoying the outfit. Just like there is nothing wrong with finding Chris Pratt's shirtless scenes sexually appealing.

As for the cosplayers, there is nothing wrong with enjoying or embracing your sexuality and I find it ironic that feminists and whiners are saying that they don't know what they are doing and are only playing to expectations or whatever.

 

Perhaps there is a difference between having the freedom to wear whatever the hell you want and a company actively marketing something? I don't know, like Darth Guy I've always seen the slave girl outfit as an abberation - it's something that has been imposed on Leia which is designed to objectify her sexually as a trinket for the amusement of others. However, fans who embrance the slave outfit like the cosplay peeps aren't really thinking in those terms, but rather, they think it's sexy and so they wear it. I guess the company has to have a different perspective because they are merchandising the story - what does the slave outfit say about the story?

 

I used to collect those action figures, and I was a completist. It was weird to me that I couldn't complete my Jabba scene because Leia was missing. Though Boushh was cool.



From that perspective, it's strange to leave Slave Leia out. You have all these monsters and robots and now also amputees and six-breasted dancers, but they have to take Slave Leia off the pegs because ZOMG.

Meanwhile:

 

I think its super weird to tell Carrie Fisher how you discovered masturbation with her picture. I can see that being awkward in a way that telling her you had a crush on her isn't.

But I am very against censorship in all forms. I like that some things can offend, it keeps life interesting. I'd rather be offended some of the time than bored all of the time.

 

Well hopefully Disney won't "re-image" Leia in a gimp suit.

 

Slave Leia is hardly the most pernicious thing when it comes to pushing false beauty standards and sexuality on young girls. At least Slave Leia ended up being anything but a slave and I don't think it's accidental that she uses the chain to kill the one that had been enslaving her. That's intentional by the filmmakers.

I mean, let's start with Barbie and the Bratz dolls.

I mean, I respect what Disney is doing to a degree because they can do only what they can do and you can't impede social change by pointing to people that are worse than you. But as someone unconnected to any of the companies, slave Leia is the least of my worries. She was a hero at least.

 

It's kind of too late in the game to change the skirt on the slave outfit to harem pants now, or something of the like. I think even Disney knows this.

 

Yes, he certainly did. But that was still an "homage" to earlier films' conceptualization of female characters as eye candy their to the male audience. How is that a passable defense?

Could you make a racist story or revive blackface, and then discuss how it was an homage to Amos and Andy?