ST How great to have a female lead!

Context: I grew up watching Star Wars. At school, we'd act it out. I started school in 1980 so there was a lot of pretending to be on the base on Hoth. The boys always got to run off and shoot the bad guys but us girls had to stay back at the Rebel Base and sweep the floor and pretend to read navigation charts. If we played ANH we'd be captured and kept in the detention block. Once ROTJ came out three was a bit more action, but predominantly we swanned around with the Ewoks.

Now without getting into a debate about Leia as a charcacter, I just wanted to state how cool it is that my daughter will grow up watching a SW film where the girl gets to DO something. Light sabre fights, staff fights, fly a ship, run around, whatever. And it's not just Rey - the are female pilots too. So glad for this! Some might say it's contrived but for a girl who grew up loving SW and never getting to run around with a stick pretending it's a blaster or to pretend to use a light sabre it's amazing to see.

 

It's great and all but at the same time every young adult action film these days seems to have a female hero lead. Hunger Games, Divergent, Twilight. Bad time to be a boy, lol.

 

Twilight really shouldn't be mentioned with the words "female hero" imho - but other than that, I honestly get such a kick out of seeing all of the little Rey costumes at the stores next to the lightsabres

 

Definitely a win for girl power. Has taught me a few lessons. For instance, don't grab a girls hand while there are explosions going on (Thanks JJ for telling me that a second time, just in case I missed it.).

 

Leia did her job for the season she arrived, and was phenomenally inspirational for a legion of young girls; she got to "do" plenty.

Rey is just a natural extension of her breakthrough. A welcome one, but not nearly as groundbreaking in context as her predecessor as there have been tons of badass female characters since Leia and before Rey.

 

I grew up watching the Star Wars films on video in the 1990s, and I never had any female Star Wars friends - it always a boys' thing and I felt slightly weird for liking the films so much. I've seen TFA twice now and am so in love with Rey as a character - she's fantastic and I really think Star Wars is going to be as much for girls as it is for boys from now on. And that makes me so happy! It's a fantastic universe and it's really opening up with these new films - I'm incredibly excited for the future of the franchise.

 

I was a closeted Star Wars fan for years in school as it was akin to committing further social suicide ... I love the fact that I can tell my friends with daughters that the new "Star Wars" film is no longer just for little boys (or big boys).

 

All the little boys will fight for who can be Poe. All the little girls will want to be Rey. The emo kids will want to be Kylo Ren. The hiptser kids will want to be doing whatever no one else wants to do... so Finn. ; ).

 

Yep, it's so nice! I work with two other women and am trying my best to get them into it. Our Christmas tree even has the Black Series Luke figure instead of an angel!

 

I don't get it, why only girls want to be like Rey and not boys? I don't like this gender specific role assignment. I never cared as a kid for it and I'm a girl.

 

Can people - especially women - please not perpetuate the idea that Star Wars has up until now been a "boy's franchise"?

Yes, it's nice to get a character like Rey, but it's not like the other films didn't have counterparts to her.

 

um... nope not going there.

I am 30, and I want to be Poe. I suspect my 10 year old self would feel the same.

 

I'm glad we now have a female hero. Most of my family reckons that it was about time.

 

Weve HAD female heroes in Star Wars before (Leia, Padme, Asokha, Hera, Sabine), so there's really no reason to act like Rey's inclusion in TFA is some groundbreaking thing.

 

None of them were the lead. Padme died of a broken heart so you can't use her after what was done to her character. There has been a serious lack of female heroes in the films. We didn't even see one female Jedi with a significant role in the prequels. This is at a time when there were thousands of Jedi.

 

^ I just can't take you seriously with this kind of an attitude and mindset.

Leia, Padme, Asokha, Hera, and Sabine were as much lead characters as Rey is; the only difference is that Rey is the primary "POV character" whereas the others weren't.

 

Girls have always liked it but I don't think til now there was a widely-know pop culture figure (other than Leia).

For 5 year old girls, it will be. Totally agree that SW has other females in key roles but as far as one that a girl who wants to play in the schoolyard (and a wide group of kids know about) not so much. My kids are big Asokha fans but not many kids at school watch the Clone Wars .... yet!

 

How utterly irrelevant. Daisy Ridley did a great job, but the way people keep emphasizing how important this new movie is to empowering young women, it really does look like a pr-move more than anything else. Gwendoline Christie brought up this argument in pretty much every interview prior to the release and it was quite ironic that her character did not once remove her helmet and was basically reduced to laughing stock. Very empowering, I suppose.

The truth of the matter is, that it doesn't matter what gender the protagonist is. Young girls will look up to a male lead just as well, if the character is compelling enough. Same goes for boys and female characters. As a boy, I definitely thought Xena was a badass. Or Catwoman, for that matter.

 

I have to say, not only is it great to get a female lead, but Rey may become my favorite character in the saga(I mean, she's got a lot of work to do in 2 more films to beat Han Solo though).

 

My daughter's new favorite character And I am glad. A strong, caring, independent, smart (and has morals) that can lead an adventure without having to fall into the damsel in distress role (like so many old disney princesses) or the romantic desire trap (when there are more important things at the moment lol).

 

there were many female jedi and many other female characters, assassins, bounty hunters, etc.

 

I have to disagree. Its a generalisation, but (hetero) girl fans of SW either want Luke as a brother (I don't know of any who find him sexy) or Han as a lover. Of course they look up to male leads - Obi-Wan is amazing and Ewan puts him a close second (for me anyway) to Han in the wannabe paramour department. But looking up to is an entirely different thing to identifying with.

I was genuinely shocked when I saw a video doing the rounds of how few female voices (other than Leia's) are heard in the OT because I never noticed the lack of it at the time. I always loved that Leia was so tough and resilient, yet capable of sensitivity and vulnerability. I would always brush off any negative comparisons with Star Trek and comments that SW was a boys thing. But there is a distinct difference in seeing someone you like on screen and someone who is like you. The importance of young girls being raised by SW nuts like us and seeing someone "like them" on screen will carry this series in a way that all-make leads could not have done. And I'm glad for that.