Discussion Star Wars and Feminism

Let me clarify, Outsourced made an honest mistake. Before TFA, there were 4 black guys in the movies, not including the X-wing pilot in ROTJ and the Ice Cream maker carrying guy in Empire. They are, Mace Windu, Lando Calrissian, Captain Panaka and Captain Typho.

 

I was joking.

 

Thank the maker for this post. Two films in a row with a female protagonist, and all of a sudden the women are taking over. As if they shouldn't make up, um... 50% of characters. (Besides Leia and two or three lines from Beru - name another female who speaks in the original.) Leia was a great feminist icon for the time, but we've moved past the time where we need to show that women can do everything a man does and into a time where they do. So we take some amazing characters who have been underexplored in visual media (the females,) and make a TWO-MINUTE YOUTUBE series about them, and suddenly it's an agenda? As if we haven't had eight seasons of 22 minute episodes starring predominantly male protagonists? If you believe that Star Wars is for everyone and that representation matters, well, I think we have several more different protagonists to go before we come back around to straight, white males. If you believe representation doesn't matter, then you shouldn't care about who's on screen. And if you don't believe Star Wars is for everyone, allow us to show you the door.

 

Haven't been on the forums for a while. I'm back. What did I mi.... Oh.

Star Wars isn't the victim of a feminist onslaught. It has some characters that happen to be women. Hope I cleared that up.

 

Its not revenge, its catching up.

 

I think we'll have made progress as well, when someone can argue that the character of Holdo/her story arc was awful; that Rose crashing into Finn/her battlefield speech was cringe inducing; that the movie's refusal (thus far) to explain Rey's (in the movies) unprecedented untrained skills is problematic, without being accused of misogyny.

 

No! I'll never give in! TLJ is my favorite SW film to the end of time! I'll never join you!!!

 

And for those points, to me my lack of enjoyment of Holdo (although I loved the "Holdo maneuver") and Rose is not at all cos they're female. My dislike for them solely has to do with their part in the story, NOT their gender. If their characters were male I would dislike how they were written just as much! I'm willing to wait to form my opinion on Rey's character development until after the ST closes, and her arc completes. Suffice it to say, after TFA came out, Rey became actually one of my favorite SW characters! Sure we didn't get much development of her character in TLJ, but I'm starting to think more and more that TLJ was simply a transition from TFA to TROS, and it's in December that we will get the real progression with her arc.

In general, I personally don't think SW is biased either way now. When I sit and think of all that SW has released over the years since 1977 up until today, it now seems pretty even. I for one love that there's strong female leads that my young daughters can get behind and perhaps even draw inspiration from-which means now it's not just me and my sons watching SW for all the lasers and battles and "pew-pew pew!", but something there for both my daughters AND sons to root for/get into.

 

This is how you show the door to people who don’t believe Star Wars is for everyone.

 

I promise I'll contribute to the discussion, just wanted to drop this clip as return entrance.

 

"And The Last Jedi divided the fanbase into people who disliked it and people who pretended to like it."

Yeah no. I'm gonna nope out of this crap and hope it doesn't fill my suggestions with TheQuartering and One Angry Gamer videos.

 

It's mostly just a part of his rhetoric. The point to take away is that TLJ did indeed split the fanbase in not a good way.
The other point to take away is that the story group for star wars are all female leftist feminists. That's a fact.
What bearing or effect that has had on the franchise is up to you to see.

 

Cool. I'm also a feminist. I think it's good seeing more women and people of color getting starring roles. I assume you don't agree, which is why you linked to a channel with about as much substance as two pieces of bread and a gob of mayo that still manages to be salty despite the lack of any other flavor.

 

That's cool that you're a feminist. I like seeing women and black people in movies too. The fact that disney has introduced more female leads to star wars movies in and of itself doesn't bother me in the slightest. It is the execution of the characters that I feel does a disservice to their femininity and the franchise as a whole.

And the channel I linked to does indeed have a flavor, that of bourbon and whiskey. I find it quite entertaining and the way he talks reminds me of a friend of mine.

 

Exactly what it says. Take Jyn for example: I can see no difference in the character if she were to be played by an actor or an actress. To me, this is wasted opportunity of a female character.

 

A female character has to be written differently from a male character because there are inherent differences in men and woman. Good writing will reflect that. For example, if you have a female character with the physique of an average woman, it does not make sense for the character to be written having the strength of the average man (because of logical inherent biological differences). If you take the same character and change her physique to be above average, then logical consistency is maintained, but at the expense of some relatability from the average female audience (again an obvious generalization here for the sake of argument).

Rogue One wasn't a war movie, and two, Jyn was not a soldier. She was an outcast, forced to fend for herself. Not a soldier obligated to fight for the Alliance to Restore the Republic or it's ideology. Jyn certainly didn't need to be "feminine" in the "classical" holly wood sense of there just for looks, that's just stupid.
I can only really think of two scenes where Jyn showed feminine qualities, the scene where she recieves the secret message from her father and when her father dies. That's one quality that women have that;s different from men, a stronger and different emotional connection to their fathers then men do. Of all the ways that women are different that's the only one that I picked up on that she possessed.
Obviously there are many similarities between men and women, but where there are differences this distinctions are huge and effect things on multiple levels. Hence the benefit from using and acknowledging the differences.

 

It was, and she was.