The spoilers are strong with this one.
So. Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It’s pretty Star-Wars-y, isn’t it? Nice change from the prequels: it’s got that lived-in space opera feel about it again, the feeling that there’s a life beyond what we’re shown on the screen. And Rey! Rey with that lightsaber, man, that’s a moment.
But for all my tiny feminist glee about Star Wars finally showing me a Force-sensitive hero who is also a woman on the big screen (a competent woman! who isn’t made into a sexual object! who isn’t the only visible woman in the whole course of the film!) it brought home to me, yet again, just how low Hollywood’s bar really is when it comes to giant franchises and women’s roles. We really are so used to making do with scraps that we end up delighted to get tossed even half a bone.
Because much as I enjoyed Star Wars: The Force Awakens—much as I was thrilled to see background characters who were women, women in the crowd scenes and in the cockpits of the X-Wings, women making up part of the world of people who do things—I have some serious problems with the portrayal of every narratively significant female character who isn’t Rey in The Force Awakens. (Quite aside from how hard it is to find Rey or General Organa in the merchandise for said film, which is a problem for another day.)
Look at the proportions on display:
On the First Order side, we have Kylo Ren, General Hux, Captain Phasma, and (barely present) Supreme Leader Snoke.
From the previous generation, we have Han Solo, Chewbacca, Leia Organa, and (barely present, save as Jedi MacGuffin) Luke Skywalker.
From the bright young things, we have Finn, Poe Dameron, and Rey.
Over in a corner on their own, we have the droids: C-3PO reads as masculine thanks to the voice, R2-D2 and BB-8 are arguable cases, but they tend to receive male pronouns.
And separate from the rest, we have people like Maz Kanata, Han Solo’s angry creditors, and the scavenger-market boss bloke, among others. They don’t fit into any other category.
At best TFA’s proportion of female characters on-screen and doing narratively interesting/important things hovers between one quarter and one third. At worst—well, when you examine what the women get to do in the narrative, things don’t improve. (Do we even dare mention the absence of visible women who aren’t white from major speaking roles? Lupita Nyong’o acts from behind layers of CGI as child-sized big-eyed yellow-alien Maz. I mean. Even if Nyong’o chose a CGI role deliberately, c’mon.)
Let us compare the narrative presence of Leia to that of Han Solo, and of Captain Phasma to General Hux. (I’m going to leave Kylo Ren aside for now, except to direct you to read this piece via Foz Meadows.)
General Leia Organa is mentioned in the title crawl. She is a rhetorical presence in the film’s inciting events, but not an actual one: a prime mover, but an invisible one. This invisibility is important, for when we meet her later in person, it is for a brief handful of scenes; scenes in which very little emphasis is given to her role as general, but rather a lot to positioning her relative to the men in the narrative. She is Luke’s sister, Kylo Ren’s mother, and Han’s maybe-not-exactly-ex: her scant handful of scenes (one? two?) of any emotional significance are with Han, and filled with platitudes about their son. (Carrie Fisher’s charisma and presence is wasted on those platitudes.) She barely interacts with the bright young things of the new generation. What on-screen characterisation do we have for General Organa, really? How much of how we read her character relies on what we know of her from the original trilogy?
Contrast Han Solo. He’s not mentioned in the title crawl, but once he appears (mid-desperate-escape-from-Jakku) his presence takes up space. He is characterised as a wise-cracking screw-up from his actions. In his banter with Rey and Finn and his creditors, we get a sense of someone with a history and a smart mouth, someone with complex feelings about—and some avoidance issues regarding—responsibility who’s eventually willing to do the right thing. Han has a narrative arc around returning to face his responsibilities, awkwardly half-finding a surrogate child in Rey, and confronting his Dark Side son with the power of loving self-sacrifice.
General Leia Organa? Doesn’t have an arc at all.
The disparity is not quite so pronounced when we consider Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) and General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson). Both Phasma and Hux exist in Kylo Ren’s orbit, and are relatively minor presences in the narrative; and thanks to the magnificent character design and Christie’s imposing stature, Phasma makes a far greater visual impression—while exuding a understated menace that almost matches the original Moff Tarkin*—than does Hux. But when we examine their roles, and their activities during the film’s climactic sequence, the matter does not fall out favourably. Hux is a general, and appears to be Kylo Ren’s peer, while Phasma is a captain and subordinate to them both. And during the climactic sequence of events, Hux (a) is the central speaker at a gathering of First Order troops that consciously evokes the Nazi pageantry of the Nuremberg rallies, and (b) is active and giving orders in what looks to be Starkiller Base’s CIC. Phasma, on the other hand, is captured by Han, Chewie, and Finn, and ends up giving them the information they need to take down Starkiller Base’s shields—an act, for a committed stormtrooper officer, that can only be seen as one of gross cowardice and treachery.
*No one in The Force Awakens can match Peter Cushing’s politely merciless sheer efficiency as Moff Tarkin. Alas.
We never see Phasma’s face behind her helmet, either. She is a faceless woman, never humanised as Ren is, or as Hux is by the sheer virtue of his expressions. Her humanity is as invisible as her features.
Now Rey has a heroic arc. But apart from her conversations with Maz, the women in The Force Awakens exist for the most part in isolation from each other. Unlike the men.
I keep seeing a series of… gaps, here, where it comes to developing the female characters on screen (bar Rey) as completely as the men. Where it comes to giving them equal time and equal significance and equal weight.
This is not to say that The Force Awakens is a bad film. This is not to say, even, that it’s not better than a large number of recent ensemble-cast speculative fiction films where it comes to the presence and portrayal of women. But Hollywood has a problem with really low bars. The Force Awakens is thrillingly better about women than a shittonne of stuff—including its immediate predecessors.
But that’s still only half a bone.
I want the whole damn bone, people. I want to stop having to be happy about not being excluded entirely: I want that inclusion to be so normal it’s no longer remarkable. I want to see heroic women of multiple generations talk to each other, for heaven’s sake.
I want to raise the bloody bar. Raise it high.
Liz Bourke is a cranky person who reads books and other things. She has recently completed a doctoral dissertation in Classics at Trinity College, Dublin. Find her at her blog. Or her Twitter.
Somehow I suspect that if Phasma had been the general and Hux the captain you would be complaining that a woman was unfairly portrayed as a Hitler-like figure while a man was merely her witless underling.
While I don’t deny there might be some truth to the article, I suspect a lot of people would be up in arms if the evil general had been a woman.
I generally agree. All of this buzz about this Star Wars being so feminist kind of irks me, because while I do appreciate Rey and even her existence is awesome 1) it’s a very superficial kind of feminism and 2) it’s passing a very low bar. With regard to (1), I can’t help but hate the (THREE SEPARATE) times Rey tells Finn to stop holding her hand. It doesn’t feel like it’s a thing her character would do; it feels like it’s there to be a joke, and to make feminists approve the movie by hitting them over the head with the ostensible progressive-ness of the movie.
@1, I don’t think so. IIRC, Hux is the most capable antagonist being neither a tantrum-throwing knock-off sith-lord with mediocre (at best) lighsaber skills nor a captain who lets a subordinate turn traitor and then get herself captured and is single-handedly responsible for getting the Starkiller base destroyed. Being the only antagonist who demonstrates they deserve their rank and position would be a decent counter-weight to being space Hitler.
Granted, there are a number of ways Hollywood tends to screw up women in the role Hux plays in the narrative. Unfair comparisons to genocidal mass murderers isn’t one of them.
ETA: It’s Buffy feminism. Which is a perfectly cromulent form of feminism but it’s close to the least they can do.
@1 Also the fact that the Empire (and, though apparently less so, the First Order) is blatantly xenophobic and sexist, and that fact is one of the things that makes them bad. It wouldn’t make any kind of sense for a woman to be the supreme leader or military commander.
As for Leia’s decreased role, it probably has a lot to do with Carrie Fisher’s less-than-graceful aging. Even just listening to her voice, she lost a lot of oomph from her screen presence. Harrison Ford aged pretty dang well, and shows it in his performance.
Ugh. Head-counting/minute-counting. Literally the worst type of criticism of anything. What would a fair balance look like? 58:07 minutes of women doing interesting things and 58:07 minutes of men? Or maybe since women are a historically repressed class they should get 67:15 minutes and men 48:50.
There are just… better ways to do this…
Somehow I suspect that if the general landscape for female major roles, both in this movie and in others in Hollywood at large were better and varied in the way that males’ are, then there wouldn’t be the need to complain that specific ones hit on one shallow characterization or another.
This is what happens when you “… really are so used to making do with scraps that we end up delighted to get tossed even half a bone.” Or you could just walk away from commercial entertainment. “You” have told the industry that everything is just fine and you’re delighted to even get tossed a bone. And all the angry blogging in the world will not change that. There is only one power in this world that producers listen to. It’s called the power of money. USE IT.
The thing is, the film was fun, and I enjoyed watching it, but I left the theater and immediately turned to my father and said, ahh, not many female characters there and he started doing a mental run through and agreed. Now, I am a guy, I don’t have a huge horse in this race, but yep, I don’t think this film passed the bechdel test and…well, that’s silly in today’s day and age in a big universe film. But let’s say Finn was a woman…wow, can you imagine the butthurt of the reactionaries? Maybe they were trying to avoid that.
Having said that, everyone did a competent job and Rey was awesome, but there’s still some way to go.
@@.-@: I agree, but in order to reach the conclusion that Gen. Phasma is okay as a character because being capable at her job balances out being space Hitler, a person would need to analyze the characters and the movie in such a manner than the initial complaint of Phasma being a captain was somehow being unfair to women wouldn’t make any sense from the start. Thus, I stick to my initial assessment that had Phasma been the general, this article would be complaining about a woman being portrayed negatively in a Star Wars movie.
The First Order, despite being way more blatantly fascist than the old Empire, apparently managed to make huge strides in gender equality. Phasma is not the only female Stormtrooper in the movie, and is in fact the highest ranked one. We also saw female technicians and officers in the Star Destroyer’s bridge. Was she underutilized in the movie? Yes. Was it because she’s a woman? I don’t think so. After all, they have confirmed that she will have a bigger role in the sequels as a recurring bad guy.
@10 Really? You think if “General Phasma” and General Organa had been shown in balanced opposition there would be “complaining that a woman was unfairly portrayed as a Hitler-like figure”?
I’m not entirely sure why the amount of presence the female characters in TFA is complained about so much. Leia doesn’t have an arc because she’s not important to the story being told (at this stage at least; I’m sure she’s going to get more to do in the following films). Phasma is the same (again, a shame, but not excluded due to gender) – and her capture by the protagonists is a product of the needs of the plot (to set up some rivalry between Finn and Phasma which I fully expect to see more in the following two films). Han, Hux, Kylo and co. are all important to the central arcs in the story – those of Finn, Rey and Kylo Ren. Even Han’s arc is mostly secondary to the other three.
Artistically, the writers and casting directors have absolutely no obligation to make full equality of the sexes. Where gender politics is an important part of the film, do so. Where female characters are interesting and important to the plot, give them screen time. In this case, the gender inequality is slim, I would argue, since the inequality we see is either a product of the setting, or a product of the demands of the plot, not some insidious anti-woman agenda. This film is of its time, and I fully appreciate that its gender representations are how they are for the right reasons.
@11: Considering that the premise of the article is that a movie with a female main character that is more talented than the rest of the cast in almost every skill in the story is somehow throwing “half a bone” to female audiences, I do think that any negative portrayal of female characters would be dissected from this point of view. Luke Skywalker, THE main character from the previous trilogy, is almost completely absent from the movie yet somehow Leia’s lessened role bears remarking under the assumption that it’s because she’s a woman. Where’s Lando? Is C3PO masculine, as the author claims? My point is not that women could be better represented or that the status quo is perfect, I’m just pointing out that some of these complaints are at least somewhat biased and sometimes miss the point completely.
@10 I think, rather, she was cast as a woman because she was an under-utilized character. A safe choice to “increase” diversity but still not “overburden” the movie with female characters.
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@13 But the point of the article IS that women could be better represented, and to say that the writer would use different arguments if the film was different seems disingenuous. And while I totally agree that there are probably reasons for every choice that was made in the writing and casting of this film, I don’t believe that every choice is equally transparent. For example: there’s an EW article from 12/20/15 called “J.J. Abrams explains R2-D2’s closing scene in Star Wars: The Force Awakens” that explains exactly why Luke is a MacGuffin.
As the writers tried to find a logical place for that, they also grappled with the question of how to present Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker – who, as those who’ve seen The Force Awakens already know, was also held back as a climactic reveal in the final minutes of the movie.
“Early on I tried to write versions of the story where [Rey] is at home, her home is destroyed, and then she goes on the road and meets Luke. And then she goes and kicks the bad guy’s ass,” Arndt said. “It just never worked and I struggled with this. This was back in 2012.”
The trouble was a simple case of upstaging. “It just felt like every time Luke came in and entered the movie, he just took it over,” Arndt said. “Suddenly you didn’t care about your main character anymore because, ‘Oh f–k, Luke Skywalker’s here. I want to see what he’sgoing to do.’”
I know of no similar explanation for Leia or Phasma’s roles, though if you could point to them I’d be interested.
@14: I disagree and think you are reading way too much into it. Phasma is confirmed as a recurring villain with a bigger role in Episodes VIII and IX and was confirmed as such before TFA even came out, so it’s not like they saw the backlash and tried to correct it. I disagree with this article because it implies that every ethnicity of women should be equally represented in order for it to not be somehow sexist, or that women should never have bit parts or play characters subordinated to men. The leader of the Resistance is a woman, the main character in the movie is a woman, an important plot catalyst is a female alien. Should characters be 50% each gender so that is not an issue? Or should all important characters be female so that it’s not perceived as “half-a-bone” for the appeasement of female audiences? I think there are a lot of legitimate criticism to be levied at TFA, even some from a gender roles point of view. I just don’t agree that hey are necessarily the points made in this article and comment thread, however.
As a woman and a feminist, I don’t find very many issues with TFA. I would have liked to see more from Leia in the film, but I’m also open to her character arc picking up as the new trilogy moves on. Between the writing and the acting, her character seemed a bit adrift. I think the losses of her estranged husband and the turn in her son will galvanize her and that inner strength will come out again.
I’m not really sold on the criticism of Maz either. Star Wars features a lot of aliens that are radically different from the Star Trek model. That’s going to mean more puppets or CGI characters with voice acting than you’d see in stock sci-fi. I liked the character’s portrayal and the key role she played a moment of doubt and uncertainty for the main characters. I hope we see more from her. The fact that her actress didn’t appear bodily in the film doesn’t detract from my enjoyment of the character.
@17: As I said, the leader of the Resistance (the good guys) is a woman, the main character who’s more talented than everyone else at everything is a woman, the main catalyst character who nudges her towards her spiritual destiny is a female alien, the highest ranking Stormtrooper is a woman (albeit with a small role, that is confirmed to be expanded for the following movies), there are female Stromtroopers, Resistance fighters, technicians and officers (both at the Resitance and First Order), female X-Wing pilots, female patrons at Maz Kanata’s cantina. Unless they made al three ofl the new main characters female or made Han Solo and Chewbaca change genders with no explanation, I don’t see how women are not represented in the movie. As I said, if the complaint is that the leader of both factions should be a woman or that all or most of the higher ups or main characters should be women, then it’s not a matter of representation or gender equality.
@18 They don’t get credit for bigger roles until those roles happen.
It’s not that women should never have bit parts or subordinate roles, it’s that the bar should be higher than one major character per film. And why shouldn’t all major characters be female? They’ve been all men often enough.
The strange thing is that, gender politics aside, I have already begun to forget about the Force Awakens; there is something about the film that, though interesting and intriguing while you are watching it, very soon begins to fade away from the memory, becoming just another sci fi movie I happened to watch during the Christmas period, the details of which I can no longer be bothered to remember. Anyone else get this feeling or is it just me? Certainly it was not the horrible letdown of Prometheus and Interstellar, and I have nothing against the film, but really it almost seems not terribly important to my jaded consciousness.
I mean, sure it could be better, but there are, iirc, 15 times more speaking parts for women in this film than in the last Saga film. (Because RotS only had Padme, all the scenes with other speaking women were cut.) (Similarly, the scene between Maz Kanata and Leia in the trailer was also cut from this film.)
And it’s not for nothing that the film features, not only a woman as unambiguous lead (and a phenomenal performance from her, too), but two women as leaders in their respective armies, and as the wise old sage/smuggler/information broker role, and female stormtroopers in regular armor, and a female resistance fighter pilot (the few others seen are male, but also are one of the new Big Three, a pre-established male pilot from the novels, and an alien or two), several female higher-ups and officers in the Resistance, at least one female uniformed First Order officer, a bounty hunter (canonically one of the best alive), cantina patrons, resistance techs, senators and General Organa’s most trusted political negotiator (briefly seen on Hosnian Prime), and possibly some others I don’t remember. It’d be great if some of them had more to do (and some of them definitely will in the sequels), but it’s still an enormous improvement from the last attempt.
@20 But it doesn’t achieve gender equity.
There are four named First Order villains: one is a woman. She doesn’t have to be a general to be interesting, and looking back at the article, Liz never claims she does, she just contrasts Phasma’s role with Hux’s. Maybe she’s supposed to be an ineffectual martinet, I don’t necessarily have a problem with that (as I wouldn’t have had a problem with Stormtrooper Lady Hitler), but there’s not much to build on there for future episodes. (Lots of people seem to have problems with Kylo Ren, but I thought he was a very credible blend of ridiculous and genuinely dangerous, with room to grow as a villain. Nothing I saw of Phasma has any of that possibility, and she has even less sense of menace by the end.)
Even as a young child, insta-generals Solo and Calrissian in RotJ, while Leia’s status within the Rebel Alliance remained vague, made me pretty upset, so I was thrilled to see “General Organa” in the opening scroll. I’d have been even happier if there’d been a little more showing to telling of Leia in her leadership role. Maybe next time, right?
I liked Maz more than Liz seemed to. I’d rather see a movie about her acquiring the lightsaber MacGuffin than the Death Star plans movie (or young Han Solo, or Boba Fett).
Rey is awesome. The article acknowledges that, too. It’s a good thing that there are female extras, but to restate the article’s premise, that’s a pretty low bar. This is so clear an example of the women are perceived to dominate when they’re at 30% of the speech phenomenon.
This is not a women-on-screen issue. This is a people-who-are-not-young-healthy-goodlooking-white-males on screen issue. It’s not just that Rey is a woman, the other leads are a black and a latino man, and three older people, including one woman. Well four, and two women, if you include Maz. The only person who represents the demographic which usually gets to identify with the main hero or heroes, is Kylo Ren – spoilt privileged white boy, whose sense of entitlement is very deliberately contrasted with Rey’s and Finn’s story arcs – both people who have been deprived in very significant ways, and who still chose to stay in the light, or in Finn’s case, make an extraordinary effort to get away from the Dark Side. I think there is a LOT to be said for that, and for this being done in a film that was always going to be Hollywood blockbuster space action material. It doesn’t do to frame this simply as a representation-of-women issue. Patience, young padawan. :)
The world isn’t equal.
Create characters you like better. Get some experience. Become a director, writer, producer. Sell your ideas to Hollywood or the nearest equivalent. Get something adapted for the screen. Create what you want within the constraints of what the suits allow.
Support entertainment that meets your criteria. Don’t spend money on Star Wars 7. Because everyone involved with bringing us that movie is thinking “we did really well, let’s not make drastic changes”.
It’s too late to get what you want from this film. And the upcoming ones. But if enough people agree with you, you can make the future differently.
Representation is one thing. Well written characters are another. And that is where Force Awakens falls short in several places, with both male and female characters—aside from the problems with the plot and overall nostalgia mining. But if you’re looking for more and more representation, sure, there’s a good chance Lucasfilm will listen, and we’ll probably eventually see every variety of human being on screen. God knows they’re going to make enough of these things to do it!
As for good writing? Dear oh dear, that’s a crap shoot for any committee-made movie.
@25: Neither I nor anyone else clalimed Star Wars had achieved gender equity. My only issue with the point of view of the article is that having a main character who’s an uber-capable woman, having women everywhere (and not just as extras like you claim) and other minorities represented in the main cast while relegating young straight white males to exclusively antagonist roles in THE blockbuster movie of the decade is “setting the bar low.” There’s still a long way to go as far as Hollywood and its portrayal of many different types of people is concerned, but it’s my personal opinion that the views expressed by the article are skewed, witholding credit for what was actually done in the movie and taking issue with perceived mishandling of other female characters besides the lead.
That you feel Han and Lando’s lighting ascent through the Rebellion’s ranks or Phasma’s character to be underdeveloped is a very valid view, but does not mean Episode VII did it because she was a woman, like implied above. That you prefer other types of stories or characters is also valid, but does not mean Episode VII should be that type of story.
I never claimed women were overrepresented in the movie, I just disagree that they are not represented and it’s a movie dominated by men like the original trilogy, when it obviously isn’t. Perhaps another movie would be a better example of the low bar in Hollywood regarding this issue, like Avengers or something.
I was also disappointed in this movie’s representation of women, but I think it’s mainly because I’ve been a fan of the books and I actually thought Rey was a weak character compared to the likes of Jaina Solo, Tenel Ka Djo, and Mara Jade Skywalker. Maybe the movie was just too rushed, but I never really connected with her character.
I wish more people were talking about how awesome Mockingjay did in this regard. That and Fury Road were my favorite two movies of the year.
I’ve been seeing SO MUCH stuff about feminism and star wars, the lack of PoC in other movies and stuff lately it’s kind of crazy. So, I have to ask: Am I the only one who just… doesn’t really care?
Maybe “doesn’t care” is a bad way to phrase it, more like “doesn’t notice it/ think about it”.
I mean, I loved Force Awakens. But I don’t think a single reaction I had to it had anything to do with the male/female ratio, the number of black/latino people in it, etc., I just… thought it was a good movie. That’s how I am about pretty much everything. If I like the characters, the themes, etc., in some form of media, then I like it. End of story. I couldn’t care less if every single role in the entire movie were straight young white men or if everyone was a gay old black woman, or any combination of races/sexualities/genders/ etc. Seriously. As long as it’s well done and I can attach to it emotionally, I’ll like it.
But, the seemingly endless arguing back and forth about this issue lately has been inescapable, and is getting really tiresome (from both sides). Am I the only one who just wants to talk about the character arcs, themes, awesome moments, etc. in movies and books, and… that’s it? I just want to enjoy it?
Sorry if this came across badly, I’m really not meaning for it to.
” it’s my personal opinion that the views expressed by the article are skewed”
Right, but you think that because you’re not honestly engaging the arguments have been presented to you. For instance, you say
” I don’t see how women are not represented in the movie” and “I never claimed women were overrepresented in the movie, I just disagree that they are not represented”
When no one, either in the article itself or the comments, makes the claims you’re supposedly disagreeing with. So, hey, good news: if that’s your beef you can stop posting, since no one thinks those things. Maybe you should reread the article (you did actually read it, right?) making a conscious effort to avoid jerking whatever knee lead you to your LOL I BET YOU’D BE MAD IF SPACE HITLER WERE A WOMAN conclusion.
@PallionionFire ‘less-than-graceful aging’? Please.
As Carrie Fisher herself recently retweeted in response to this ‘debate’ – men don’t age better than women, they’re just allowed to age.
@30 – DyanneNova: It’s utterly unfair to compare Rey to characters you read about in tons of novels. Even a single chapter in a novel will give you a better chance at connnecting with a character than a whole movie…
@29: “Perhaps another movie would be a better example of the low bar in Hollywood regarding this issue, like Avengers or something.”
I think you’re missing the point. The fact that this movie, that we can acknowledge does a lot better than MOST other giant Hollywood movies STILL underrepresents and undervalues women in the narrative makes it the PERFECT example of the low bar in Hollywood. The bar is so low that the great movie people are cheering for on that front is, when you look at it objectively… not a whole lot. Just in comparison. Hence, “low bar.”
That doesn’t mean the movie’s awful. It doesn’t mean it’s not an important step that shouldn’t be appreciated for that. It just means there’s no reason to rest on laurels and decide “representation in Hollywood is fixed, because Star Wars,” there are still things to talk about, things that could have been done better on that front, even in Star Wars. And again, if the bar was consistently higher, it wouldn’t matter so much if not every movie met it. A statistical distribution, born of natural variation around a mean, would allow for big movies where women were mostly on the sidelines except for a token one, and likewise for movies where men were mostly on the sidelines except for a token one. It wouldn’t especially need to be talked about in every single case. But if one of the “high” outliers is still pretty “low” compared to the real distribution of men and women… we still have stuff to talk about.
And… “But young white men are only in villain roles” kind of obscures the issue. Yes, it’s nice but… it’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the story roles given to women, specifically, compared to men. A hypothetical movie (not this one) which has a representative mix of males of every age and racial group that still treats its female characters as nothing but eye candy is STILL problematic, even though you can say “but young white men are a minority!”
Well, yes and no, IMHO. It could have been better, sure, but I disagree with some of the criticisms in this post too.
I like that Maz is an alien. Star Wars needs more aliens in prominent roles, it being so human-centric hurts the sense of wonder of a “galaxy far, far away”. I also like that she is a female alien, as those are even rarer in SF movies than female humans ;). Would I have preferred Maz live-acted in heavy make-up with the use of LOTR-style movie magic to change her size? Absolutely. Seriously, if Babylon 5, a relatively shoe-string budget TV-show in the 90-ties could provide an excellent performance of an actor in heavy make-up, surely a huge franchise like Star Wars should be able to as well! It is also a pity that, from what I hear, quite a bit of her role was cut.
As to Leia, we shouldn’t forget certain realities – namely that Harrison Ford is a better actor and a far bigger “name”. Don’t take me wrong, I was happy that they didn’t fridge Leia, that her character has a great narrative importance. I also think that Fisher’s delivery was perfectly fine for the part she had. But does she have the chops to carry a bigger role? Not IMHO. Frankly, it was clear to me even in the OT that Ford was a much better actor than both Fisher and Hamill, so it was logical that he ended up with a big movie career and they didn’t.
Now, there is a whole different topic of discussion re: the fact that most actresses’ careers in the US end after 40 at best, because older women characters/roles are systematically avoided by the bigger movies and even by most TV productions (though it is becoming better there IMHO), while male actors can continue acting and getting big roles into ripe old age. It is no coincidence that most contemporary great/famous older actresses who come to mind are British – because they could continue working and practicing their skills there, while their US counterparts had to take an early retirement. But deplorable as it is, that’s another kettle of fish, not directly applicable to Fisher.
I agree about Captain Phasma – she should have at least gotten the “traitor!” trooper’s scene, particularly since Christie has already done melee combat scenes in armor for Game of Thrones, so had action experience. I have heard, though, that her character was a late addition and based on rejected look for Kylo(!). Yes, initially he was supposed to be in the shiny armor. So, it is not surprising that there is little to her character other than the look. A pity, still, and something that hopefully gets remedied in the future.
And, of course, another source of continuing sharp imbalance are the rest of legacy characters, including the cameos. Given that the OT basically only had _one_ female character in Leia and dozens of dudes. Which is why I really hope that they don’t try to shoehorn Lando or whoever else into the future movies. Enough is enough. Give us something fresh, please.
So, yes, I am sure that there was a certain caution (or pandering to prejudice, if you will) about alienating the assumed audience for the franchise by having too many prominent female characters, but there are also other reasons for why some of the things were done the way they were, IMHO.
Having said that, I can only hope that the sequels improve in that area, rather than regress, like Lucas’s subsequent movies have regressed, and I can only agree with the sentiment that Darth Helen Mirren is long overdue!
@32: As I said, when a movie has as the main character a woman who is uber-competent, as well as several other women in different roles (just like the men), I disagree that it’s a low bar. Could it have more women? Yes. Does the fact that I disagree that TFA hasn’t enough women characters of importance mean there is not an issue with representation of women and minorities in Hollywood? Also no. Based on the discussion taking place here, however, I still think that if Phasma had been the general a lot of people would have taken issue with the fact that a woman was cast as a fascist space dictator character and would have claimed that it portrayed a negative version of female leadership and so on. As for my not engaging in the discussion, well, I am reading and considering everything I’m being told before answering and I just haven’t read something that makes me agree that the movie threw “half a bone” to female audiences. As I said, that’s my point of disagreement. I don’t think TFA is a low bar and “half a bone”, though the bar could be higher. I did read the article and understood it, and I don’t think it’s fair to say that I’m just trolling. If you think I should stop posting because I don’t agree with you, that’s fair enough, but the same could be said about you or anyone else.
@37: I respectfully disagree. I don’t think that it undervalues women from a narrative standpoint. It just has smaller parts for characters that aren’t the focus of this story in this specific part of the storyline. Leia has a smaller part than Han, but she has a more important role (general vs smuggler) and she doesn’t die. Lando and Luke are absent. Phasma was badly used, but to claim that it’s because she’s a woman doesn’t gel for me because, again like I said before, she’s confirmed to be a recurring villain in the next sequels. Like I asked, should all leaders for the Resistance and the First Order as well as all new characters be women so that the movie is not considered to be a “low bar”? I realize it might sound like I’m arguing against women getting more, larger and better roles but I’m not. I’m all for it, but I’m also happy that a black guy and a latino got cast as main characters and I disagree that all ethnicities and genders should be equally represented all the time in every big Hollywood movie just because. By the way, before you go assuming that I’m a white guy having a fit because there’s “a war against straight white males” I’d like to point out that I’m not American, I don’t live in the US and I look way more like Poe Dameron than like Domhall Gleeson.
Again, the movie isn’t the one anyone’s accusing of being/having a “low bar”, Hollywood in general is. The movie is one that exceeds it. It would exceed the low bar if every character of consequence was a woman. It would probably exceed the low bar if Leia and Rey were the only women in the movie and it was otherwise a sausage-fest. The bar’s lowness has little to do with the movie (except that yes, you could say that in exceeding the bar, it set it a little higher for future movies). The article isn’t talking about how bad Star Wars is. It’s talking about how bad Hollywood is, by pointing out that there are still problems in how things are handled even in this movie.
“It just has smaller parts for characters that aren’t the focus of this story in this specific part of the storyline.” Yes, but that’s a narrative choice too. It’s all narrative choices. They could have given Leia a bigger role. They didn’t (and that she’s a general and Han is just a smuggler doesn’t mean much if he does everything interesting in the story… the story’s not ABOUT her as much). There are a whole host of reasons (Ford being a much bigger draw at the box office being one). Some of those reasons may be directly sexist. Some may be legacy of other reasons, themselves potentially sexist, that they’re now stuck with (for example, you can’t invert Han and Leia’s sexes, because it’s a sequel, whereas if this was a standalone, you could have decided whether the reliable general was male or female and his/her wild smuggling spice was as well). Some may be completely random accidents, but when you’ve got a system that’s disproportionately skewed, it’s impossible to tell the accidents and the “we have later plans” from sexism. These, too, are problems with institutionalized sexism.
Of the “new generation” heroes, why are there two males and one female? Sure, three is always going to be an uneven mix, but why did they choose that particular mix? Why not have Poe be a female X-Wing pilot? Again, maybe a whole host of reasons, not all of them sexist. But they could have gone a different way, and didn’t. Maybe they wanted to give Rey more romantic tension options (but, if so, isn’t that kind of sexist itself that they’re, again, building the story around the woman’s romantic choice… why Rey, why not Finn? Or for that matter, why not Rey choosing between Finn and Girl-Pilot, because why shouldn’t she be bi?). Or maybe it really was just an accident of fate, a coin toss, (but funny how accidents of fate consistently seem to lead to more men in major roles). Maybe there really are more key women planned in the later sequels, and not many men, but don’t delude yourself… they didn’t HAVE to make the choices they did. It’s fair game to talk about those choices, and what they collectively add up to… this particular movie beating the low bar Hollywood’s set, but not beating the bar reality has set. Maybe they’ll do better next time. I hope so.
“I disagree that all ethnicities and genders should be equally represented all the time in every big Hollywood movie just because.”
You’re disagreeing with things people generally aren’t saying. I’ve said a couple times here already, if the general landscape of roles for women were better and more even-handed, nobody would care when a few had mostly one or the other or that a role hit on a few stereotypes. Same for races. But when particular ethnicities and genders are consistently left out, or left to smaller or stereotypical roles, then yes, it’s fair game to point out and complain about that choice being made _yet again_, in the hopes that _next time_ they may consider not doing that.
@34 So you want to contend that her rampant drug use didn’t take a toll on her body? Carrie Fisher went off the deep end for a while. She sounds awful. Her voice is just like that of my chain-smoking great aunt. She looks about 20 years older than she is. And she most definitely lost that gravitas that made Leia in the OT such a presence.
When Rey first appears, she’s extremely isolated with almost no social interactions that aren’t part of her survival. Although that begins to change, her isolation is only beginning to end. When she does interact with Maz, she rejects what Maz is telling her and tries to reject the lightsaber.Limiting her contact with other female characters helps keep her as a figure alone.
@41: The article talks about how this specific movie exceeds that low bar and constitutes throwing “half a bone” to female audiences due to the way that female characters are portrayed in it, because in the author’s opinion not enough important characters are female or the female characters that exist don’t have important enough roles. Given that this is the new Star Wars movie (arguably the most successful movie franchise in history), and that the main character is a woman, I disagree that it’s throwing women “half a bone.” Think about it: the main character, the hero of the new Star Wars, who will be the new Jedi, is a girl. That’s not a token role, nor important only because the bar is very low in Hollywood in general. That’s my disagreement.
It’s also a bar that was set by Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s a low bar because it’s been demonstrated that it’s not hard to reach. It’s kinda ridiculous that a movie is getting props for a female lead in 2015/6.
I was so hoping that this piece would be about sleazy alien drinking establishments…
@47: While I agree, it should be pointed out that there are people criticizing the movie simply because it has a female protagonist in the first place. Now that’s what I’d call truly ridiculous.
Han got more screen time than Leia for two reasons:
– This was the Han Farewell Tour
– For some reason, Leia now talks like she’s from Wisconsin. No offense to the Cheddarheads, but Leia Organa is NOT from Wisconsin!
I lost my suspension when Rey exits the Falcon, shares a look, and then a hug with Leia. I only watched once, but had they even met? I don’t understand why movie people only hug if they are/were in a couple-y relationship or women. Rey has some person-to-person trust issues; now she’s hugging strangers?
The Force. Both Leia and Rey are obviously Force sensitive; and Rey feels Leia’s pain caused by the loss of Han, and Leia feels Rey is shaken because of her awakening and battle with Leia’s son. That, too. Even if she was fighting Ben, Rey is still the last person to have had direct contact with him.
Plus, she’s obviously Luke’s kid, or something like that.
@PallionianFire
She is 59. If she looked 79 (which she doesn’t) that would make her only 6 years older than Harrison Fords’ actual age. Face it, as a society we’re just not used to seeing older women on screen, and when we do some people just can’t handle it.
Agreed. I thought Carrie Fisher looked great, actually. Not unlike Katharine Hepburn at about the same age.
Watching Generals do General things is like watching someone do office work. The last thing I think anyone wanted to see was watching Leia plan and do paperwork while hearing the music. At this point she is much like Mon Motha in the original trilogy. She is a leader,but not on the front lines. Solo is in as much of it mostly because he dies. Also he is not bound by the chains of command. In essence it is the characters swan song. We will be seeing far more of Rey in the next two films. Hopefully Captain Phasma will not look utterly incompetent in the next two films.Sadly she kind of did in the first one.