5 reasons you shouldn’t complain about women getting more Star Wars screen-time
By Elaine Tveit
Here are 5 reasons people should stop complaining about women getting more screen-time in Star Wars movies than ever before.
Ever since 2015 when Star Wars: The Force Awakens introduced a female in the role of the main hero for the first time, people have been complaining about women “taking over” the previously male-driver science fiction franchise. It’s time to stop that; and in case you need a quick list or reasons telling you why, here’s one for you below.
1. Of the eight live-action Star Wars movies Lucasfilm has produced so far, six of them feature a male in the leading role.
After nearly forty years of Star Wars films where the main character was a male, you can’t allow women two (count ’em: TWO) movies where their characters are front and center? Please.
2. In the two live-action Star Wars films where a female occupies the central heroic role, she is surrounded by male characters.
Let’s take a look at The Force Awakens, for example. Notice that Rey, even though she is the main character, is surrounded by male heroes: Finn, Poe Dameron, Han Solo and Chewbacca. Even BB-8 is characterized as male. Yup, that sounds like a female takeover of an entire franchise to me.
3. 99% of the major villains in all eight live-action Star Wars movies are male.
Director Krennic. Supreme Leader Snoke. Kylo Ren. General Hux. Emperor Palpatine. Darth Vader. General Grievous. Count Dooku. Darth Maul. Are you seeing a pattern here? In fact, the only on-screen Star Wars works that feature major female villains are The Clone Wars (Asajj Ventress and Mother Talzin) and Star Wars Rebels (the Seventh Sister and Governor Pryce). Captain Phasma, as awesome as she looks in The Force Awakens, was stuffed into trash compactor before she could accomplish anything cool. Hopefully, The Last Jedi makes up for that injustice to her character. But even if it does, Phasma will still be outnumbered by her moustache-twirling fellow First Order males.
4. In Lucasfilm’s first major animated television series, The Clone Wars, only one of the regular protagonists was a female.
In fact, you could argue that The Clone Wars is more male-centric than female, despite the fact that Ahsoka Tano is one of the main characters. But that’s the point: She’s a main character. Her partners in crime are almost always Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi; who, incidentally, are already the main characters in three Star Wars films.
5. More females in Star Wars is not a bad thing!
Who cares if there are more female protagonists in Star Wars nowadays than male ones (even though there really aren’t, but I’ll play along)? It’s kind of nice that little girls and women can now see themselves in heroic roles in major film franchises, isn’t it?
Are you worried about females taking over Star Wars? If so, I hope this list changed your mind.