[Variety] Disney's Boy Trouble: Corp seeking ways to win back young men

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mZuzek said:

chakkra said:

1) Star Wars has ALWAYS had female characters. Leia was an important part of the first trilogy, Padme was an important part of the second trilogy. Ahsoka was an important part of the Clone Wars series. And there were many secondary female characters sprinkled in there: Mon Mothma, Shakti, Assaj Ventress, The Night Sisters, etc.

Dude. "Having" female characters doesn't make a story interesting for women. Look at the first female characters that come to your mind when you think of Star Wars. Leia and Padme. Two extremely shallow characters whose arcs are always somewhere in between damsel in distress and trophy wife. They're both there just to serve as plot devices for the male heroes. No woman in the world looks up to those characters and goes like "she's awesome, I wanna be like her".

Yeah, Disney took things in the extreme other direction with Rey, by trying so hard to make her look cool that they forgot to write an actual arc for her, so she just spends 3 movies getting everything handed to her for free and never making a mistake. Maybe young girls can look at her and say "she's awesome, I wanna be like her", but anyone who likes good character work and storytelling will only see a boring shallow character.

Ultimately the best female characters in the series, both before and after Disney's takeover, came in spin-offs. Haven't seen Clone Wars stuff but yeah, Ahsoka seems pretty cool. And Jyn was awesome in Rogue One (the one actually good Star Wars film Disney put out).

But the female characters are the female fantasy. Problem with Leia and Padme is that they're side characters. Rey on the other hand is Elsa in Star Wars universe. People like Leia and Padme because they're believable.

Whether you like damsell in distress or not, female fantasy is that someone who they love will save them just like male fantasy is to be the hero.