On December 16 we’ll return to a galaxy far far away, with the arrival in cinemas of Episode VII of Star Wars, The Force Awakens. There are already legions of people around the world ready to pull out their toy lightsabers, Yoda dolls and Darth Vader slippers, doing marathons of the first six films to refresh their memories, and they can’t wait to re-immerse themselves in one of the most popular sagas in the history of pop culture (including me, of course). Sure, there have been discussions and discussions on the subject “is it right to drag on a saga that was meant to be the story of Anakin Skywalker and that’s it, but that of course has been revisited simply to make big money out of it?”, but I think that from the moment the trailer has been released and we saw the shot of the Millennium Falcon with that musing in the background, we all melted in our own feelings. Because we are weak, but hey, it’s okay.
Instead, what is not right are the controversies that have been circulating for months now regarding some aspects of the new film that don’t seem to please the tastes of those who consider themselves “true fans of the saga”. I need to put my hands forward. This article is written by a fan of sci-fi who is finally tired of everything that traditionally revolved around science fiction. “It’s a boy’s thing”, “Girls only do it to attract their boyfriend’s attention”, “You like Star Wars only because you want to dress up as Leia in a bikini”. No, it doesn’t work this way. You are the one who wants to see a girl dressed up a Leia in a bikini, or rather, you’re the one who, in three films where the beautiful creature that is Princess Leia Organa Skywalker appears, only remembers those couple of scenes in which she’s undressed (and the ones in which, in the end, she still defeated the being that was holding her captive and who was definitely bigger and stronger than her). I could write a thesis on Leia Organa, on how her and Luke are twins, and therefore when at sixteen Luke was living in Tatooine, complaining that he was left alone to do his uncle’s chores, Leia was already ricking her life fighint the Empire. On how it could have been Leia to become a Jedi Knight, and probably the story wouldn’t have changed at all. But no, Leia remains for the majority of the saga’s fans, a character in the background, wearing a metal bikini, and has beautiful love stories like all women in action films. The same fans who at the end of August have written comments like these:
The comment is referred to the armour of Captain Phasma, one of the villains in the new Episode, played by the divine Gwendoline Christie. An armour that, incidentally, looks like this. And as rightly said by the official account of the film, “It’s an armour. On a woman.” Stop. We do not need other armours that leave 90% of her skin uncovered, thank you. Also because I really don’t think that “the power of the boob outside” is needed to protect a human body from explosions in space.
What does it mean anyway “female armour”? Mysteries produced by years and years of video games and anime, I think. But even if an investigation would be interesting, this is not what I’m trying to talk about. What I want to talk about writing this article is how certain sagas are considered territory strictly for men, where only “things for men” are accepted. Women warriors? Okay, but only if they are wearing a revealing armour so one understands they are somen. Princesses? Okay, but only if they don’t have a real adventure story. Another example?
At the beginning of September, Star Wars: Aftermath was published, a book officially canonized by Disney that talks about what happens between the end of Return of the Jedi and the beginning of The Awakening Force (no spoilers, of course). The author, Chuck Wendig, has received a lot of positives reviews, but also a wave of negative comments because of his decision to include in the history Sinjir Rath Benus, an Imperial soldier who chooses to go to the Rebel Alliance after participating in the battle of Endor, the one that concludes Episode VI. Oh, and he’s gay. Because obviously this is where the focus of his personality is, not in the profound change of his state of mind that he needed to switch sides. It’s not the first book on star Wars with a LGBT character – earlier this year, Lords of the Sith by Paul Kemp was released, and with him the first homosexual character of the franchise, the official Imperial Moff Delian Mors, a lesbian woman who could appear in the first film spin-off, Rogue One. But the book by Wendig is the first in which the main character is queer.
And this sparked uproar. “Promoting the gay agenda?”, “It’s not a series for children anymore!”, “Everyone follows Caitlyn Jenner simply to make money!”, “Being gay has become fashionable”, and other comments like these can be read on the Amazon page of the book, which rocketed to around three hundred reviews in no time – many of which, unfortunately, with a single star. It’s not only because of the style in which the book was written in, or because of the plot, or maybe because it’s not a good product, no. Just because the protagonist is gay. The negative critiques are always a stimulus for growth, but only it they are constructive. Not if they simply puke out hatred for every single detail of the story.
Fortunately Chuck Wendig is a wonderful person who is very straightforward, and in his blog he posted this reply: “And if you’re upset because I put gay characters and a gay protagonist in the book, I got nothing for you. Sorry, you squawking saurian — meteor’s coming. And it’s a fabulously gay Nyan Cat meteor with a rainbow trailing behind it and your mode of thought will be extinct. You’re not the Rebel Alliance. You’re not the good guys. You’re the fucking Empire, man. You’re the shitty, oppressive, totalitarian Empire. If you can imagine a world where Luke Skywalker would be irritated that there were gay people around him, you completely missed the point of Star Wars. It’s like trying to picture Jesus kicking lepers in the throat instead of curing them. Stop being the Empire. Join the Rebel Alliance. We have love and inclusion and great music and cute droids.”
And not content, he also added: “By the way, the book also has an older woman, a mother, rescuing a man. So if that bothers you, you might wanna find a bunker for hunkering down. And I dunno if you noticed, but the three new protagonists of the movie consist of a woman, a black man, a Latino man. The bad guys all look like white guys, too. So many meteors. So little time to squawk at them.”
Am I the only one not really understanding what the problem is? The only one thinking that from a story and from characters one can take out more than just their sexuality – especially when their sexuality is not the centre of the narrative? In a film like The Danish Girl (that we talked about here) or Brokeback Mountain there is the need to talk about sexuality, because it’s an inseparable part of the meaning of the film. But in the far far galaxy we are committed to fighting clones and the dark side of the Force. Really there are people who prefer to complain about gay characters and armours rather than actually do their job instead enjoy the spaceships’ explosions and stunts?
Or even better, really there are people who still believe that science fiction or fantasy are genres that can be filled only with manhood? We really do not have anything better to ask our heroes – to the figures who we then admire for a life time – that to be super-macho?
As written by Wendig, Luke Skywalker would not be proud of us, not at all. Luke Skywalker has a lot more to teach us, just like Aragorn and Frodo Baggins and thousands of other characters that are the foundation of pop culture and of the childhood of many geeks of today.
So please, let’s stop believing that there are genres “only for men”. Let’s not complain if a girl can name all the ships of the Starfleet of Star Trek, if finally there are LGBT heroes in whom everyone can relate to, if in a reboot the cast is of women only (Ghostbusters, knock once if you can hear me!). Let’s not believe that women cannot be heroes admired by everyone, men included, or that their greatest sin is to be sterile (let’s all look at Joss Whedon and then let’s all thank together Jessica Jones for existing!). Pop culture is made from sagas that we love and with which we grew up, therefore if we could stop fighting over territory that is considered to be specifically for one group of people and we can all enjoy it together, that would be great. Geek boys, don’t be shy. Join the Rebel Alliance, You will not regret it.
With love,
A geek girl
