Why did "Star Wars" kill off or denigrate almost all of their major female characters
prior to Rey?
Why is Jar-Jar Binks, well…
Jar-Jar Binks?
Keep watching to learn the truth!
There are some real-world situations that blockbuster franchises shouldn't even try
to approach.
"The Phantom Menace" is a great example of this phenomenon, as this movie decided that
what "Star Wars" really needed wasn't just a new spaceship and a cool new lightsaber.
Instead, as part of Anakin Skywalker's backstory, slavery was introduced as a foreground element
of the "Star Wars" mythos.
In a movie containing fart gags and big space battles, the true horrors of slavery just
can't be appropriately represented.
It ends up serving as a distraction for all future escapades in basically all "Star Wars"
films that followed.
And with slavery established as not just existing, but being common, a lot of the lore in the
prequel trilogy feels like small potatoes.
Who cares about the planet Kamino being erased from the Jedi archives when people are still
being enslaved across the galaxy?
Right from the start of this collection of films, the prequel trilogy went way too far
in establishing slavery in a franchise that just isn't capable of exploring this concept
in an appropriate fashion.
Before the prequel trilogy, the aliens in "Star Wars" weren't exactly devoid of racially
stereotypical behavior, but it wasn't a prominent feature.
That all changed within minutes of "The Phantom Menace."
First, the Los Angeles Times observed that Nute Gunray speaks in an accent that, charitably
speaking, sounds like a caricature of an Eastern accent.
It is all downhill from there, as a trip to Naboo finds Jar-Jar Binks sounding like what
The Baltimore Sun likened to an unfortunate combination of minstrel and Rastafarian stereotypes.
Slate notes that leaving Naboo doesn't help matters, as viewers soon meet a potentially
anti-Semitic stereotype in Watto, who flies around talking about his love for money in
another offensive accent.
Classic aliens in the "Star Wars" franchise made you want to buy their action figures.
The aliens in "The Phantom Menace" largely reminded moviegoers of ugly racial stereotypes
from Earth, but without any commentary to justify their presence.
After Luke Skywalker is rescued from the clutches of Hoth's cold weather at the start of "Empire
Strikes Back," he's talking to Han Solo and Leia Organa when the discussion turns into
an argument between Organa and Solo concerning the possibility of Leia harboring secret romantic
attractions to this scoundrel.
To prove that Solo is wrong, Organa proceeds to plant a big smooch on Luke's lips.
"Well, I guess you don't know everything about women yet."
In the grand scheme of "Star Wars" lore, it's apparent why this scene goes too far given
that Skywalker and Organa are eventually revealed to be twins separated at birth.
In defense of "The Empire Strikes Back," that piece of lore wasn't defined yet when the
film was in production, with George Lucas initially planning at one point to have Luke's
sister be a new character.
Still, as part of a sprawling saga, the greater context of the duo's relationship makes this
moment squirm-inducing rather than its initial intent of registering as just humorous.
No wonder this kiss has been burned into the minds of "Star Wars" fans for all the wrong
reasons!
"That was so wrong."
Throughout her screentime in "Solo: A Star Wars Story," L3-37 is all about giving droids
autonomy and freeing them from their human masters.
This passion comes to a head on a Kessel mine mission, where she leads a droid revolution
just before getting shot and killed in the heat of battle.
Here, it appears that L3's storyline has come to an end — but "Solo" isn't finished with
this character just yet.
Shortly afterward, L3's consciousness is uploaded to the Millennium Falcon, a development L3
has no say in and that all her previous actions suggest she would be vehemently against.
It's a conclusion to her storyline that's meant to make the audience happy seeing how
Lando's robot pal is now inside Lando's ship.
However, it only serves to give L3 a send-off that undermines her sole notable character
trait.
It also apparently exists mainly as fan service to explain a line by C-3PO from "The Empire
Strikes Back."
"I don't know where your ship learned to communicate, but it has the most peculiar dialect!"
The screenwriting in "Solo" is often muddled, but the treatment of L3 here takes things
to a whole new level.
In "Attack of The Clones," Anakin Skywalker's descent to the dark side of the Force begins
when he sneaks into a Tusken Raider camp and finds his mother dying from extreme injuries.
After they share one final goodbye, she passes away.
Anakin then bursts out of the tent she was held in and slices down a Tusken Raider.
The screen cuts to black, but Skywalker later informs Padme Amidala that, in an act of rage
and revenge, he killed all of the Tusken Raiders on the premises.
"I slaughtered them like animals!"
The trajectory of the prequels trilogy means that Anakin Skywalker has to grow more and
more nefarious as these movies move along.
It was only inevitable that one of these features would contain a sequence where Skywalker commits
some unspeakable act of violence.
However, as executed here, Skywalker's vicious revenge goes a bit too far, mostly because
there's never a moment for "Attack of the Clones" to properly process the gravity of
this event.
It just moves on to the next thing.
Though it makes sense in his character arc, the slaughtering of the Tusken Raiders is
clumsily executed enough to undercut its important intent.
At least when Anakin later kills the Jedi children in "Revenge of the Sith," it's treated
like the horrible event it is.
Once Leia Organa is captured by the nefarious crime lord Jabba the Hutt in "Return of the
Jedi," the space slug proceeds to dress the princess up in a chain bikini, which Leia
wears for the rest of the first act.
It isn't until the action shifts off the planet of Tatooine that she gets a new costume.
Though Leia didn't don this bikini again in "Return of the Jedi," this costume quickly
became an iconic piece of imagery that was common in cosplay circles and merchandising.
The latter use of the chain bikini costume is downright disturbing given how Organa is
kept on a chain and forced to wear the skimpy outfit by Jabba the Hutt.
However, Lucasfilm merchandising had no problem taking this image and putting it on posters,
T-shirts, and other items.
The exploitation of Leia and by extension actress Carrie Fisher only ended when Disney
bought the rights to "Star Wars" and announced they were discontinuing merchandise with the
bikini outfit.
A little more than halfway into the 2008 movie "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," audiences meet
a new character in Ziro the Hutt.
He's a crime lord like the much more famous Jabba the Hutt, but there are a few key differences
between the two.
For one thing, Ziro speaks perfect English.
For another, he's got the voice of Truman Capote [kuh-PO-tee] and is covered in purple
skin.
The combination of a flamboyant voice and the color purple, which is often associated
with the LGBTQIA+ community, makes it clear that Ziro the Hutt is a gay stereotype of
the sort that belongs in Hollywood's past, not present.
There's nothing inherently wrong with having a villain character whose incidentally gay,
but it is strange to lean on such broad queer stereotypes as a way of defining your antagonist.
This becomes even more recognizable in a franchise as devoid of nuanced queer representation
as "Star Wars."
It also doesn't help that Ziro's character traits stemming from queer stereotypes feel
like they exist to make heterosexual viewers giggle out of mockery.
While he may be one of the brand-new characters introduced in the "Star Wars: The Clone Wars"
feature, Ziro is also an unfortunate relic of when flamboyantly evil queer villains were
common in children's entertainment.
Padme Amidala is nowhere to be seen in the original trilogy of "Star Wars" movies from
the 1970s and 1980s.
Thus, it is only a matter of time before the lone prominent female character in the prequel
trilogy is either killed off or otherwise pushed to the sidelines.
Even with everyone aware of this inevitability, however, it was still shocking how "Revenge
of the Sith" chose to dispose of the then-pregnant Amidala.
A short time after Amidala is Force choked by her husband Anakin Skywalker, a medical
droid notes that they can save the babies, but Amidala herself is dying for… who knows.
Inexplicable reasons!
Perishing shortly after she informs Obi-Wan Kenobi that Anakin still has "good in him,"
Amidala's primary purpose of birthing Luke and Leia is complete.
It's a strange whimper of a conclusion for the character, especially since it contradicts
how Leia states in "Return of the Jedi" that she can remember her mother.
That pre-established lore could've allowed an easy out to avoid killing off Amidala.
Instead, "Revenge of the Sith" goes too far in killing off the only notable woman in the
origin films and gets rid of her in a bizarre fashion to boot.
In "Solo: A Star Wars Story," history was made with the introduction of Val, the most
prominent Black woman to exist in live-action "Star Wars" media up to that point.
Introduced as a clever rogue married to Tobias Beckett, the character doesn't last long in
"Solo."
During a heist gone awry, Val is one of two close allies to Beckett that ends up perishing.
Sacrificing herself to ensure that the mission can be finished properly, Val dies.
The first major set-piece in "Solo: A Star Wars Story" isn't even finished yet, and a
promising character is already out the door.
Given that this development exists solely to motivate Beckett's subsequent actions,
the demise of Val can't help but feel like a classic example of fridging.
Fridging, as explained by Vox, is a narrative device that sees a female character die to
motivate the story's male protagonist.
This tiresome narrative staple feels especially out of place in a "Star Wars" movie, given
how often this franchise has been all about subverting expectations rather than giving
in to them.
The lack of many other Black women in "Star Wars" also makes this death extra disappointing.
Even actress Thandiwe [tan-DEE-way] Newton, who played Val, commented on this in an interview
about "Solo."
Val could've been a landmark "Star Wars" character, but instead, she was a disappointing example
of how little notice Black women get in this franchise.
Everybody loves Grogu, aka Baby Yoda.
Fans make memes about him, t-shirts featuring his adorable mug are everywhere, he's even
gotten his own Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade float.
However, that doesn't mean Grogu is devoid of controversy in the "Star Wars" franchise.
One Season 2 episode of "The Mandalorian" features Grogu scarfing down the eggs of their
froglike alien passenger.
While the titular lead of "The Mandalorian" tells Grogu to knock it off, this baby is
always eyeballing the canister containing the eggs.
Meant as a dark gag, fans did not respond well to Grogu's egg consumption which, in
effect, reduces the population of this already struggling alien species to even lower numbers.
He's eating their children!
A brief backlash occurred that proved so loud that a creative arts manager at Lucasfilm
had to put out a response defending Grogu's actions by comparing the frog eggs to chicken
eggs.
Of course, the controversy didn't last long and people were soon back to making adorable
GIFs.
However, this character's controversial approach to satisfying his hunger shows that any "Star
Wars" character, even fan-favorites, can end up going too far.
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