Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Part 2, The Social Justice Crusade

I had originally planned to make this part two in my series on Star Wars: The Force Awakens. However I’ve decided to not wait until putting the finishing touches on the first part because I believe what’s revealed in the following meditation is central to the message of the new Star Wars. We were brought to theaters with the idea that we were to be engrossed by an entertaining sci-fi story that captured a generation’s imagination and which was set to do so for another. While that was true, there was another agenda. And it is that agenda I wish to reveal now. My original introduction to part two is below. Also, the original posting of this meditation is at my new Talagxaon blog.

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I'm now going to talk to you about why I think this movie had an agenda, and a particular one at that, one that became glaringly obvious as I continued to watch, and which was confirmed in my later researches and readings on the subject. But, first, to set the stage, let's talk about the women who showed up in The Force Awakens, because it is indeed women who are the central focus of my insights into the crusade of this movie.

The Women of The Force Awakens

Princess Leia Organa-Solo

General Leia Organa-Solo

She is the one female holdover from the 1970s-80s trilogy, the feisty Princess Leia, Rebel Alliance leader and battle-hardened but emotionally tender soldier, the lost daughter of Anakin Skywalker and sister of Luke Skywalker, Force sensitive, the love interest of Han Solo. It is Princess, now General Leia who is the most credible female presence in The Force Awakens. In the course of things we learn several important developments about General Organa: she's now a key figure in the new galactic Resistance movement to the remnant Empire-First Order tyranny; she was once married to and is now (presumably) divorced or separated from Han Solo; and together they've had at least one child, Ben Solo, who is also the main antagonist of Episode VII, the ominous Kylo Ren, who desires to be the inadequate successor to his late Dark Side-fallen grandfather, Anakin Skywalker, aka Darth Vader.

But though seeing her again is cool, and though there is a very memorable and emotionally touching reunion between herself and Han Solo, Princess Leia is hardly used to full capacity in the storyline, almost appearing as another backdrop on which to overlay the new feminine mystique of the program, Rey. Though this is disappointing it is understandable from a storytelling point of view. However, many questions remain unanswered about Leia's development in the last thirty years of the timeline, questions I hope are answered as this final trilogy unfolds.

But how does my acceptance of Leia diverge from the others?
 

Captain Phasma

Captain Phasma, First Order military leader

Though we do not know it from the beginning, Captain Phasma is female. And we are only given to realize this when she reprimands renegade Stormtrooper Finn when he's finally starting to question his allegiance to the First Order at the outset of the story. Even Phasma's armor is androgynous in order to prevent the possibility of one discerning she's anything but a competent trooper, presumably male; and she never removes her helmet at any point either. So we only have her voice, which is unmistakably feminine. So be it. However, the criticism of this character is not that she's another girl, but the psychology involved in getting us to accept her on-screen presence, which is based primarily on clever but subtle concealment. From the armor that hides her female body parts to the helmet that cloaks her feminine facial features - and which, once removed, would demonstrate that the gig is up - we are given a character which the scriptwriters seemed afraid might be rejected were it to be shown too soon not to be male. 

OOPs, it's a GIRL! OH, MY GOD!  It's got boobs, it can't be a soldier!

Give me a break. 

Sure, undoubtedly, some audience members - male and female - would have a problem with this. But time and again we've observed the opposite to be true, whether it is in the dedication of fans to characters like Jedi Master and Council member Shaak Ti, Alice of Resident Evil notoriety, or the katana-swinging Michonne of The Walking Dead (my personal favorite character next to Rick Grimes himself!). So what was up with consistently keeping the identity and utility of Captain Phasma secret, as if she would be kicked to the curb and resented if it were revealed she was a woman? The only resentment (and I dare say, rejection) of this persona from most viewers would be that it's another useless creation of a female personality for the sake of creating a female personality, as opposed to one who is compelling and thought-provoking. And that itself has a reason which I will declare at the conclusion of the rest of our Women of TFA profiles.

Maz Kanata

Maz Kanata, the female answer to Jedi grandmaster Yoda

"I am not a Jedi," the short, orange Kanata states to Rey in a critical moment of TFA. But clearly she is a mystic of some report who is not only specially attuned to the Force, but is also mysteriously in possession of Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber, the same one given to Luke Skywalker by Obi-Wan Kenobi, and lost during Luke's duel with Darth Vader in Cloud City. It is Kanata who senses the lightsaber's call to Rey in the underground passages of her Mos Eisley-style bar and who informs Rey of her own affinity in the Force. Clearly, though she is not a Jedi, Maz Kanata is meant to be the wizened elder who reveals to Rey, however temporarily, a greater sense of her destiny to come, she who initially sets Rey's feet upon the esoteric path. She is the female equivalent to Jedi grandmaster Yoda (who similarly reveals to Luke Skywalker his own unfolding Jedi destiny) though Kanata herself has never trained to be a Jedi nor lightsaber combatant. To be clear, nothing in Star Wars lore mandates a Force user to be a Jedi. It is simply that these particular Force sensitives have always been front and center of its application in the Star Wars universe.

But is Maz Kanata's presence simply another bow to the fangirls of the series, another way to tell the female audience members, "Look, Star Wars is for you too"? With the plethora of women who repeatedly appear in TFA it can be argued just so, especially as two more, female spies - one for the First Order and the other for the Resistance - show up in Kanata's bar just as our heroes do.

On the right, one of two female spies featured in Kanata's pub

But, "What are you saying? Chicks can't be spies?" Sure they can! And history proves they can be very effective ones when trained properly. The observation here centers around the shear number of women we continue to see in the storyline and asks the reader to ponder why. 

Rey

Rey, the girl who can do anything...and better than any man

This is the desert scavenger who is the central focus of our story- though we are initially misled to believe otherwise. In fact, much of the run-up advertising and even the start of the movie itself misdirects the viewer to think that it is the character Finn who is not only the key figure in this new Episode VII, but also the one in whom, eventually, the Force will awaken. This turns out to be false advertising, and may in fact have been part of the kinds of misdirections which J.J. Abrams is famous for.

However, what we are treated to with the character of Rey is a young woman who is at odds with the universe around her, isolated, and somewhat maladjusted. Fine. Very good. Character traits we can get along with and which are interesting for plot development. Unfortunately, these things, which stand to be the "meat and potatoes" of the character, are only given marginal screen-time, and hardly explored. Instead what we are offered is how smart and tough Rey is. OK! Still fine character traits, but unbalanced with the others in favor of showing us just how strong, modern, and independent she is. Rey becomes, not a character in whom viewers can invest emotional attachment, and whom they may possibly be able to identify with, whatever their sex, but a caricature for the modern feminist woman who ballyhoos at every opportunity, "I don't need no man!" 

Combine these things with the fact that Rey can do anything from fix broken hyperdrive coils to piloting speeders and antique spaceships, to doing in the Force in days what it took more powerful Force adepts than she years to learn, including Chosen One Anakin Skywalker - a veritable genius Rey is! - and you have the perfect recipe for every sci-fi chickadee's dream, a girlie girl who can run circles around the boys while gleefully singing, "Anything you can do I can do better. I can do anything better than you!" And all while keeping her clothes completely on at that!

Social Justice Warriors, rejoice! You now have the sci-fi feminist icon you've waited forty years for!

TFA as a Social Justice Experiment  

Enterprise bridge officer Lt. Uhura, Star Trek: TOS, 1960s era

This is not to say that there's some kind of problem with intelligent, capable females. Indeed in Star Wars as in Star Trek and other sci-fi incarnations, there have been plenty of such type women - from female Jedi and Sith warriors like Ahsoka Tano, Luminara Unduli, Depa Billaba, and Asajj Ventress to women Starfleet officers like Kathryn Janeway, Jadzia Dax, and Kira Nerys; but knowledge of at least some of these awesome SF girls requires a slightly deeper effort to know than mere passive ingestion of television and films. They also require that we refuse SJW efforts to cast these ladies down a convenient memory hole in order to make a point when SJWs don't have one. Given such examples (and there are plenty more) is it then credible that feminist SJWs harp and cry that there are no authentic female sci-fi heroines they can relate to?

Or is it more credible to think that what many feminist SJWs, and their progressivist male allies, are really hollering for in science fiction is the presence of more white female leads and the unqualified worship/acceptance of such leads by men?

That stated, the notion that this observation is about denying chicks their "grrl power" in science fiction is absurd and should not be asserted by anyone objectively reading this criticism. However, we must ask why in TFA was there a consistent, ever-recurring theme to bombard and bamboozle the audience with image upon image of women in positions of authority and/or power, and, in the case of the character Rey, why this very underdeveloped personality was shown in scene after scene either outclassing or upstaging her male counterparts, including in areas where their own expertise was imminently greater than hers. Examples of this include her telling Han Solo how to fix a critical malfunction aboard the Millennium Falcon, a ship he was intimately familiar with before the gifted Ms. Rey was even born, and which she'd only just stepped foot on hours prior to his arrival; her rescuing Finn from the First Order assault on Jakku, and subsequently from the monsters aboard the Falcon; and saving Finn from death at the hands of Kylo Ren on Starkiller Base by besting the wanna-be Darth Vader 2 in a lightsaber fight.

And that example itself raises criticism. Any observing, thinking viewer has to wonder how in bloody hell does an untrained duelist, barely Force-conscious individual like Rey go from having no conceptualization of her own power in the Force to being able to suddenly, expertly "tap into" its living essence - essentially in a matter of days - so much so that she's able to Force Will a stormtrooper to release her from captivity on Starkiller Base and, later, to fight Kylo Ren - a trained and skilled Force wielder and lightsaber duelist - to a standstill though she had not prior experience nor training with either.

Clearly, and without objection, Rey is a talented being, one whose natural ability (particularly with the Force) can be likened to an individual with an "ear" for music, but who has yet to learn how to read music or control his/her own voice. She has raw, undeveloped talent which explodes onto the scene without explanation or cultivation. But she has no skill. And at some point her loosely-awakened, innate talent begins to stretch the boundaries of credulity.

But Why Repeat These Elements Ad Nauseum?

Star Wars was always a boys’ thing, and a movie that dads could take their sons to. 

And although that is still very much the case, I was really hoping this could be a movie 

that mothers could take their daughters to as well.

-- JJ Abrams

The answer, I claim, to not only the "girls are awesome" trope that runs through TFA, but also to Rey's overcompensatory coolness, can be found in the statements of both Lucasfilm CEO Kathleen Kennedy and Episode VII director J.J. Abrams, each of which has candidly asserted their desire to use The Force Awakens as a vehicle to promote the empowerment of girls and women in science fiction and the real world at large. And there is nothing wrong with this idea in principle; if women wish equal rights and privileges in society, that of course will entail full-fledged access to equal opportunity, with the accompanying equal responsibility and accountability to boot.

Linda Hamilton as Sarah Conner from The Terminator series

However, time and again social justice warriors, particularly of the white female feminist variety, attempt to convince us that images of strong, competent women in the media of science fiction (such as the 1960s Star Trek Lt. Uhura shown above) simply either do not exist or are so few and far between as to be inconsequential and unimportant, especially to the inspiration and imagination of girls and women. And thus, in order to compensate for this alleged inadequacy, we must be utterly overwhelmed in modern-day entertainment with this imagination-becomes-reality scenario: fiery but dignified women who can fight stronger and better trained men to the ground (or at the least, to a draw); sharp, intelligent chicks whose technological wizardry runs circles around their male counterparts; or, on the other side of things, cynical and potty-mouthed women whose sardony and sexual liberation puts even a drunken sailor's lifestyle to shame.

Sigourney Weaver as Ripley in Alien

But this perceived lack of "strong women in sci-fi" is not true, and further has not been for decades. I will not catalog every incarnation of tough, diligent female leaders in science fiction and fantasy over the last forty-fifty years, whether in film or print media, because to do so would require several pages. Suffice it to say the information is out there, and just doing a cursory search on the Internet will prove this case. So, again, the notion that there is some perceived lack of female role models for young girls and women to aspire to emulate in SF is just that - a perception - and an incorrect one at that, and one which continues to be demonstrably more untrue as the examples multiply in the fiction stories of the current era.

So, Ms. Kennedy, Mr. Abrams, was it so absolutely necessary to hound us with something that most intelligent SF adherents already know and which most of us have no objection to seeing? I argue not, and further that it would have been better for you to concentrate primarily on giving us a superior story that smoothly incorporated compelling female identities rather than a movie through which you wished to cram down our throats your Star Wars SJW experiment.

The Feminist Force Awakens

I don’t have many choices. But that’s going to change. Going forward with all 

we’re talking about there are going to be a lot of wonderful new [female] characters.

-- Kathleen Kennedy at Star Wars Celebration, 2015

The venomous Diana from the 1980s sci-fi hit, V

At the risk of redundancy, my objection to the profusion of women in The Force Awakens is not because they are women, but the function of these women as a tool of propaganda and brainwashing. It now appears that Star Wars will become a tool of political correctness and 21^st century women’s suffrage rather than the grand operatic space adventure it was always meant to be. Women will not be incorporated into these stories because they are fascinating people with remarkable backgrounds to be explored. They will not add to the great themes of science fiction which examines the human condition and makes insightful commentary on that condition through the guise of futuristic, far-away space adventure. Their skills as fighters, leaders, or savvy scientists will not be earned nor developed but handed to them simply because… well because they’re women. It is an absurd proposition that we are asked to accept this stupidity, and even more absurd that an iconic series like Star Wars has been corrupted, sacrificed on the altar of political correctness, female insecurities, and feminist lunacy.

Kathleen Kennedy and J.J. Abrams saturated TFA with women because their agenda to see women front and center of the sci-fi phenomenon was greater than their desire to tell a genuine, original story that paid homage to this giant of speculative fiction entertainment. Their aim to feminize Star Wars on behalf of a social justice crusade should not be accepted by those who’ve come to love it and its message of liberty, justice, and epic excitement.

Cmdr. Susan Ivanova, 1990s sci-fi adventure, Babylon 5

Further, there was utterly no need for this kind of brainwashing for, as stated earlier, the examples of the types of sci-fi women Kennedy and Abrams would have us believe do not exist have in fact existed for years and decades, and in plenty quantity. They have been heroines, villains, geniuses, morons, saints, whores, and everything in between. In other words they’ve been human characters with the requisite flaws, nuances, and ambitions necessary to create personalities of depth whom audiences could love and hate. Therefore the idea, as Kathleen Kennedy seems to erroneously believe, that there are few women in science fiction she and other female humans can identify with is ridiculous and unfounded on its face. It is a foolish perception that should no longer be accepted by those with knowledge of science fiction history and enough memory to count, or for those with just some basic research skills.

In my next post on The Force Awakens I will delve into the other principal characters and what I thought of them and their relationships to the overall arch.

Until next time...



To the upward reach of man.