Branwen Z. wrote: 1/ Fair warning, I’m in a mood and I’m about to go on an extended spoiler-filled rant about The Last Jedi and some of the criticism I’ve seen leveled against it.
2/ If you’re a woman, trans woman, trans femme, enby, or person of color, I’m happy to listen to the reasons you find yourself disappointed or let down by the movie. What I’m about to rail against is a number of criticisms I’e heard from cishet white men.
3/ I’m not even going to address those criticisms directly, I’m just going to expose what I contend are the actual biases behind the criticisms.
4/ TLJ has more prominent speaking roles for women that practically all the SW films put together, and certainly more than any 1 SW film has yet. In a wold where women are considered pushy if their input is 40% of a meeting, I think that’s significant.
5/ Furthermore, this is the first SW movie where the women WERE ALWAYS RIGHT and always won the day. All the familiar tropes of male heroism were tossed out on their ear - as well they should be.
6/ The roguish hero with a heart of gold was revealed to have only succeeded because General Organa has a soft spot for such reckless men. Faced with a less-forgiving woman in power he petulantly concocts a plan that results in the death of a LOT of good people.
7/ And even the tolerant mother-figure who has put up with him out of complicated feelings for her lost son and the roguish husband whom she has split with finally just shoots him rather than tolerate his hubris any longer.
8/ The defector who quit the Empire and finds inspiration in a strong female friend, tuns out to be incapable of making it on his own and tries to defect again, only to latch on to another strong female friend.
9/ The legendary hero turns out to be incapable of saving Rey, much less the whole resistance & his final sacrifice is that of a decoy. None of the men are able to fulfill their destiny in this movie until they they finally honor the women in their lives.
10/ Time and time again it is the women who express the ultimate theme of the Star Wars saga through their actions. Finally, its Rose - dear, sweet, strong Rose, who does not conform to Hollywood’s traditional beauty standards - who finally gets to remind us...
11/ ...that the theme has been nurture all along. “We will not win this by destroying those we hate. We will win this by saving those we love.” The ultimate and most powerful message of the entire sage, summed up in one of many selfless acts.
12/ And the boys’ heroes - the scamp who turns out to be entirely self-interested, the washed-up Jedi who admitted his adherence to a rule of law was doomed to failure, the fly-boy who turned out to be short-sighted and reckless, the turncoat who turned out to have no identity...
13/ Outside of the closest strong personality? Those are the men who surround me in the geek community. Those are the men who desperately try and convince themselves they are special. And you know what? They aren’t special. The special ones are...
14/ The General who carries on and stays engaged despite immeasurable heart ache and personal loss.
15/ The Admiral who doesn’t bother to explain herself to the man she knows won’t believe her, but is capable of sacrificing herself for the greater good when his plans threaten to destroy everything she’s worked for.
16/ And the grief-sticken, duty-bound, woman who is not the smartest, not the strongest, not the fastest, but is true to herself and sees the good in a man who can’t see the good inside himself, even though he takes her ideas and tries to eclipse her with them.
17/ The men who complain DJ was self-motivated, Finn was redundant, Poe was sloppy, Luke was ineffectual - they see themselves as they TRULY are in these characters, as opposed to who they WANT to be. And they see the women around them reflected in Rey, Organa, Holdo, & Rose.
/18 & that terrifies them because it shows the lie in every other Hollywood ego-prop that abusive, terrible men have woven to disguise themselves as “master storytellers” while they masturbate the same 6 points of the Hero’s Journey into the cauldron that spits out endless...
19/ ...stale clones of the original Star Wars that Lucas directed by further-watering down & white-cishet-male-sizing an already racist and misogynist theory of storytelling proffered by Jospeh Campbell.
20/ Make no mistake, this movie in a post-Weinstein, Jones-winning world is a rallying cry. Enough with these men who only make movies that glorify themselves and their sexual predilections. Enough with movies that hide male fragility behind male ego.
21/ This is why I love TLJ more than all of the other SW movies. IT. FOCUSED. ON. THE. WOMEN. Did it have flaws? Sure. Was it a courageous effort to wrestle some great narrative sensibility out of the clutches of men who can only see themselves & their conquests in movies? Yes.
22/ Ultimately, TLJ asserts that the male-centric approach to resolving conflict only results in the continuance of conflict. And that the universe is full of people who benefit from the blind continuance of male-dominated war-like politics.
23/ And, ultimately, this is the crime that cisher white male fandom cannot forgive - that the world is not comprised of great evil men and great good men who determine the fate of all those around them - but of selfish, scared, tiny men who allow...
24/ ...themselves to be manipulated into self-destructive patterns that ultimately ruin all of their relationships and their hope for greatness.
25/ Also. Puppet Yoda always has been and always will be superior to CGI Yoda.
26/ Thank you and good night.