SMNTY Classics: The Fem-Pire Strikes Back

For those that find the lack of ladies in the Star Wars universe disturbing, is there a new hope on the horizon? The force is strong with this classic episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I don't go to Stephane.
Never told your protection to I Heart Radio. Samantha. Did
you have a favorite toy growing up or one that
comes to mind that was really important in your childhood? Yeah,

(00:25):
so I actually still have it today. It's my blue
teddy bear named Blooper. Because I have no imagination. I
like it and I loved it because it was reminiscent
of a toy that was sent to me by my
adoptive parents when I was in the orphanage and Korea,
and before I traveled to the U S. Someone stole

(00:46):
it and so I wasn't able to bring it back
with me. But when I was here, someone gifted me
similar doll that was blue, so that one day sent
me was yellow. I did not have a name for that,
but then came here and so that became the one
toy that I actually really really liked. And I will
say I didn't have a lot of toys, and I
wasn't forced myself to like dolls into natty bears like that.

(01:10):
I tried to really get into that because that's what
children are supposed to do. But yeah, this is one
of the ones that that is most sentimental to me. Yeah,
I had something kind of similar is a really important
stepped animal because of it. When I went away to
college and I started traveling a lot and I wasn't
home that much of my dad gave me this little

(01:30):
bear that said someone uh and the Wanaga loves you.
And it got destroyed by one of our dogs. And
it happened to coincide with when my dad and my
relationship really fell apart, and I was like really vindictive
about it, and now it just makes me sad. Oh wow, Yeah,

(01:52):
but I was really into I loved my little ponies,
which I know I've talked about here before and I
still have them, and there's I have some guilt about
that because it's not like I play with them anymore.
But I'm just like, I love them, so must right, right.
But I also I love Star Wars. But it was
assumed that I was a girl and I didn't want

(02:15):
Star Wars toys, and so my brothers got all the
Star Wars toys and I slowly stole them from them,
and I'll admit it openly, especially Return of the Jedi,
because it it became uncool to like Return of the
Jedi once you reached a certain age, and so I
was able to steal those Return of the Jedi toys.
And I still have the Battle of Indoor. Oh, I

(02:36):
would re enact it. It was so epic, So you're
re enacting it now. The walk pretty fantastic, the logs,
that's pretty fantastic. Not that I approve of stealing, but
I approve of the fact that, yeah, you know what,
if they're not gonna give it to you, might as
well take it, don't do it. I think this is
normal sibling rivalry. I'm sure yeah, they would have so.

(03:00):
And Plus, my brother played this really men prank ones
where he put this voice recorder of my doll and
it's said's like I was sleeping within night and it
said something like I'm gonna murder you in your state.
So I think it was fair play. There you go.
Then okay, that's that's a whole new level. Anyway, the
reason I'm bringing this up is because we have talked
a lot about Star Wars on this show, and we've

(03:22):
mentioned this past episode that I did with Bridget several
several times about the feminism and Star Wars, and one
of the things we talked about a lot in this
episode is costuming, but also toys, the importance of toys,
and when the first movie of the new sequel, Child
He came out The Force Awakens, I mean Ray was
the main character. There were several other characters I would

(03:44):
say are very close, but she was like the character
and you couldn't get toys made of her. It was ridiculous.
And in fact, people would call toy stores and they'd
be like, why don't you have this Ray doll? And
they'd be like, we have a lot of Kylo Wren
and everyone was like, we don't want to with your
Get out of here. But that is important, and that
is a conversation that's still ongoing of like all of

(04:07):
these toys kind of trying to be more inclusive with
what they offer and be more equal with what they offer.
So ongoing conversation for sure, but for now, please enjoy
this classic episode. Hello, I'm Annie and I'm Bridget and

(04:27):
this is stuff Moll never told you. And today is
May four, otherwise known as Star Wars Day. May the
fourth be with your Bridgets, May the fourth be with

(04:50):
you as well, and thank you, thank you um. As
you might have guessed from other past episodes, especially action figures.
I'm a bit of a nerd adweve a dork a geek.
I'm a very big Star Wars fan. You seem to
like all things science fiction and fantasy. Yes, this is true.
I I even like I write science fiction, which is

(05:14):
I hear very rare for like joy writing. I don't know,
because I never intend to publish anything. Um, Luke Skywalker
was my first fictional crush. This four year old Annie
looking at the screen, and I gave him a kiss
on the cheek. Why were you so drawn test Star
Wars so early? It's funny because I actually didn't like

(05:36):
Star Wars at first, because I didn't buy The Force
as a young kid. I was like no, But um,
everyone in my family liked it, and I did have
a crush on Luke Skywalker, even if I had my
problems with the Force. I think it was just kind
of a thing where I kept getting watched in my house,

(05:56):
and slowly but surely I got over my my issues
and fell in love with all the characters. And for
a while I was watching all of the original trilogy
every at least once a year, and I wore out
the tape. When you watch it there's like parts are
funny because you watched it so many times you'd be

(06:17):
wound it. Yes, and specifically certain parts that I would like.
This one section I would watch. What section was that
It was the end of a new hope, the big
battle with the Death Star. Yeah, yeah, I liked a
good space battle. Like so here in the studio y'all
can't see. But in classic antie style, she came dressed

(06:39):
to impressed. You do this, only I get to see it,
and it's amazing. She's wearing her Star Wars shirt the
Empire Strikes Back and space leggings. Yeah, I got like
the galaxies on them. Yeah, it's cooler than it sounds. Everybody.
The Empire Strikes Back is my favorite. It is not
the most feminist Star Wars movie, because we are talking

(07:02):
about feminism and Star Wars today. Yes, when Virget she
sent me an email was like, can you come up
with an angle on Star Wars and feminism? I had
like two seconds later, I've got a million ideas well.
This is actually probably a good time to confess something,
which is I just from knowing you personally, I know
you love Star Wars, but I I've never seen Star Wars.

(07:25):
I haven't seen any of them, not a single. Actually,
when I was that's not true. I was on a
plane to l a h two weeks ago and the
movie they were playing with Star Wars, but I didn't
have headphones, so I watched part of it. I was
very confused. It seems like a good movie. I wish
I had gotten the headphone. Which one was it? Do
you know? It was the Oh god, it was the

(07:48):
one I hate. I almost said something that I feel
like people would try to get fired, and I said it, Uh,
the one with the girl, the most recent one. Well,
the most of the recent ones have ladies, and that
the one with Ray. She's in more than one. Okay,
but I don't know. It's okay, we we forgive you,

(08:09):
bridget Well. This is why I think this episode is
good because in my experience, people either love Star Wars
and they have they had a encyclopedic knowledge of it
and what it means, and it means it means something
very personal to them, or they have a super cash
relationship with it, or haven't seen it. So this isn't
This is maybe representing that balance a little bit, the
balance of the floors. Oh my gosh, I get that reference. Yes, yes,

(08:34):
And speaking of um, I've tasked Bridget with making sure
that I don't go too deep into Star Wars nurgery
where no one can understand what I'm saying. I'm sure
it's gonna be fine. I hope, so, I hope so
UM and I used to be a much bigger are
not bigger, but I was maybe a more obsessed fan

(08:56):
I was. I. I would read all the books, and
I had the mix, and I add the video games,
and now I kind of just see the movies and
enjoy them. So I'm not the same level of encyclopedic
knowledge that I once was, but for a period, well,
I almost feel a little bit jealous of people who
are into Star Wars because there's there's so much lore,

(09:18):
there's so many ways to be into it, and so
you know, if you like other kinds of films, you know,
let's say that you really like Richard link Later films
or something. Yeah, there's not like you can't get action
figures and memorabilia and do fan fixure. There's there's so
much to the universe, I guess, and that being being
fans of other kinds of film does not lend itself

(09:38):
easily to that kind of being able to dive in
into this like very vast, rich universe. And that's something
I've always really liked about Star Wars, even though I'm not,
you know, a big fan myself, that it allows for
that kind of expansion of a fandom. That you can
be a fan and express that through writing, and there's
a community for that, express that through cosplay. There's a
community for that. Like whatever way that that interest manifests

(10:02):
for you, there's a community out there doing that, which
is quite interesting, and not a lot of things are
like that. Yeah, it's cool that you can enter kind
of at various points and are from various angles, like
say you like costuming and then you get into Star
Wars that way. That it's it's interesting that there's just
all of these sorts of fans co mingling. Well, that's

(10:23):
actually the if I had to say the way that
I appreciate Star Wars, it's through Carrie Fisher because I'm
a huge but I know her more as like a
writer and humorist and so I'm a huge fan of
saucy sassy ladies, and she is a saucy, sassy lady.
And so even though my connection with her is is

(10:44):
not through that particular film series, I I definitely think
like that, like that is my thread for appreciating the genre.
You know, she was in Scream three, she wasn't. I'm
so glad. I know you can't get me a Carrie Fisher.
What was she in? Excellent? I was thinking that, like

(11:06):
back to our horror movie episode Carrie Fisher, it all
comes you should have talked about her, Well, we had
other things to discuss. Well, well, well we'll we have
to do a whole episode on her. Yes, and one
day we need to do an episode on something that
you're a total fan for. Oh, there's so many things excellent, excellent.

(11:26):
But today we're looking at Star Wars and feminism in
Star Wars because there are so many angles to look
at it. But I thought we'd do kind of an
overview of where we are, because right now we're in
prime Star Wars time, Like there's a new movie coming
out every year, and it is changing a lot as

(11:47):
the audience kind of expects that and demands that and
as times have changed, So there is a lot to
talk about. Um, if we look at when Star Wars
first came out. It had what I think is typically
has been the aastic trio of two white men and
one white lady. So you have Han Solo, Luke Skywalker,
Princess Leiah, who was of course a princess. But I

(12:09):
would say she was still a pretty strong character. She
was a rebel, she was a fighter. Later she was
a general um and there is that element of damsel
in distress, the whole help me will be one kenobe
're my only hope um, the whole slave bikini thing
and return of the Jedi, which was totally to make
her more palatable to the male gaze. Yeah, and she

(12:29):
like kills Jab of the Hut with her change, and
she kind of became a bit of a a resistance
icon for a little bit. She did that like a
people use that as a kind of feminist expression of
rage killing killing your captor with the chains that he
that he locked you up with, which is so much
is rad like that's it is it is um. Yeah,

(12:52):
And she was a feminist icon for the time, and
I would say pretty progressive for the time, which was
around nineteen evan. And because of that, she did ruffle
some some feathers. Review of a New Hope which was
the first one. The fourth one it gets very confusing,
but the first one to come out. UM Critic John

(13:14):
Simon wrote that Princess Leah was played wretchedly by Carrie Fisher,
who is not even appealing as Princess Leiah organa parentheses
in organic l what this is a review like a
critical This is critic. I want to look about the

(13:39):
angry letter like thirty years later, Bridget Justice. Hey, revenge
is a dish best serve cold. This is true, not
from Star Wars, from Star Trek Boom. Oh yeah, you
nailed it, Bridget. Yes, I have like very loose ideas
for a Revenge bakery that I want to open. Um,

(14:01):
so maybe we'll he'll be one of our first customers. Okay,
we definitely need a table and come. Return to the
concept of Revenge Bakery. Yes, I would love to talk
about that more in depth. But um, speaking of Carrie
Fisher and I love for Carrie Fisher. Um. One of
my favorite facts about her is that a friend, a
friend of her, screenwriter Heather Robinson, had to fight off

(14:24):
a predatory Hollywood producer, and Fisher delivered to him by
hand a tiffany box containing a cow tongue inside with
the added touch of a threatening note just to really
get the message home. And according to Robinson, the note read,
if you ever touch my darling, Heather or any other
woman again, the next delivery will be something of yours

(14:45):
and a much smaller box. Damn right. So this is
why I love her like even if that's First of all,
if that works on two levels. One, if that story
is true. Wow, to that story is not true. Just
imagine the lore has to surround you for that to
be the rumor about you and for it to be believable. Yeah,
the fact that we don't know if it's true or not.

(15:06):
Just show us what a badass she was. Yes, you were,
Like I can see her doing that. I totally can
see her hearing that. Um. Both the original trilogy and
the prequels had a strong female character, but once that
straddled being badass with being that demsel damsel that needs rescuing,
empowered and objectified at the same time, and in a

(15:27):
way it reflects where we were with women as a
society and feminism at the time. The prequel's main character,
pad May, got the unfortunate ranking of four out of
five worst Hollywood attempts at feminism. As judged by cracked
dot com, the unfortunate thing with her storyline is she
was strong and then she just kind of became a

(15:50):
whole plot point of she had to die, and she
just died a broken heart, like she existed only to
further this story of the male character. See that just
reminds me of so many times in movies that are
trying to be progressive, and so they add a female
character or a gay character, but that character is not
allowed to sort of exist where the other characters exist.

(16:12):
They have to die a tragic death or they have
to you know, I love someone who doesn't love them back,
and get their heartbroken and kill themselves. Right Like, they're
not allowed to exist as these characters who want them
to be. They have to be sort of tragic or
something bad has to happen. That does kind of strike
me as a weak attempt at feminism. Yeah, it was unfortunate,
and it's one of those things where it's like the Titanic,

(16:33):
we all knew she was going to die. That's because
it was prequels, right, Oh, so you already know. It
just wasn't handled in the best way. Perhaps, man I
I would love to get a look at that writer's room,
because I I would be willing to bet that that
kind of stab at making a feminist, you know, plotline
for a female character was handled by male writers, and

(16:56):
that like, that's why it was kind of narrow or
fell flat and why she didn't strike you as an authentic,
you know, multidimensional character. Yeah, there's also a really embarrassing
scene from the second one attacking the clothes or she's
like getting a pit and she's fighting. She's tough, but
she's wearing this like it's almost a crop top, but

(17:18):
just got it back to it. But then the beast
like that she's fighting, slashes the back of it, so
it becomes a full crop top, and it's like that
what you would wear if you were in hand to
hand combat. You're like, I need my crop top. That's
what I wear for combat. My my tactical crop top.
You right, who among us doesn't have a tactical crop top?

(17:40):
I mean, I'm basically wearing one right now. Your battle
in any minute, So I gotta I got a street
fight planned later, So I'm okay, Yeah, we were we
were going to meet in the parking lot and fight
some other podcast crew. Yeah, we have beef with another podcast.
We'll drop some hits to who it is. Yeah, yeah,
but we're meeting them in the parking lot later. Anyway,

(18:01):
back to Star Wars hwnism. If we skip ahead to
the first of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, The Force Awakens,
and the announcement that one of the main characters was
Ray a lady, Oh my goodness, a disturbance in the Force,
I remember the inevitable. Oh no, the dark side a

(18:21):
k a. Feminism has ruined Star Wars. Um it's two
PC comments, which is kind of funny because she was
still the only female in the cast. Like women are
taking over, and by taking over, I mean they've added
like one, right, I mean it was one. I mean,
I don't know the ratio, isn't That doesn't even throw
off the ratio that you mentioned before, right, She's just

(18:43):
she was like the main one. I guess. Princess Leia
was kind of if you had to list them of
importance in the in an order of importance, she would
be at the bottom, but Ray was at the top.
We think, I mean, this was all speculation. We weren't sure,
but yeah, I remember this pretty clearly. Um. And the
good thing about Ray is she she pretty much ditched

(19:04):
that damsel and distress things she can handle herself, she
told Han Solo, so Um. But she's not that one
dimensional strong female character that annoys the hell out of
me either. Um. She protects b B eight, so she's
got that kind of like nurturing protective side. She's goofy,
she makes mistakes, she's a survivor, and the fact that

(19:24):
some people might doubt her abilities, possibly because of her gender,
is poked out throughout the movie. When Um male character
Finn rushes to her aid she's being attacked earlier in
the movie, he finds she's already taken care of her
would be assailants, and later when he takes her hand
as they're running away from their pursuers, she snaps, I
know how to run without you holding my hand. So

(19:46):
they're kind of always sort of bringing it up. Um.
And she's as a character, she's had to learn to
survive on her own alongside aliens, droids, men, women, all
of them struggling together. And she's not making a feminine
feminist statement or representing a movement. She's just doing what
she has to do and that's the point. She's a
woman who's doing these things, but it's kind of secondary, right,

(20:06):
and so they don't make a big deal about the
fact that you know, a woman is doing so like
in in in films, I hate it when they beat
you over the head with the fact that this is
a one like when it's supposed to be a quote
strong female character to the point where it's very aware
that a strong female character. It's hard to explain, but yeah,
when it keeps strong attention to it, it's like, so

(20:28):
you're saying, because she's a woman, this is astounding that
she's able to do this right exactly exactly that that
just always it almost makes me cringe because I'm happy
that this was just authentically. You know, I am capable,
and I have many you know, I have many sides
to myself. I can be goofy, and I can make mistakes,

(20:48):
and I can be you know, nurturing, and I can
be badass and I can take care of the bad guy,
and I can do all those things because women can
do all of those things. And it's not a big
deal because within our you know, multi fascinated humans just
like everyone else. I know, we've really we've really stumbled
up on something here. Um. Yeah, and she basically she

(21:11):
was a character. I feel like if you can just
write a good character, then they should. It should work
for male or female. That's my opinion. Her look was
important too, because there was no slave bikinis here. In fact,
I believe Carrie Fisher told the actress who plays her,
plays right, Daisy Ridley, keep fighting against that slave bikini. Um.
She wore a very Luke Skywark skywalkery tunic. No discernible

(21:36):
makeup though I'm sure it was that. No makeup makeup
look um, hair tightly pulled back, almost like her gender
was secondary. And that's the point. It didn't define her.
It was her. In the words of the actress who
played her, she doesn't have to be one thing to
embody a woman in a film. It just so happens.
She's a woman, but she just transcends gender. She's going
to speak to men and women. I love that. That

(21:59):
actually under scores a point that I love making about gender,
is that good representations of gender in media is good
for everyone, not just women, not just men, but everyone
like men can benefit from seeing multifaceted, strong women on screen.
In the episode, that I did on Black Panther. We
talked to General Wortham about this UM from the podcast

(22:19):
Still Processing, and she made this great point that I
hadn't considered, which is that when men see strong characters
who are women, who are multifaceted on screen, it actually
helps them in their lives because then they're like, oh,
this is a representation of how men work on teams
with women or how you know, women control up in
my life and I should respect them. It's not just
for women, and to speak to everybody, it's a good everybody. Yeah,

(22:42):
good representation. Good characters benefits all of us. Well, we
have so much more Star Wars and feminism to talk about,
but first a quick break for a word from our sponsor,
and we're back. Thank you sponsor. One of the big

(23:06):
arguments I remember seeing about Ray when it when she
first debuted UM was that she was a Mary Sue UM.
And if you're not familiar with that terminology, one you've
clearly never read fan fiction and too here's here's the
general definition. But it's difficult to pin down a fictional

(23:27):
female character who is perfect in every way, usually usually
an idealized wish fulfillment of the author. Can you give
us some examples of other mary sus. My mind immediately
went to I have written some Van Victor in my day. Yes,
it's from this book, this unpublished manuscript by myself forthcoming,

(23:53):
don't you worry. I wrote a Star Wars dand fiction
that had a Mary Sue and her name was Tera Polaris.
And that is a sign of a Mary you right,
there is when they have a weird like Ariadney, like
some some weeks, I'm like, oh this this girl's complicated, Yeah,
mysterious past. Her name is Hella, hard to pronounce. Yes,
we've got Mary Sue. Um, well, let's look at the

(24:17):
definition a bit more. She's got mad skill, she's hilarious,
she's wicked smart, everyone wants to date her probably, Um.
Depending on what circle you're in, this definition can vary
wildly because what is perfect anyway, It is usually reserved
for fan fiction, but it has expanded to more pop culture.
For another nerd reference, I have heard, um, Lily Potter

(24:37):
from Harry Potter referred to as a Mary Sue. Yeah. Well,
I've also heard that the main character from the Fifty
Shades of Gray movies, she's a bit of a Merry
Sue because she like if you've ever seen I don't
know if you've seen those movies, but she is super talented,
Like she excels at her job in this way that
doesn't make any sense where it's likely you went from
an intern to running this company. What everybody wants to

(24:59):
date her like she's always fending off that that, you know,
affections of people who all want to be in her world.
And it must be nice. But you know, not a
probably a fun facts. Probably all of you know this,
but fifty Shades of Great is based on a Twilight
fan fiction. I didn't know that. I'm all about fan fiction.

(25:21):
I really want to do an episode on fan fiction
one day, one day. UM. The term Mary Suit traces
back to a Chrecky's Tale, a Star Trek fan fic
from nineteen seventy four, which itself was a parody of
another fan fix trope, the self insert, which is when
a bridget finds herself in the middle of stars, she

(25:42):
doesn't know how she got there. What is she gonna
do that? Yeah, that's another one I might have written
one for UM. TV tropes do work as a good
breakdown of a Merry Sue and the common traits all
appropriately ending in sue like anti suit, black hole sue,
god mode sue, sympathetic sue, thirty soup pile up. What's
the thirty soup Pilop. I think that's when they're like,

(26:02):
you have clones, so I thought of Resident Evil and
Alice has all of those. Yeah, I think that's the
thirty soup piet. I love the terminology UM, and also
would be clear we're not talking about the Mary Sue,
which is a website media thing different um. In the
context of raise supposed Mary suoness, the fans point to

(26:26):
her skills like piloting, how quick she was picking up
the force and a lightsaber as evidence. And this criticism
has come up enough that Daisy Ridley, the actress again
was asked about it in an interview and she called
it sexist. She said, there's no such thing as a
Ryan Craig, which there is a Gary stew or a

(26:48):
Marty Sue depending um. But this is derived from Mary Sue,
and probably most people don't know that term. You might
you know Mary Sue, but you probably don't know. And
I feel like, yeah, Mary Sue, even if you're someone
who was a casual consumer of this kind of kind
of media. If if, even if you hadn't heard that term,
if I described it, you'd be like, oh, exactly, I've

(27:08):
seen that a million times. Gary Stue, I feel like,
is much less ubiquitous, right, And that's kind of the
point she was making. Um, it doesn't come up in
interviews with male actors. Are you a Gary stew Um,
They're not criticized in the same gendered way. Their characters
are underdeveloped, are poorly written, they're not Gary Stew's. And

(27:30):
another thing is Luke from the Originals did pretty much
the same thing. Um, I've read nitpicky accounts of Yeah,
but he had more time. He's changed with it. But
that's not really the point. We didn't even ask these
questions about him. We didn't even ask in the before
he went away to train in my favorite one of
the Empire strikes Back. He picked up those things pretty

(27:53):
quick in a New Hope. And we didn't ask those
questions about Haun either. And she's not a perfect character,
and by no means should all characters be like Ray.
But we need all types of good female characters as
diverse as we all are, and some of us are
good at a lot of stuff, and I read a
good point I believe it was from the Mary to

(28:14):
Um about how, like we don't want all male characters
to be like Captain America. You know, like Ray is
one type of character, and because they're so rare, I
guess we're over analyzing everything about it. But she doesn't
have to be this perfect written character. You know. Well,
that's a great argument for why we need more female

(28:35):
representation because if there's not that many, the one who
we the ones who we have, they're gonna be picked apart,
and so it's going to be you know, are they
this or they that? And if we had more, characters
could just sort of exist and you wouldn't have to
sort of be asked in every interview you know what
about this? You know, tell me about your character, what
do you think about gender? All of that, Like like
you said earlier, it would just be something that exists

(28:56):
and not something that has to be sort of picked apart.
Even though I recognize the irony that we're doing a
podcast basically doing that, whatever, I think we're picking apart
more of like the reaction, yeah, I mean, I'm yeah. Um. Also,
I'll pick up part any media that I love. I'm
that type of person, but I A good exercise I

(29:17):
found is to imagine her as a white male character
and to see if you'd have the same issues cropping
up with him, this white male character being too good,
it's something or too many things. That's a good exercise
is that the any did you come up with that?
I feel like probably a lot of people have had
this thought, but I had. I did have the thought
my brain a Star Wars test. You know, you feel weird,

(29:42):
ask or something. See what it tells you. An tests
should coin that. Yes, can we make any money off
of it? We're all about making the money. And as
reported by the Mary Suit about this whole Mary su thing,
a group called down with Disney's treatment of franchises and
It's and boys raised an army of bots to tank

(30:03):
The last jedis the which is the sequel to The
Force Awakens Um Rotten Tomato score why according to them,
quote introducing more female characters into the franchises universe, making
one of the male characters quote a victim of anti
Man's planning movement. The two main male characters might quote

(30:25):
turn gay. Oh my god, oh my god. Okay, this
is something that I mean, I the the amount of
vitriol I have for people that do this kind of
thing is vast, and you see it so often. They
did the same thing with The Black Panther, where people
wanted to not people I guess white men who were

(30:47):
who were annoying. How dare this one movie have black characters?
And oh god, I know the worst. But I mean,
this is a level of protectiveness I think you see
in a lot of sort of fan cultures where you know,
it's it's cool to have something that you like and
you protective of it, but it can really easily spit
out into something that's super toxic. And it's it's super

(31:09):
toxic too, have a coordinated campaign to tank the reviews
and the scores of this film, Like that's if you
find yourself doing that, take a step back and look
at yourself. I mean, come on, yeah, it's not yours.
That what's always gotten to me, Like, it's not yours,
not yours, everybody, it's everybody's. And the more people, I

(31:33):
would hope and think, the more people that enjoy it,
that enjoy something you like, even if it is in
a different way that maybe it's not the same as yours,
but they still like it, and can't we all share
in this enjoyment of the thing and instead of trying
to exclude people or I could do a whole feel
about fan entitlement um, especially as since I am a
nerd and a woman, I get s so many times

(31:55):
to prove. Like, see you wearing a Star Wars shirt?
You like Star Wars? So tell me where was? What
planet is? How old is you? What? What was the
name of the production assistant? And what high school did
he go to? In the empire strikes back, Oh, you
don't know. I got you were a fan. That's I mean,
I I get that too, Like you know, being a

(32:15):
music fan. That's like if you're wearing like, uh, you know,
a short of any band? Dudes love to test you.
But what's funny is that I guarantee that nine of
ten dudes out there and I welcome the challenge. So
you see me in a bar, feel free to challenge me.
I know more about music than them, and I love
luring the men like oh yeah, Like, ask me some
questions so that I can dance circles around you with

(32:38):
my knowledge, and I bet you do the same thing.
You're like Oh yeah, please please challenge me, sir, so
I can show you how much more I know about
this than you and embarrass you and make you rue
the day you ever came up and talk to me. Yeah.
I feel like you're a hustler like instead of a
pool hustler. Hustler, I love when you do. You win

(33:00):
those battles and then they kind of are like, well,
I mean, I guess you know some things, but I
probably know more. They just kind of walk away. Okay, Cool,
that was a fun interaction. Um, and we'll we'll come
back to the last Jedi in a second, and we'll
come back to even more fun angry response to it.

(33:23):
But there's another movie we need to touch on, and chronologically,
Star Wars can get very confusing, and I think bridget
you and I should have a like Star Wars night.
I'm just gonna you're gonna have to let me nerd
out for like twenty minutes and then I'll leave you alone. Um. So,
you get The Fource Awakens, you get Rogue one, which

(33:45):
is actually a prequel to a New Hope anyway. Um.
Felicity Jones plays the main character Jin er So, who
is tough. She's a fighter. She's a leader. And what's
interesting about her is that if you look at the
Star Wars films preceding her, there's always kind of a
pair thing happening. Um, but this is not really the

(34:05):
case in Rogue one. There are pairs, but she's the
main character. The story revolves around her, and um, there
is kind of a romance, but I would argue it's
like not even really a romance. It's just not the
main point. And it's pretty much her story and not um,
not even partner pairs like Han and Luke or Leah

(34:28):
and Han or like it was her and that was
the first time that's happened in the Star Wars universe. Um.
And she wears practical combat stuff and she's very successful
in combat. You keep mentioning the costuming, and that's a
small thing, but it isn't really a small thing when
you think about it, Like when you when if you
grew up watching movies or women fight and they're always

(34:49):
in bikinis or outfits that make no sense. Even that small,
the detail like the costuming does signal we understand that
that we have been treating with female care actors in
this weird, gross way. With this weird, gross gaze and
we're stepping away from that. Like even a small detail
like that does seem to show some sort of progress. Yeah,

(35:10):
and I will say from a personal level, I wasn't
until I got to college that I realized how much
like seeing those images of women sexualized but in kind
of like a weird it's okay way because they're also
strong had impacted me because it still is telling you like, ultimately,
it's your body and your looks is where your value

(35:31):
is and that's why you're here. You might be able
to do this stuff and that's cool, but it's your body.
Even if you're Laura Cross and you're super talented and
super you know, tactical, you gotta be wearing like a
sexy outfit. Yeah, and again I'm all about wearing a
sexy outfit. But it's just like in fighting, situations are
all the time, constant when it doesn't make sense. That's

(35:55):
why it's refreshing to see, Oh, she's in practical clothes
for the situation she is in. It always reminds me
of this idea of suspension of disbelief. Right when you
watch a movie, you're supposed to be sort of immersed
in this world and details like that that are like
make no sense. It's almost like a continuity issue. But
it just goes to show that her looking sexy is
more important than the movie making sense in a kind

(36:17):
of way, right, Like this would never happen in reality,
but the filmmakers care less about that, about maintaining the
integrity of the universe they have belt than they do
about you know, sexy ladies. Yeah, but it also goes
to show how um commonplace it is that we don't
really question it so much, like, well, yeah, of course

(36:38):
she's going to be no sexy thing. She's a hot
lady and she's the lady in this group. So that's
just how it goes. So I'm I'm glad that we're
moving away from that. And I gotta say I love
the costuming of like Jenner. So she looks badass. You
can you can have you can look good and still
be practical. Yeah. Okay, so we have even more, even

(37:02):
more um. But first, one last quick break for a
word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you sponsor. Okay.
Now we arrive at the last Jedi, and as that

(37:26):
terrified fanboy group decried um, this one did introduce more
female characters. You've got Rose who took nobis, Admiral Holdo
who took no bis, especially from quote trigger happy fly Boys. Yeah,
it bought Bacalaia now a commander who takes no bs,
and right of course, who took no bs. Um. And

(37:47):
that's the most in the main cast of any Star
Wars film to date. I love that. So I love
that they put Leia and Ray kind of in conversation. Yeah, yeah,
that's cool. Yeah, and um, Admiral holder and Leiah are friends.
And then it was like the first female stars friendship
and they just have conversations where they're both leaders trying

(38:08):
to accomplish this thing, but they're friendly with each other.
And it's wild that that is. So it's wild that
that's wild. Yeah exactly. I was watching it like whoa, whoa,
what's happening? Um. It has been called the most feminist
Star Wars yet. Anna Smith of The Guardian wrote, both

(38:28):
in terms of women and non white characters, there's a
celebratory inclusiveness that seems entirely in the Jedi spirit. Documentarian
analees A. Fillion wrote The Last Jedi depicts women as
multifaceted multigenerational, multiracial. There are women in strong leadership leadership
positions and women who occupy student learner positions. Yeah. So

(38:50):
I love how she's broken this down because again, it
sort of reflects how women work in teams where you
have you know. That's why I love the fact that
they brought Carrie Fisher back to you know, be in
conversation with another strong female leader. It really seems to
reflect the dynamic that women have in workplaces and sort
of mentorship and peers and you know, getting along or

(39:11):
like maybe you don't get along, but you're still you
still respect for each other. I love that it's a
really multifaceted illustration of women on teams together and women
leading together. Yeah. I love it too, And I hadn't
really considered, Um, I was telling you yesterday, Rig that
doing the research for this episode made me appreciate this
movie even more because when I first saw it, Um,

(39:34):
it's all about failure and it's a very difficult movie
to watch in my opinion, it was. And plus Luke
Skywalker my crush. Well, anyway, I gotta I gotta tell y'all,
I ran into Annie in the bathroom here at the
studio yesterday and we were talking about this in the
bathroom and you were like, I almost can't watch it again.
I can't. It's tough because it's all about it is

(39:56):
about failure, and Um, I didn't realize until I was
doing this research said, a lot of it is about
shutting down man's planing. Um. The fanboy group pulls right
about that. So much of it is like after after
me and my friends saw it. One of the characters Po,
who's very likable, UM, and that that's important is that
he's likable. We all like him. But he keeps making

(40:19):
these mistakes and he's not listening to Leo when she
gives him orders. He's not listening to Holdo and she
gives him orders. He does all these things and kind
of ruins everything, kind of keeps messing up plan after
plan after plan. Sounds familiar, Like I know some of
these types. But see, it's great because we like him.

(40:40):
It's better to see it because if it's a villain,
you can just dismiss it. Yeah, exactly. So if he
because he's likable and he seems like a nice enough guy.
When there's somebody in your life who was being toxic
and sexist and racist or whatever. Sometimes it is, or
I would say probably more often than not, it's someone
who you you know, maybe like or do you feel like, Oh,
he's not a bad person, not a bad guy. So

(41:01):
it's it's good to have the character who keeps, you know,
up for lack of a better word, and not listening
to women, be sort of someone who seems nice enough,
not like this scary, awful villain, because that that author
rises those those sentiments like those are sentiments that we
associate with someone who's a bad guy. I'm not a
bad guy, therefore I'm fine, you know. Yeah, And um,

(41:24):
he has a character arc and he kind of sees
I have made all of these mistakes and now I
really need to shut up and listen. Um. But after
I left, like, but your minds a buzz with what
we've just seen. And my friend turned to me and
I dropped a bucket of popcorn, and she turned to
me and she said, you really powed it up, which
is the name of the character. And I didn't realize

(41:46):
until we're doing this, like, oh, my gosh, man's planning
oh powing it up. Um. As you can imagine, there
was so much fanboy backlash tweets like the movie was garbage.
They're making movies now for feminists in mainland China. The

(42:06):
rest of us don't matter, I guess for exclamation points
or too much comedy and social justice warrior references, especially
by Vice Admiral Purple Hair on the resistance in quotes
in all calves and quote this of all, if you're
trying to emphasize the word in a tweet, you don't
need both. You can or you can do all caps.
You do not need both. That's egregious. Yeah. Now I'm

(42:29):
like questioning, what if this is a joke tweet. I
don't know. I mean, look at it. I mean, that's
really it's too much. It's too much. It was clearly
aimed at at real Donald Trump and his supporters. Thanks
for ruining the Star Wars franchise, Disney, And has anyone
noticed that the new Star Wars series is all feminist propaganda?

(42:50):
Oh my god. First of all, I love this idea
that feminists are this underground sleeper cell network that's very powerful,
that we're churning out propaganda to make more feminists and
we have meetings underground Disney. I mean, I love this
reality where we have all this power, you know, you
know we have that we have a you know, a

(43:10):
bug in the year of big time executives at Disney.
I wish that was the case, or maybe it is
the case. Let's not say too much. Yeah, I don't wanna,
I don't wanna. Don't give too much away. Um, And
this is something I did want to know, is um
and most likely unnecessarily, but in all cases, you cannot
like the movie. Um. There are problems with all of them,

(43:31):
legitimate critiques. I had problems with um most of them,
and especially some of the new ones. But we're looking
here specifically at people who found the problem with it
because it was feminist, or because they were looking at
the female characters in this way that we do not
look at male characters, are judging them through that way.
Totally cool to not like a movie for like legitimate,

(43:53):
non non sexist reason. Yeah, yeah, I think that's an
important point to make, because you don't make anyone is
saying you have to like this movie, but not liking
it specifically because it has too many women is really yeah. Yeah,
And again, like going back to that Mary Sue argument,
if you're saying you think the character of Ray is

(44:14):
underdeveloped or poorly written. Yeah, yeah, that's that's different than
she's a Mary Sue, and I a man would never
Oh I did read? Oh wait, I have it right here.
Here's a quote. Here's a quote from American Greatness. For
Ray to truly struggle, to encounter an internal crisis that

(44:37):
would develop her as a character would be to make
her vulnerable and thus more of a woman, but less
of a feminist hero. So screenwriter and director Ryan Johnson
perchure of weakness and dependency, and the filmmakers desire to
paint her as a feminist badass and girl power boss
bitch who can take care of herself, Thank you very much.
Johnson leaves with a lonely and utterly rootless woman crammed

(45:00):
into a hyper masculine role. This portrayal doesn't work because
men and women are not interchangeable. Neither are the masculine
and feminine hero miss. The feminist effort to chevret and
to the masculine journey results in an essentially transgendered, unnatural,
and corrupt character, but beyond her in authenticity as a

(45:21):
masculine hero raised perfection and are cross dressing deprived. The
film of another crucial element. Wow, I could have quoted
that whole argument. There was so much there that I
was reading, like, he cannot be as serious. He's totally serious.
I was laughing aloud at some of it because I thought,
no way can someone right this seriously? Yeah, I mean

(45:43):
that's that's the most intense thing I've ever read. I mean,
Star Wars brings out the intensity, but that's essentially what
I'm saying. If you if you got problems with it
because you think it's poorly written, okay, but if you've
got problems with it because of something like this, that
you think that you know she's a I mean, he
just he describes her as transgendered. He says, essentially transgendered.

(46:09):
A wild thing to say that is that is such
a wild thing to say. And he even points out
her her clothes. I don't know if it was in
that quote, but he does, he pointed it out. He says, yeah,
he says that her quote cross dressing by the film
of Romance. Like, I just think that even the language
that he uses to break this up down is almost
I almost find it shocking. Yeah, I really want to

(46:31):
know what woman hurt this guy, Like what strong feminist
character who wasn't vulnerable and I was dressed like a man.
This guy I don't know, Bridget will never know. Um
Holda was a She was a character. She's played by
Laura Dern. I love Laura um And she had purple

(46:52):
hair and jewelry and kind of a nice dress, and
she drew a lot of criticism. And I think the
reason a lot of the fanboys really had a problem
with her, it's because she was feminized, but also because
she kind of came in and then told Poe that
the male character that's pretty likable. I'm in I'm in
charge now and you're gonna do what I say, And

(47:13):
nobody none of these angry fan boys liked that. I
also think it's interesting, going back to one of the
angry fanboy tweets that you shared earlier in the episode,
that he specifically says, oh with her purple hair. I
almost wonder if it's something about her presentation, because when
you wouldn't as someone who has been screamed at by
white dudes on the internet for being a quote social

(47:36):
justice warrior or a feminist or whatever. Um, they definitely
do have a stereotype of you know, oh, you're a shrill,
angry feminist. Purple hair, you know, septim piercing, you know,
you dress a certain way. And I almost wonder if
because she has purple hair and wears jewelry, if that
that sort of there's a connection there where the kind

(47:56):
of dudes who shout at feminists on Twitter like oh
you and your purple hair and and jewelry and knows piercing.
You see that and they're like, Ah, it's that girl
from Twitter. And now she's lecturing me about man's bleeding
and tell this guy what to do. My worst nightmare
realized on screen is happening now. It's playing out before
my very eyes. Um. I read from Laura Dern. She

(48:20):
kind of discussed this because it was a pretty visceral backlash,
um from a small like it's actually a very small contingent.
They just have a loud voice, as I'm sure you're
familiar with. But she she spoke to that and she
said it was very important to her and also the
director and screenwriter Ryan Johnson that she be not I
mean necessarily feminized, but that she'd be kind of there's

(48:43):
feminine hints to her costume, that she had purple hair,
that she had jewelry, she had a welfinning dress. She
like we kind of discussed in the Final Girl episode,
there was this need to make the Final Girl more masculine,
but they made a deliberate choice here she's feminine. She's
a good leader song in this episode. We've talked a
lot about costuming choices and how it is cool in

(49:03):
movies when women are dressed appropriately for what they're doing.
So if they're in battle, you know, they're wearing clothes
that make sense that you would actually wear into battle.
But I also think it's cool to have female characters
who are strong leaders who dressed feminine. I don't know,
I just think that there's not You can be a
strong leader and still wear jewelry and get your hair
dyed and enjoy makeup or where heels or whatever. I
think that that's sort of my my larger point that

(49:26):
our media should be representative of all of that. So
whether you're you know, Laura Dern and you're in the
salon every two weeks to get your roots done there
and it's important to you or your ray who just
wears your hair pulled back and you don't have time
for that nonsense both of those are are strong women
leaders and both both of those should be represented right.
And I think one of the key points to is

(49:49):
that um people just dismissed her, even Um dismissed Holdo.
Even Poe the character he sees here and he's like,
that's Admiral Holdo and it says it kind of derisively.
So just to see someone, in this case a woman,
just a certain way and that's it, Like, I'm not

(50:11):
going to take orders from you, or I think this
character is the lesbian, or you know, just to write
someone off immediately or to put these whatever you think
that means, what the how they're dressing on them immediately.
I think that was a good Um, it was a
I like that they made this decision to do that
purposefully for her. And it's it goes back to the

(50:33):
context thing to write, because Ray is surviving in the desert,
so she's gonna have to like be in a tunic,
and pretty much a tunic which I did read was
slightly it had a belt to accentuate her waist. Nice.
It sounds comfortable, right, a belted tunic. If I see

(50:56):
you walking around the office of the belted tunic, I'm
gonna go get one too. I'm just saying I'm gonna
hop on the train, but I need someone else to
take the first. Yes, but first you know, I'll be
the Rosa Parks and belted tunic perfect perfect. Um. Yeah. So,
like we said, uh, Poe dismisses her. But if you
look at Leia Um Leia to she she's somebody who's

(51:20):
lost most of her family at this point in one
way or another. UM, and she's still being a strong
leader in a mentor um. And if you're looking for
a good female villain, you have Captain FAsMA who menaces
Hollywood Studios in Disney World. Right now, Ray, you've got her.
Of course, she grows more powerful and takes on Kyler

(51:41):
Ren in a fight scene that felt never felt um
man versus woman, but instead powerful character versus powerful character.
UM And most of the heroic things done in this
movie are done by women, from the self sacrifice in
the very beginning to Ray lifting hell or Rocks with
her mind at the end, and um. By and large,

(52:01):
women hold the most powerful positions, ones that they earned.
Leia might have been born a princess, but she worked
a way up to the command rank. And I love.
A comparison I found between Holdo and Leiah Calm collected,
reasoned and two of the male characters, Kylo Wren and
General Hucks, who don't have one scene together where they
aren't fighting um. As the author suggested, it could be

(52:23):
because both are occupying a position neither earned, yet they
both feel deserve more. Yeah, yeah, I like that all.
I was like, oh yeah, um. And that's another funny
thing um about this is a couple of people mentioned
that Adam Driver plays Kyler Wren and he has a
shirtless scene in this movie and it's very surprising, like

(52:47):
you do not see it coming, or at least I did.
I'm like, oh my god, and he's ripped but there's
no It was like kind of like a usually women
are getting there was he was he chained to someone? No, no,
but it was a a girl can dream. No, I'm kidding.

(53:09):
I mean, there's still one more left bridget um. Oh
and when Ray turns down Kylo Read's offer to the
galaxy together, he becomes very angry and violent. And I
bet that sounds familiar to a lot of us, um
who have turned down a dude, Oh, a dude who
seems fine later revealing himself to be toxic and violent.

(53:32):
I don't say I've never heard of that before. So yeah,
the last Jedi was I. I should watch it again.
I should get over my hang up about it. What
we're doing our Star Wars movie night. Yeah, we are,
we are. It's gonna be so fun. I mean, it's
gonna be fun for me. I hope, I I hope
it'll be fun for you. I'm sure we'll be if

(53:55):
we're If we're looking at the future and there's a
long Star Wars future ahead of a. UM. If you
want to find some Star Wars happiness and signs of
why this whole thing matters? Why do we have a
whole episode about Star Wars, you can look up hashtag
star Wars rep matters UM. And I gotta say, like
I said, the research on all of this helps me

(54:16):
appreciate the importance of it even more. It's easy to
kind of just dismiss things as media, but you forget
when you're especially when you're a child that's seeing those things.
It's important and it does matter. UM. So I'm happy
that there moving they're moving forward, they're progressing well. I'm

(54:38):
happy they're progressing too. Because one of my favorite actors
flash musicians is going to be a young Lando Calorussian
Donald Lover, who I love. And I again, I'm happy
that this representation does not just count for women, that
it's also for race. It's it's nice to see folks
of all colors and genders represented. And when they announced

(54:58):
that Donald Glover was going to be in solo coming out,
I was super stoked. Yeah, I mean too, I was
so excited. Um, and uh it has to I am
assuming pretty lead type female roles both from HBO Amelia
Clark and Sandy Newton um and the last year I

(55:19):
get Rose was the first um Asian American lead in
Star Wars ever. Yeah, so definitely it's good to move forward,
um with representing all all people, all of us. Well.
The counter argument that I think is so funny about

(55:40):
that when people get bent out of shape of you know,
people of color being in these movies and they're like, oh,
well there weren't Asian women and black people and blah
blah blah. It's like a fantasy. And second of all,
it's like they have it is. Why is it that
you know your mind can expand to include like oh yeah,
they're aliens. There's robots, there's that, but Asian women. No, no,

(56:06):
my mind cannot on that. There's no space. And money wise,
the Star Wars sequels now with more ladies are they're
doing just fine. They're not going away. If we look
at data from box office Mojo from two thousand six
to um and if we look at the money made
by movies with a female lead versus a male lead

(56:27):
and nothing else like cutting out ensembles or robot alien
not human leads, the data shows that domestically in the US,
female lead movies made on average one point six million
dollars as compared to eighty point six million a year
um made by movies with male leads. So that's a

(56:49):
pretty that's a pretty sizeable profit margin chunk right there.
So these those are making money. Yeah, And um, I
forgot to mend in this fact at the top, but
I do want to bring it up. Is in the
first the original trilogy, there were four female roles in
all three of them, and Princess Lea is one. The

(57:11):
other three each had less than a minute of screen time.
Logistically it seems difficult to believe, but damn yeah. Yeah,
So now we have four women in lead roles in
the last Jedi. So I'm I'm that just goes to
show how far we've come. Yeah, I mean that is something.

(57:33):
It is so things are improving slowly but surely. And
here's hoping on this this Star Wars day that it continues. Um.
A good next step that I saw from a lot
of people would be a female director or one of color.
Are both, um and yes, oh I got so excited. Yes,
that would be a Star Wars first So I think

(57:55):
that would be great. Get getting more women or people
of color, all of the above in writing the writing
process to just yeah, it's a it should be an
inclusive universe because yeah, this guy's aliens and it's this
whole wide galaxy, galaxy, galaxy. I mean, it's a galaxy
far far away it is. But yet I think we can.

(58:17):
I think we can attain it here. That's beautiful, Annie,
Thank you. I gotta see these movies. We're gonna do
like the craziest movie night. It's gonna be ex I
literally can't wait. Awesome. Well, thank you for indulging me,
Bridget and listeners. Um, and have you may the fourth
if you've got Star Wars stories Oh. If you've done

(58:38):
any kind of Star Wars crafting, our art fan fiction,
please send them to us. You can find us on
Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, and Instagram stuff Mom Never
Told You, and our email is mom Stuff at how
stuff works dot com. May the Force be with you,
Annie and YouTube bridget two per