Via nytimes.com:
The premiere of “Rogue One,” the first stand-alone “Star Wars” film, is six weeks away, and fans have gathered online to speculate about what treasures the film will hold. What’s the deal with the set photo of a shaggy alien that looks a little like a robo-sasquatch? What are the chances that all the rebel heroes will survive to the end? Is Darth Vader going to murder any of them personally? Oh, and how is this movie going to treat women?
“Rogue One” stars Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso, the newest bold “Star Wars” brunette, and the conventional wisdom is that her very existence confirms the franchise’s recently enlightened embrace of strong female characters. But a vocal group of die-hard female “Star Wars” fans is asking for more. Online, they form a rich community of women who come together to bond over their “Star Wars” obsession, cast a critical eye on the role of women in the films and embrace minor characters overlooked by the fandom at large. In doing so, they’ve created for themselves what the films still don’t quite deliver — a “Star Wars” universe that revolves around women.
In “Rogue One,” Jyn will lead an all-male crew of rebels. In trailers and teasers, the emotional heart of the film appears to be Jyn and her father, and her central conflict lies with a crew of male villains (among them: Darth Vader). Rey, the scrappy heroine in last year’s “The Force Awakens,” and Leia, the tough princess of the original trilogy, were also surrounded by men. So on “Scavenger’s Hoard,” a new “Star Wars” podcast hosted by two female fans, Rachael — who goes only by her first name online — noted that the films have created “these entire worlds populated almost exclusively by men,” so even when a female protagonist is added to the mix, there remains an “absence of any meaningful relationships between women.”
On Twitter, Johnamarie Macias, the proprietor of the popular “Star Wars” site “The Wookiee Gunner,” lamented that the franchise remained stuck on its daddy issues instead of exploring a mother-daughter dynamic. “Super happy that Jyn is the lead,” she wrote, but added: “Why does the father have to be the scientist? GAH!” And on the podcast “Fangirls Going Rogue,” the three hosts discussed the role of Jyn’s mother with guarded enthusiasm. “Mothers tend to get erased, or they’re there to die,” the co-host Tricia Barr said. “Hopefully we’re not continuing that trend.”
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