Show Me a Hero
Star Wars: The Force Awakens opened to eagerly awaiting fans last December, and in the process audiences were introduced to Daisy Ridley’s character Rey. From the first time I saw the film I couldn’t help but feeling struck by how different a type of hero Rey was from what I’d come to expect from female characters in Star Wars.
Despite the fact Rey is everything one could want or expect out of a female protagonist, since the movie’s release, she’s faced criticism by many in the blogosphere as being wish-fulfillment character, also known as a Mary Sue.
The critique against Rey centers on the //questionable notion// that she doesn’t face enough challenges to allow her to be a believably powerful female character. She’s too good to be true and so audiences (see: men) aren’t able to take her seriously as a hero. When viewers like this bring these kind of antiquated expectations of what heroism looks like into a movie of this magnitude, they devalue the work J.J Abrams has done for aspiring heroes regardless of their gender.
When throwing rocks at Rey’s character, viewers of this ilk point to 2 problems with her characterization.
1) She’s too powerful at the outset of the movie
2) She doesn’t earn how powerful she becomes by the end of the film
In the first example, these critics believe that under no reasonable circumstances should a character (essentially a level 1 protagonist) have the amount of power Rey has at the start of movie. People in the second camp might be willing to believe that she has the skills she’s written with from the get-go, but don’t feel that where she ends up at the end of the movie is earned– specifically being able to defeating Kylo Ren wield the power of the force untrained. Regardless of what camp these critics fall in, they are both woefully wrong.
The simple truth is that if you don’t like Rey’s character in The Force Awakens I can really only come to two conclusions about you.
1) You don’t like Star Wars
2) You don’t like women.
Let’s dig in.
Per my first statement, that people who don’t like Rey simply don’t like Star Wars, let’s start of by comparing her to Luke and Anakin Skywalker, the other protagonists of the Star Wars saga. In many ways the people who think she’s too powerful ignore how “powerful” Anakin and Luke were, when we are initially introduced to them.
Luke transforms from a farmboy who’s only interest is shooting womp rats and hanging out at some place called Toshi Station to jumping in an X-Wing Star Fighter on his first try (we have no reason to believe that Luke has ever left Tatooine’s atmosphere and thusly wouldn’t know how to deal with the physics of space) and shooting a proton torpedo into the heart of the Death Star and killing everyone inside. This is a feat beyond ANYTHING Rey gets up to in The Force Awakens.
When we meet Anakin in Episode I, Qui-Gon Jin remarks as to how powerful the boy is in the force. He then proceeds to use telekinesis untrained to fix his podracer, that he built himself, while in the process of piloting it through a deadly racetrack. He also goes on to destroy the Trade Federation Droid control ship by, essentially on intuition alone (and a conveniently placed child-sized helmet in the cockpit.) Keep in mind that this is a 9 year old slave child with no formal education (remind you of anyone?).
Having seemingly spent a lot of time developing her character, J.J and Lawrence Kasdan do a commendable job coming up with plausible ways for Rey to be able to do what she can. She’s been a scavenger her entire life which means she has intimate knowledge of how machines and starships work. She mentions that she’s worked extensively inside the Millennium Falcon with Unkar Plott (which is why she’s able to fly it) and most importantly, Rey is characterized as having an autotelic personality, able to teach herself skills on her own; without a teacher.
But more importantly if you aren’t ready to accept a savvy, scrappy orphan protagonist who against all odd prevails in the face of evil, YOU DON’T LIKE STAR WARS. There certainly is an element of realism that is to be expected of protagonists in movies, I’ll grant that. But Star Wars is fantasy, and by definition the suspension of disbelief has to be much higher. When people ask what essentially amount to Star Trek style questions about Star Wars, regarding character’s knowledge and motivations, they are complete miss the point of what makes Star Wars great in the first place. Keep in mind that it isn’t required that all viewers like Star Wars. Many people I respect don’t care for fantasy for this very reason, and I respect their views on the matter. MY issue comes from nerds, who in their pursuit of “protecting” the Star Wars canon from the effects of the evil Disney empire, are willfully ignorant to the things that make Star Wars what it is.
But lets say that you are one of those people who DON’T hate Star Wars, but STILL don’t buy Rey as a plausible protagonist. Well unfortunately, that means you may have an implicit bias against female protagonists. Let me make myself a little more clear on the subject. I repeat, if you are on board with mediocre Luke Skywalker accomplishing what he’s able to do, as well as admittedly talented more talented but decidedly less educated 9 year old Anakin Skywalker, but aren’t down with Rey you are a straight up old school “think women should all be receptionists and waitresses” brand sexist. FULL STOP.
This irritates me to my core because people are so quick to judge female unfairly in comparison to their male counterparts (much like what happens to women in real life). I’ve been a die-hard Star Wars fan my entire life and I’ve always been bummed that I haven’t been able to share this love with many of my female friends. This is because Star Wars has historically been absolute garbage when it comes gender diversity. From the look of this movie, J.J and Kathleen Kennedy put on the top of their list to rectify this issue. By my last count it looks as though since the events of Return of Jedi, the Rebel Alliance have looted Lando Calrissian’s and Princess Leia’s rolodex and gotten their diversity scores way way up. The First Order seems to have also followed suit on this front.
But getting back to Rey, my intuition is that many die-hard male nerds who have issues with Rey’s character are reverting to their antiquated “gatekeeper” mentality. Nerd folk are extremely covetous of their fandoms and are deeply distrustful of interlopers getting their fingers on their “territory”. By having Rey front and center in this movie these nerds feel betrayed and feel as though Disney is capitalizing on PC culture by targeting women.
To these people I say, jump in a lake and join us all in the 21st century.
Something truly amazing is going on in the Force Awakens outside of just having an incidental female protagonist. J.J is challenging the way that speculative fiction movies deal with character development. Whereas many people (who believe Rey hasn’t earned her abilities) want a more traditional version of the Hero’s Journey [wherein the hero takes his fathers sword, escapes to the woods, trains with the old master and returns to his former world stronger and more powerful than before.] J.J offers a more subtle complex and, ultimately more satisfying form of character progression.
Rey’s character development isn’t centered on the acquisition of abilities (even though this does happen) but deals with the question of belonging. Rey is easily the most reluctant hero we’ve seen in the Star Wars saga. While both Anakin and Luke refuse the call to adventure initially (Anakin doesn’t want to leave his mother, and Luke is reluctant to leave his aunt and uncle) Rey keeps attempting to go back to Jakku all the way until the very end of the movie. She doesn’t truly accept her destiny until essentially the last 5 minutes of the film. In Star Wars terms this would be the equivalent of A New Hope ending with Luke deciding finally to go off with Obi-Wan Kenobi and learn the ways of the force: roll credits.
By altering Rey’s desire away from the traditionally masculine pursuit of more power and skills, and keeping her as a reluctant hero throughout the entire movie, the audience gets a chance to really identify with her struggle and get to see another form of heroism.
It would be easy to say that J.J Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan pulled this manner of storytelling out of thin air, but this model has already been at play in the [limited] number of successful female protagonists in cinema.
Hermione Granger, from the beginning of the Harry Potter series is a capable witch, characterized from the get-go as the smartest girl in school. having already developed her abilities to the max (as far as we know) the only way she has left to grow is in bravery and in her own pursuit of belonging. She eventually chooses follow choose her destiny in the face of her typically persnickety nature to do what she believes to be right and to support her friends. Hermione never gets a training montage to show that she is a bad-ass — its just a part of her character.
Katniss Everdeen is a capable archer from the beginning of the series and thought she does eventually undergo a sort of training by Haymitch to become a well rounded contender in the Hunger Games, but no one has any problem with her having these abilities from the start because she needed them to survive.
What would these people have to say about Imperator Furiosa’s character in Mad Max, a movie that spends little time on it’s heroine’s backstory and more on the choices she is forced to make? At the heart of it heroism isn’t about what skills characters develop, but by the choices characters choose to make. Katniss chooses to protect her family, Hermione chooses to support her friends and protect those who cannot protect themselves, and Rey searches for belonging.
If we as a society have come to the conclusion that we need more women protagonists in sci-fi/fantasy movies, what does it say about us when we get exactly what we ask for and complain about it? When are we going to learn not to be entitled to certain outcomes and allow filmmakers to make the big and bold decisions they need to to envision a better world? J.J Abrams and co. (praise be to them) have given us a new template for female heroism in the form of Rey and we all need to get on board, or the train will leave us behind at the station.