'Strong women', in Star Wars and otherwise

[owl]

I was browsing Livejournals at the weekend, and came across this post on maidenjedi's LJ.
Basically it asked for discussion on the female characters in Star Wars, and were they 'strong women'. In the comments, as well as poor opinions of the Prequel Trilogy and Lucas' film-making, there were comments such as:

What really got to me was that there was no need to introduce Beru like that. She's introduced as "my girlfriend Beru", has one line ("hello"), and she's, like, serving them blue milk! WTF?! She doesn't even live with these people!

I wonder if Beru's subjugation isn't part of Tatooine culture. It would have been interesting to see how Shmi Skywalker responded to and interacted with Clegg Lars.

Of course, the way Beru was introduced really fit with Owen's personality, which is/was domineering, short-sighted, and not a little xenophobic, IMHO. It doesn't excuse Beru's "little woman" portrayal, though.


So Beru is condemned on 30 seconds of screentime! Her character is ruined for ever because she, gasp, serves a drink to visitors who are probably tired and thirsty and are about to hear some very bad news The Larses have just been bereaved, remeber, and Cliegg lost his leg. It makes sense she'd be around to help out. Beru as far as we can tell is nurturing and feelings-orientated(F, in Myers-Briggs typology, maybe even NF). It makes perfect sense that she was the one who thought to get drinks, rather than the T Owen.
She's a frontier woman, she's married to a farmer. She's not some Stepford wife! I'm from a farming community myself, and whatever farmer's wives may be, they are not passive and spineless as a rule. Generally, as well as cooking, cleaning and child-rearing, they either hold down an outside job to supplement the farm income, or work as an unpaid farm worker (Not the very heaviest jobs, which physically a woman wouldn't be capable off, specially if she's childbearing, breast feeding or got a toddler in tow, but I have known farmer's wives keep the hens, drive tractors during silage-drawing, hand-rear lambs, feed calves, help with the milking, get up in the middle of the night during calving, as well as catering for vets, employees and contractors.) It's not an easy job, and it's just as important as the farmer's itself.

I have a great fondness for Owen and Beru. They are under-rated, maligned, ignored and ill-characterised by the fandom at large. We don't see much of them onscreen, but we do see their life's work, so to speak: Luke Skywalker. He is emotionally stable (consider what he goes through in the OT and still retains sanity and humanity), loving and compassionate to a fault, humble, unselfish, and is willing to sacrifice himself for his family. Tell me how someone could grow up like that without having been loved, and loved well.


Leia got off a little better, but:

Leia post-RotJ (and even, I think, to a great extent in RotJ) is pretty soft as well.

Leia very quickly loses her rough edges, becomes scarily domesticated by Ep VI. And for me the disconcerting thing - even as a kid - was that while she is Anakin's offspring as much as Luke is, she's never really brought into the whole destiny thing.

And watch as the entire point Leia's character arc in the OT is missed. She and Han were in ANH both cut off from love in differnet ways; Han by his selfishness, Leia by her idealism and single focus on the rebel cause. They grow together during the trilogy.

Padmé got off badly too, due to having the misfortune to fall in love with a future Sith Lord. The black corset affair was much debated, but as I don't have a baldy what Padmé was playing at by wearing it, I shall leave that issue alone.

As for the EU:

I haven't read any Star Wars books, but I've played a lot of the video games. Women in those seem to always be "fighters" of some type, fighting alongside your character or others. Jedi Knight has female Jedis fighting with you, which is pretty cool. Episode II showed that women are bounty hunters/assasins just like men.


Mara Jade was phenomenally strong is most of the books I'd read, and I remain a fan. Can't speak to her NJO incarnation, but I do think she was one of the best done female characters in the EU. She worked especially well due to her independence from *any* of the organizations.


Oh, spare us. I don't consider Mara Jade a strong woman at all. Emotionally, she's brittle. Perhaps that looks superficially like strong to some, including the attitude from hell. She has no 'feminine' characteritics whatsoever. Someone propsed the fact that Zahn was writing her as a male substitute, to allow him to have Luke in a slash relationship without having Lucasfilm kill him, and I have to say it makes sense. She's certainly the dominating partner in the LEUke/Mara marriage.
As for the 'fighters': Why can a woman only be considered 'strong' if she's exactly like the stereotype of a man? That's just as demeaning as keeping her barefoot in the kitchen. There is nothing wrong with being able to take care of yourself, it's positive, but why is it considered 'weak' to have stereotypically female characteristics like caring for one's family, having a nurturing personality, even being able to cook? I think that all human beings should have both 'masculine' and 'feminine' characteristics to some degree. The macho macho macho man and the giggling inept female are both incomplete charicatures of humanity. I find it odd that certain feminists, while despising men, attempt to make women into the image of a man.

*uses ironically appropriate 'nice men' icon*

Comments

You are GOD!

[affabletoaster.livejournal.com]

Allow me to profess undying (and totally heterosexual) love to you. *prostrates self at your feet* These are the three most often mis-analyzed women in the Star Wars saga. If only all fans were as smart as we two. Please tell me there are others.

Re: You are GOD!

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

It's not that Beru's lame, it's that Lucas made her lame. She doesn't actually get to do stern farm-related things, she gets to, yes, bring on the blue milk.

Re: You are GOD!

[owl]

Feeding is a vitally important part of farm life. ;)
Anywaay, you don't see Owen doing any work on the farm either, because the Larses are there, plotwise, to tell Anakin about Shmi.

Re: You are GOD!

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

Beru isn't though. Legless Lars is there to talk, Owen to be the step-brother. Beru has the milk.

Re: You are GOD!

[ravenclaw-devi.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe Beru is just shy around strangers? "Shy" doesn't automatically translate to "weak woman". Think of Tara Maclay (from the Buffy-verse) - she was very shy (she stuttered, for crying out loud!), but in terms "strength of heart", she was perhaps the strongest of the Scoobies.

Re: You are GOD!

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

Tara was a supro-powerful witch. Beru had milk.

Re: You are GOD!

[owl]

Well, in that case, Owen is even more passive than Beru, because he does nada beyond doing the introductions.

Re: You are GOD!

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

Fair enough then. I only focussed on Beru cos the original post was about women in SW.

Re: You are GOD!

[owl]

I'm sure there are others. Somewhere...

[ladylisse.livejournal.com]

The macho macho macho man and the giggling inept female are both incomplete charicatures of humanity. I find it odd that certain feminists, while despising men, attempt to make women into the image of a man.

This is interesting to me because I feel that I'm often guilty of it. I act stereotypically "male" a lot of the time, and as such my female characters are often like that too. I think that in a lot of circles there is a tendency to sneer at women who do fit into certain feminine roles, just like in other circles a woman doesn't belong outside the home. There's a balance in there, and since to a great extent I write what I know, I feel like I haven't really found that balance.

That being said, what the shit? Dude, who are these people? Star Wars was the first movie and first fandom I found where the women actually did stuff. Leia was my hero -- and frankly, with that temper I'm not surprised she wasn't the Jedi. And while I freely admit I have a ton of trouble getting into Beru's head, she's one of the strongest characters in the series, male or female. So is Owen. Luke would have been shit out of luck if he'd been raised by almost anyone else.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

Prequel Beru doesn't have any of that strength, because she isn't being allowed to do anything. And Leia does go domestic as the OT trundles on. She doesn't have to be "male", she just has to be herself. And she gets side-lined into being a love interest. No one cares that she too is the spawn of evil and presumably has, like, the Force. Padme comes off better simply because the prequels were written at a later date.

Leia's funky in that first film, but by RotJ she's a lot less kick-ass. It's not so much a "character arc" as Lucas not knowing what to do with her.

[owl]

Leia goes 'domestic'? When? Did I miss more SW?
You might as well say that Han gets sidelined into being Leia's love interest. He softens more than Leia does.
She's still perfectly able to look after herself in RotJ. She goes into Jabba's to rescue Han, strangles Jabba with her chain (while wearing the bikini which wasn't designed for comfort, to say the least). Then, in the Endor sequence, she does that speeder chase (covering Han's mistake, btw), and takes out a couple of troopers despite being knocked out. At the bunker she fights along with the men, and saves Han's life as well as her own (or at least saves them from capture) by shooting those two stormtroopers at the bunker. (She's the best shot in the OT, anyway. She only misses once, and even then she gets it on the next shot).
She's less mouthy, certainly, but even in ANH she's sweet to Luke. She's still qintessentially Leia just as much as when she's yelling 'I am not a committee!' or blasting Imperials.

As for the Force and destiny business, the out-of-universe explanation is that she wasn't the spawn of evil until Lucas was writing the RotJ script. In universe...it's possible that Obi-Wan at least didn't know about her. Who knows what Padmé has up her fancy sleeve in Ep III? And, personality-wise, she's more like Anakin than Luke turns out to be. She's easily angered, and doesn't forgive easily. Can you say Dark side?

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

Feh.

[owl]

I agree with you (Lisse), on all points. Considering that Leia was first filmed in 1976 she's a phenomenally kick-butt heroine.

[cadesama.livejournal.com]

You make a lot of valid points about dismissing woman as strong for showing nurturing, stereotypically "feminine" characteristic. I'm right there with you on Padmé and while I don't think Beru is terribly interesting in AotC (see her novelization comments about never leaving Tatooine), I think calling her a weak character is an inaccurate generalization. We frankly don't know enough about her, and meek seeming girl turning into no-nonsense Aunt seems as reliable an interpretation as any. Characters don't have to *start* strong, since sometimes that's what the journey is about. Not that Beru has one.

On the other hand, as far as Mara goes I consider her a wildly damaged woman in the original Zahn trilogy who eventually gets over her issues. Is she not particularly nurturing? Yeah. Is she domineering (not that I consider that unfeminine)? Yeah. Does that make her not feminine? Meh. I don't really know and I don't really care. Why? Because she doesn't exist in a vacuum. Within the Zahn books there are also Leia, Mon Mothma, and Winter (as well as that smuggler whose name I forget) - who are show differing forms of strength.

So perhaps you see Mara as unfeminine. If that were the only model of "female" strength given out by Zahn I would probably be offended by her, too. However, she isn't. She's not a female herione. She's just a character, and her characterization - given what she has been through - makes sense to me. She copes with a lot of trauma, a lot of darkness, and comes through an ally. That makes her strong in my book. We already established that she's a woman (on account of the pronouns ;)). Boom. Strong woman.

[owl]

I don't think you can say Beru is weak just because she says nothing. All that means is she's introverted, or else shy. Flapping your mouth off doesn't make you 'strong', and sometimes it's wiser to keep your ears open and hold your tongue. As for the AotC novelisation, I think it's the worst one of the five there have been so far. i don't even own it.
Besides, 'meek' is not synonymous with 'weak'. Jesus Christ was meek, and no one could accuse him of being weak-willed.

[ravenclaw-devi.livejournal.com]

As for the 'fighters': Why can a woman only be considered 'strong' if she's exactly like the stereotype of a man? That's just as demeaning as keeping her barefoot in the kitchen. There is nothing wrong with being able to take care of yourself, it's positive, but why is it considered 'weak' to have stereotypically female characteristics like caring for one's family, having a nurturing personality, even being able to cook? I think that all human beings should have both 'masculine' and 'feminine' characteristics to some degree. The macho macho macho man and the giggling inept female are both incomplete charicatures of humanity. I find it odd that certain feminists, while despising men, attempt to make women into the image of a man.

Good points, Cat. That's basically what I'm thinking. Not being able to cook is also a weakness, after all. ;-)

Cadence also has good points:

On the other hand, as far as Mara goes I consider her a wildly damaged woman in the original Zahn trilogy who eventually gets over her issues. Is she not particularly nurturing? Yeah. Is she domineering (not that I consider that unfeminine)? Yeah. Does that make her not feminine? Meh. I don't really know and I don't really care. Why? Because she doesn't exist in a vacuum. Within the Zahn books there are also Leia, Mon Mothma, and Winter (as well as that smuggler whose name I forget) - who are show differing forms of strength.

So perhaps you see Mara as unfeminine. If that were the only model of "female" strength given out by Zahn I would probably be offended by her, too. However, she isn't. She's not a female herione. She's just a character, and her characterization - given what she has been through - makes sense to me. She copes with a lot of trauma, a lot of darkness, and comes through an ally. That makes her strong in my book. We already established that she's a woman (on account of the pronouns ;)). Boom. Strong woman.

Yeah. The way I see it, there's many shades of 'feminine'. There's women who are very sweet and gentle and maternal, there's tough-a** women who are as emotionally closed-up as one would normally only expect of males (Mara would fall into that category), there's all kinds of shades in between. Now who has the right to tell any of these women that she's not a "real" female? IMHO, no one. If you have ovaries, you're a woman (unless you're transgendered, but that's another subject altogether). Feel free to disagree, but I don't see 'femininity' as something you have to work for or 'earn' through a certain kind of behavior. (At this point, I could insert a rant about how society makes women believe that they do have to 'work for' their femininity, in order to elicit a certain behavior and/or sell products (such as pretty clothes, cosmetics, kitchen appliances for the 'good housewife' - you name it), but this post is getting long enough as it is. ;-) )

pt. 2 of my comment (had to split it for length)

[ravenclaw-devi.livejournal.com]

So, is Mara 'unfeminine'? No more than Luke (who, like you said, is gentle, caring, etc.) is 'unmanly', IMHO. Does having the 'attitude from hell' equal 'having no feminine characteristics whatsoever'? Not in my opinion. After all, women can be bossy, too. Like I said above, there's a whole huge spectrum of qualities that can be found in women (we're no less multifaceted creatures than men are.) And if qualities can be found in women, doesn't that make them 'feminine' qualities at least by some definition of the word? Like for instance, Hermione Granger is bossy (not saying that she has the same personality as Mara) - does that make her 'unfeminine'?

The way I see (Zahn's) Mara, she's a person who has this part inside of her that is very brittle (as you correctly observed), very vulnerable, and scared. And she does everything to hide this vulnerable part behind a super-tough, emotionally closed front, the way (some) men do - from this angle, I can understand why she's getting called 'unfeminine'. But it's not that she's rejecting her femininity as such, or rebelling against the female role. It's that she's very, very uncomfortable with (showing any) vulnerability. She's a person who had to learn to survive the hard way, and the attitude she developed through the course of that is, "you can't be weak, you can't be vulnerable, or you'll be dead."

Life has made her very tough-a** and unsentimental, because (at least the way she saw it) there was no place for sentimentality in the world she lived in. Has any of you seen the movie "28 Days Later"? The black woman in that movie (I forgot the name) reminded me of Mara a lot (in some ways). There's this part where she gives the main protagonist this speech about how if someone is infected with this zombie-virus, you have to kill him without hesitation, even if it's your mother or your father or your best friend, because it's the only way to survive. That's basically how Mara (used to?) see the world - you can't be sentimental if you want to survive. Even her 'bossiness' could be seen as wanting to take charge to make sure that the group survives.

Of course, her having been an assassin would also have contributed to her being very unsentimental (and very screwed up emotionally). If you kill people as a routine part of your profession, you have to dehumanize them in your mind, or else you couldn't do what you're doing.

Now, the big mistake (IMHO) that (many of) the NJO authors made was to write about Mara as if the abovementioned super-tough shell was the whole of her personality. They reduced what was originally (in Zahn's hands) a multi-layered character to one single aspect (namely, "she's tough, she's bitchy, she kicks butt"), and thus made her into a badly-written 2D character.

In Zahn's writing, however, you can see this vulnerable aspect of her. I know how many of you hate that she cried over her ship in VOTF, so I apologize for bringing it up, but that passage is a good example. She'd just sacrificed the ship that was her means of livelyhood (a smuggler needs a ship), her home, her security, and she was crying because she was scared to death about that situation. And then Luke wrapped his arm around her and she let him. That was a big, big step towards a 'feminine' (in the classic sense) Mara - her being able to allow herself to cry in someone's arms, to allow for that much vulnerability. (The problem is, the NJO authors didn't continue to develop her from there, they pretty much went back to (a 2D version) of TTT Mara. Ah well.)

Re: pt. 2 of my comment (had to split it for length)

[owl]

Humph. I think Zahn himself messed Mara up somewhat in VotF by using her as his 'what is wrong with the EU' mouthpiece.
As for the ship, well. If we had seen her cry over a person, as well, it might not have annoyed all the Mara-haters so much. And Luke doesn't say it was her security, he says it was her freedom. I agree that you can have that interpretation, but it's not the most obvious. Forgive me for being stubbornly literal. :)

[leeflower.livejournal.com]

HFS, you ROCK.

Why can a woman only be considered 'strong' if she's exactly like the stereotype of a man?

I got into a long discussion about this with someone at Balticon, and the idea of a female who's strength came from a different place than masculinity is what prompted my biggest SW project (never to see the light of day for lack of decent writing and speedy betas).

Writing a paper on this very subject for my english class. Star Wars is actually one of my examples.

...and I agree with you wholeheartedly on Mara Jade. the fact that she acts like a man doesn't make her strong. She annoys my pants off. What a freakin' Mary-Sue.

And think about it: during the OT, who's one of the most influencial people in the galaxy? Mon Mothma. Mon Mothma, with her long white dress, graceful way of doing just about everything (I believe the woman could even FART gracefully), and soft, high suprano, who never issues one sarcastic wisecrack or so much as touches a weapon. Ok, well, I was going somewhere with that...

And look at Padme in ep I. What's our very first impression of her? "I will not condone a course of action that will lead us to war."
And I'm sorry, I don't care how manly you are, you'de be nurturing and motherly if surrounded by a bunch of walking teddy bears. It's an evolutionary response. Besides, think about it: You're on a space station with two of the most powerful men in the regime you're trying to overthrow, while they've got a superweapon trained on your home planet, and you're probably about to die. Are YOU going to be brave enough to accuse one of them of smelling foul?

...mind if I cite you as a source for my paper?

[owl]

I would be Flattered :-D

[maidenjedi]

I'm leaving Beru alone, because I don't think she was as much a force in Luke's life as Owen was. Owen clearly dominates in that household; what that says about Beru is up for debate. Consider that Lucas' women (including Mara Jade) are all pretty badass until they hook up with a guy, and there's a point for discussion.

Now, Mara Jade. First of all, there is no reason, in the original Zahn incarnation, for her to be the least bit "feminine". She survived the *Emperor*, which is more than most everyone (including Anakin) can say. But beyond that, consider her upbringing and her situation. She's a Force-sensitive who doesn't have Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda looking after her, but a Sith Lord with a galaxy at his command. A Sith Lord who hoodwinked the vaunted Jedi Council before revealing himself and killing the Jedi off. That's power, and it's scary power. Mara Jade was brought up and trained with one agenda: to take out Luke Skywalker. She has no reason to have any feminine affectations.

I take real objection to the idea that a woman who cooks is not a "strong" or "real" woman. But in a fictional universe that promotes multiculturism and is constantly reminding us where prejudice gets us, equality between the sexes seems imperative. The only excuse for Beru's docile, subjective nature is basic cultural anthropology (she has no authority in Luke's life, that's very clear, so while I'm sure she was quite loving and very much the farmer's wife, I wonder what kind of husband Luke might have made had he never gone chasing after Leia). Beru is only one example of the women in the Star Wars universe; you point out in detail that she's a farmer's wife, she lives on a frontier, and therefore she's going to be a very different type of woman than Padme and Leia (brought up with the idea that women can and should be instrumental in governing and decision-making) or Mara Jade (brought up without female influence, under a violent and demanding father-figure).

[leeflower.livejournal.com]

Hm...
I don't interpret Beru that way. I think she knows that living with Owen, yelling isn't going to get her anywhere. Patience is her virtue. She can be very strong and wise (remember that she's more in tune with Luke?) without being loud and agressive.

[owl]

I agree with you, Roo. She and Owen do talk about Luke in ANH. He doesn't yell, 'I am the authority!' or anything like that. I get the vibe of 'not fighting in front of the child(ren)' Especially when said child is the subject under discussion.

[ravenclaw-devi.livejournal.com]

Good point. I think Beru is a strong person, but she has what I'd call "gentle strength". And Luke also has gentle strength, which (I think) shows that Beru was a very important influence in his life.

So to get back to a point made in Cat's original post, I don't think that Mara is necessarily the dominating partner in her marriage with Luke. I think they're equal partners; it's just that Mara is more of an ostensibly putting her foot down "don't mess with me" kind of person, and Luke has more of a gentle strength. Normally, you'd associate "putting your foot down" with the male (husband), and gentle strength with the wife (female); which I think is why some people see the L/M relationship as "she's a castrating bitch who wears the pants and has him under her thumb", or (to use the comparison that Cat brought up) as the equivalent of a slash relationship where Mara is the seme, and Luke is the uke.

But I don't think that's the case, or at least it's not all there is to their relationship. Having 'gentle strength' doesn't mean that a men is "castrated" or unmanly (IMHO), it just means that he's a man who happens to be gentle, or in other words, has a quality, a 'flavor' of strength, that's normally associated with the feminine. But it's strength nevertheless.

Who's the more gentle in a relationship, and who's the more aggressive, isn't the be-all and end-all of the actual power balance. Think of Kunti in the Mahabharata - she was a gentle person who never once tried to "wear the pants", never once tried to leave the female role as defined by the culture she lived in, but her sons (who were heavy-duty warriors, mind you) listened to her. And I guarantee you, no matter how assertive Mara may be on the outside, if there's one person she listens to, it's Luke. If there's one person who can make her do something, it's him. It's just that he doesn't do it by means of "because I'm the husband and I say so!" But that doesn't mean he doesn't have a lot of power, a lot of influence, in her life. I mean, Mara started off as a fanatic Imperial, and now she's a Jedi (or trying to be, anyhow - whether she's worthy of being a Jedi (Master) is a can of worms that I refuse of open in this context). That's a big change to make. And why did she make such big changes? Right, because Luke came into her life. He made her change much more than she made him change (he was a Jedi when he met her, and now he's still a Jedi). So who of them really had/has more power in the other's life?

And then, there's that little DW quote about her calling him "master" sometimes (not him calling her "mistress", mind you) ... ;-)

[owl]

I don't think that Beru is as dominated as all that. She does take Luke's part to Owen (I get the impression that they've been over this ground again and again, that it's something of a stalemate: Owen wants to keep Luke safe at all costs, Beru, while loving him just as much, wants him to have what will make him happy. So they just continue with the status quo)

As for Mara: she was fine till Zahn decided to match her with Luke, which for some reason involved retconning her original dark past, and thus making her less interesting. I don't think she's suited to Luke anyway; they have both had traumatic pasts and are damaged in some way, and the way the NJO is written she has him on a string. Mara would be better off married to someone who would fight back, ala Han and Leia. Luke's too gentle to do that, and ends up written as Jedi doormat. Poor Luke...

[maidenjedi]

Re: Beru. Good point. I usually see Beru's defense of Luke as more of exactly what the indulgent mother-figure would say and do in her situation, and while I still think that Owen is more apt to *tell* Beru what to do instead of *ask* her to do it (this is more of a cultural observation/extrapolation about Tattooine than a real character analysis, I think), the idea that Luke's future is more of a debated issue than a decided one is interesting.

Re: Mara. See, if Zahn had never hinted at or drawn Luke and Mara together, the fanfiction people would have. That always seems to be rule; the more angst-driven and unlikely the pairing, the more popular in fanfiction. Now, I don't know if that holds true in SW fandom, but in the other fandoms I'm involved in all seem to have a similar trend inherent in some corner. Zahn just beat the fanfiction writers to their own game, maybe. I don't see Mara as any less interesting in light of her relationship with Luke - one could successfully argue that Leia is less interesting once she and Han are established (post-Jabba's palace). I do think that it was important for Luke to be put into a relationship to get an idea of how romantic love and Jedi philosophy actually coexist, at least in light of the revelation that pre-Empire Jedi are not allowed to love (in that sense). Eh. To each his own.

[leeflower.livejournal.com]

I definetly agree with you about angsty fanfiction pairings (do, however, take that with an adamantly anti harry/draco grain of salt). But I don't necessarily agree that just because there are 'shippers for it, it should be cannon.

My dislike of Mara actually doesn't have anything to do with her lack of feminine qualities. I just don't like her. I think she's a mary-sue. Tragic past, ends up married to the leading man, gorgeous with bright red hair, disrespects authority figures at every turn without reprocussions?
But I stray from my point. My point is that I don't really have too much of an opinion concerning whether she's a strong woman. I definetely think her life lacks balance, but whether or not that makes her weak is still in the air.